1955 in science
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1955 in science |
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Extraterrestrial environment |
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The year 1955 in science and technology included many events, some of which are listed below.
Astronomy and space sciences
- January 8 – Penumbral lunar eclipse.
- June
- Fred Hoyle and Martin Schwarzschild describe the mechanism for the creation of red giant stars.[1][2]
- The first evidence for existence of a magnetosphere of Jupiter, a record of decametric radio emission (DAM) with a spectrum extending up to 40 MHz, is published.[3]
- June 5 – Penumbral lunar eclipse.
- June 20 – Total solar eclipse of 7 min 8 sec duration, the longest between the 11th and 22nd centuries, visible in Southeast Asia. During the entire Second Millennium, only seven such eclipses exceed seven minutes of totality.
- August – The United States Department of Defense approves Project Vanguard to launch a satellite.[4]
- November 29 – Partial lunar eclipse.
- December 14 – Annular solar eclipse.
- Jan Oort confirms that polarized light from the Crab Nebula is produced by synchrotron radiation.[5]
Biochemistry
- February 26 – Rosalind Franklin publishes her observation that tobacco mosaic virus rods are all of identical length.[6]
- December 22 –
- Edmond H. Fischer and Edwin G. Krebs discover reversible protein phosphorylation.[5]
- Heinz Fraenkel-Conrat shows that a virus consists of an infective RNA core and a non-infective protein coat; and with Robley C. Williams assembles a functional tobacco mosaic virus from purified versions of these components.[5]
- Avian influenza is confirmed to be caused by Influenza A virus.[9][10]
- Severo Ochoa develops enzymes that cause nucleic acid bases to form RNA.[5]
- mitochondria from cells.[5]
Chemistry
- January 11 – Lloyd Conover is granted a patent for tetracycline in the United States.[11]
- February 19 – synthesized by Albert Ghiorso, Glenn T. Seaborg, Gregory R. Choppin, Bernard G. Harvey, and Stanley G. Thompson (team leader) at the University of California, Berkeley.[12]
- August 20 – Dorothy Hodgkin and colleagues publish the structure of vitamin B12.[13]
- Diquat's properties as a contact herbicide are recognized at the Imperial Chemical Industries laboratories at Jealott's Hill in England.[14]
- Renewable ion-exchange resin cartridges for water softening and purification are used in a device by Walter F. Lorch.[5]
Climatology
- August 9 – Gilbert Plass submits his seminal article "The Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climate Change".[15]
Computer science
- October 2 (11:45 p.m.) – The ENIAC computer is deactivated at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, having been in continuous operation since 1947.[16]
- Former
- microprogramming in Electrical Engineering.[citation needed]
- RAND publishes A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates.
Earth sciences
- age of the Earth using lead isotopic data from the Canyon Diablo meteorite – 4.55 billion years (± 70 million).[19][20]
History of science and technology
- October – The term "Industrial archaeology" is popularised.[21]
Mathematics
- July – Statistician David Cox publishes the Cox process.[22]
- In the classification of finite simple groups, the Brauer–Fowler theorem is published[23] and Claude Chevalley introduces Chevalley groups.[24]
- Gilbert–Shannon–Reeds model for probability distribution of riffle shuffle permutations in shuffling playing cards reported.[25]
- .
- Klaus Roth publishes Roth's theorem on the Diophantine approximation of algebraic numbers.[27]
- The Taniyama–Shimura conjecture is first stated by Yutaka Taniyama at an international symposium in Japan.[28]
Physics
- February – Harold Hopkins and Narinder Singh Kapany publish a key paper in the development of optical fiber technology.[29]
- March – hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll is greater than officially stated.[30]
- October – Lincoln Laboratory begins operation on Jug Handle Hill at West Bath, Maine.[31]
- October 11 – Erwin Müller and Kanwar Bahadur are the first people to observe individual atoms, using Müller's field ion microscope.[32][33]
- November 29 – The nuclear reactor core of Experimental Breeder Reactor I near Arco, Idaho, suffers a partial meltdown during a coolant flow test.[34]
- Emmett Leith's work on synthetic-aperture radar leads to the development of holography.[5]
- Existence of the antiproton is experimentally confirmed by University of California, Berkeley, physicists Emilio Segrè and Owen Chamberlain.
- Enrico Fermi, John Pasta, Stanisław Ulam and Mary Tsingou numerically study a nonlinear spring model of heat conduction and discover solitary wave type behavior.
- Murray Gell-Mann and Abraham Pais investigate neutral kaon mixing.[5]
- Luis Walter Alvarez develops the design of a liquid hydrogen bubble chamber.[35]
- University of Liverpool cyclotron[36] and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory synchrotron begin operation.
Physiology and medicine
- April 12 – The Food and Drug Administration.[37]
- December 24 – Henry K. Beecher publishes a paper indicating the powerful effect of placebos on patient outcomes.[38]
- Outbreak of "Royal Free disease" or "benign myalgic encephalomyelitis", strongly resembling what will later be known as
- G. I. M. Swyer first describes XY gonadal dysgenesis.[40]
- First reported mitral valve replacement, by Judson Chesterman of Sheffield (England).[41]
Technology
- January 5 – cable-stayed bridge of the modern era.[42]
- July 17 – The first atomic-generated electrical power is sold commercially, partially powering National Reactor Testing Station; on July 18, Schenectady, New York, receives power from a prototype nuclear submarine reactor at Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory.[5]
- August 24 – The first accurate caesium-133 atom, is built by Louis Essen with J. V. L. Parry at the National Physical Laboratory (United Kingdom).[20][43]
- December 12 – Christopher Cockerell is granted a United Kingdom patent for his design of hovercraft.
- electrical engineer George de Mestral is granted a patent for the Velcro fabric hook-and-loop fastener.[44]
- Tappan introduce the first domestic microwave oven, in the United States.[5]
- American electrical engineer Eugene Polley invents the Zenith Flash-Matic, the first wireless television remote control.[45][46]
Zoology
- French zoologist pseudoscientific field of cryptozoology.
Events
- July 9 – Russell–Einstein Manifesto issued in London by Bertrand Russell with the signatures of the late Albert Einstein, Max Born and other prominent scientists drawing the attention of world political leaders to the dangers posed by nuclear weapons.
Publications
- Eugene Garfield proposes the concept of citation indexing for scientific literature.[47]
Awards
- Nobel Prizes
- Willis Eugene Lamb, Polykarp Kusch
- Chemistry – Vincent du Vigneaud
- Axel Hugo Theodor Theorell
- Copley Medal (Royal Society of London) – Ronald Fisher
- Wollaston Medal (Geological Society of London) – A. E. Trueman
Births
- January 1 – Simon Schaffer, English historian of science.
- January 6 – Susan B. Horwitz (died 2014), American computer scientist and academic.
- January 17 – Katalin Karikó, Hungarian-born biochemist, winner of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.[48]
- January 24 – scientific objectivity.
- February 3 – nuclear scientist.
- February 24 – Steve Jobs (died 2011), American computing entrepreneur.
- April 11 – Piers Sellers (died 2016), English-born astronaut and climate scientist.
- April 20 – Svante Pääbo, Swedish evolutionary geneticist, winner of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
- April 30 – Francis Muguet (died 2009), French chemist and advocate of open access to information.
- May 30 – Jacqueline McGlade, British-born marine biologist and pioneer of environmental informatics.
- June 8 – Tim Berners-Lee, English creator of the World Wide Web.[49]
- June 11 – space scientist.
- October 2 – physiologist.
- October 28 – Bill Gates, American software designer and entrepreneur.
- November 4 – David Julius, American physiologist, winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
- December 22 – Thomas C. Südhof, German-born biochemist, winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
- Luis Álvarez-Gaumé, Spanish theoretical physicist.
Deaths
- February 2 – Oswald Avery (born 1877), Canadian-American bacteriologist.
- March 11 – Sir Alexander Fleming (born 1881), British bacteriologist, winner of the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
- March 15 – Michele Besso (born 1873), Swiss engineer, confidant of Einstein.
- April 10 – philosopher.
- April 17 – anatomist.
- April 18 – Albert Einstein (born 1879), German-born theoretical physicist, winner of the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics.
- June 12 – botanist.
- July 21 – J. B. Christopherson (born 1868), English physician.
- August 11 – Robert W. Wood (born 1868), American optical physicist.
- August 12 – James B. Sumner (born 1887), American winner of the 1946 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
- November 25 – Sir ecologist.
- December 13 – neurologist, winner of the 1949 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
References
- doi:10.1086/190015.
- Bibcode:1999ApJ...525C.639B.
- .
- ^ "Stand By Satellite For Take OffP". Popular Mechanics. Hearst Magazines. July 1957. pp. 65–69, 216.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j "1955". Houghton Mifflin Guide to Science & Technology.
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- PMID 345813.
- S2CID 12237105. Retrieved 2011-08-18.
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- PMID 31056053.
- ISBN 9781630871802– via Google Books.
- .
- S2CID 4220926.
- ISBN 0901747017.
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- ^ Weik, Martin H. (1961). "The ENIAC Story". Ftp.arl.mil. Archived from the original on 2011-08-14. Retrieved 2011-08-18.
- ISBN 978-1118064177. Retrieved 2013-06-08.
- ISBN 978-1573565219. Retrieved 2013-06-08.
- .
- ^ ISBN 978-1-4093-1613-8.
- ^ Rix, Michael (October 1955). "Industrial Archaeology". The Amateur Historian. 2 (8): 225–9.
- .
- S2CID 48846261.
- MR 0073602.
- ^ Gilbert, E. (1955), Theory of shuffling, Technical memorandum, Bell Labs.
- ^ "Canadian Mathematical Bulletin". Canadian Mathematical Society. 1967: 764.
{{cite journal}}
: Cite journal requires|journal=
(help) - MR 0072182.
- ^ Taniyama, Yutaka (1956), "Problem 12", Sugaku (in Japanese), 7: 269
- .
- ^ Rotblat, Joseph (March 1955). "The Hydrogen-Uranium Bomb". Atomic Scientists Journal. 4: 224.
- ^ "Early-Warning Radars (part 3)". Lincoln Laboratory. Archived from the original on 2013-03-12. Retrieved 2013-01-19.
- .
- ^ Jacoby, Mitch (2008-11-28). "Atomic Imaging Turns 50". Chemical & Engineering News. 83 (48): 13–16.
- ISBN 978-1-56684-706-3.
- ISBN 0-465-00115-7.
- ^ "Science Places Liverpool". 2008. Retrieved 2011-03-20.
- ^ Franklin D. Roosevelt is one of the most famous polio victims.) By the early 1950s, polio epidemics had been increasing in severity ... Archived 2015-04-07 at the Wayback Machine history1900s.about.com
- PMID 13271123.
- PMID 13637100. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2011-07-21. Retrieved 2011-07-29.
- S2CID 4452231.)
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link - ^ "Historical timeline: 1852-1967". Textbook of Cardiology. Retrieved 2022-10-27.
- ^ "Strömsund Bridge (1955)". Structurae. Retrieved 2010-10-02.
- S2CID 4191481.
- ^ Stephens, Thomas (2007-01-04). "How a Swiss invention hooked the world". swissinfo.ch. Retrieved 2011-12-16.
- ^ "Inventor of the TV remote control dies". Chicago Tribune. 2012-05-22. Archived from the original on 2012-05-23. Retrieved 2012-05-23.
- ^ "TV remote control inventor Eugene Polley dies at 96". BBC News. 2012-05-22. Retrieved 2012-05-23.
- ]
- ^ Gallagher, James (2023-10-02). "Nobel Prize goes to scientists behind mRNA Covid vaccines". BBC News. Retrieved 2023-10-02.
- ^ "Tim Berners-Lee | Biography, Education, Internet, Contributions, & Facts | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Archived from the original on 15 March 2023. Retrieved 29 March 2023.