1959 in science

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The year 1959 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Astronomy and space exploration

January 2 – Soviet spacecraft Luna 1 is launched by a Vostok rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome; the first man-made object to attain escape velocity, it is intended to impact Earth's Moon, but an error causes it instead to become the first spacecraft to fly by the Moon and the first man-made object to enter heliocentric orbit.
February 6 – At Cape Canaveral, Florida, the first successful test firing of a Titan intercontinental ballistic missile is accomplished.
February 17 – Vanguard 2, the first weather satellite, is launched to measure cloud cover for the United States Navy.
March 3 – Lunar probe Pioneer 4 becomes the first American object to escape dominance by Earth's gravity.
April 9 –
military pilots to become the first United States astronauts, later known as the 'Mercury Seven
'.

May 28 –

Cape Canaveral

in the United States along with living microorganisms and plant seeds. Successful recovery makes them the first living beings to return safely to Earth after space flight.

June 25 – A KH-1
Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, aboard a Thor-Agena
rocket.

July 7 – At 14:28 UT Venus occults the star Regulus. The rare event (which will next occur on October 1, 2044) is used to determine the diameter of Venus and the structure of Venus' atmosphere.
August 7 – The United States launches the Explorer 6 satellite from the Atlantic Missile Range in Cape Canaveral.
August 14 – Explorer 6 sends the first picture of Earth from orbit.
September 14 – Soviet spacecraft Luna 2 becomes the first man-made object to crash on Earth's Moon.
September 19 –
SETI with the publishing of their seminal paper "Searching for Interstellar Communications" in Nature
.

October 7 – Russian probe Luna 3 sends back the first images of the far side of Earth's Moon.
October 13 – The United States launches Explorer 7.
November 24 –
Yardymli meteorite makes a landfall in Azerbaijan
.

December 4 –
Mercury program, carries Sam
, a rhesus macaque monkey, close to the edge of space.

Coma Berenicids discovered.^[1]
First successful test of a nuclear thermal rocket engine, as part of Project Rover at Los Alamos National Laboratory in the United States under Raemer Schreiber.^[2]

Biology

January 1 – Cultivars of plants named after this date must be named in a modern language, not in Latin.
March 26 –
Durrell Wildlife Park) established by Gerald Durrell
.

August 8 –
ova having undergone in vitro fertilisation and transferred to a surrogate mother.^[3]^[4]

The term pheromone is coined.^[5]
termites.^[6]

The Caspian tiger becomes extinct in Iran.

Chemistry

B. J. Davis and Leonard Ornstein first describe the use of acrylamide in gel electrophoresis at a scientific meeting.^[7]

Computer science

December – The specification for the programming language COBOL is completed.
IBM ship the transistor-based IBM 1401 mainframe.
Grigore Moisil publishes Teoria algebrică a mecanismelor automate [Algebraic theory of automatic machines], on automata theory, in Bucharest.

History of science

Society for the History of Technology begins publication of the journal Technology and Culture.

Mathematics

July 21 – The inaugural International Mathematical Olympiad, a competition for pre-university students, is held, in Romania.
October –
Three Prisoners problem in probability theory.^[8]^[9]

Edsger W. Dijkstra rediscovers 'Prim's algorithm'.
Kenkichi Iwasawa initiates Iwasawa theory.^[10]

Medicine

July – The medical research group studying Minamata disease comes to the conclusion that mercury is the cause.^[11]
Joseph Murray performs the world's first successful allotransplantation.^[12]
bone marrow transplant on five Yugoslavian nuclear workers whose own marrow has been damaged by intense irradiation caused by a criticality accident at the Vinča Nuclear Institute, but all of these transplants are rejected.^[13]^[14]^[15]

First known case of human HIV, in the Belgian Congo.^[16]

Paleontology

July 17 – Tanganyika by Mary and Louis Leakey
, dating from between 2.6 to 1.1 million years BP.

First
Santa Rosa Island, California
, by Phil C. Orr. The remains are subsequently dated to 13,000 years BP, making them potentially the oldest known human remains in North America.

Physics

Yakir Aharonov and David Bohm predict the Aharonov–Bohm effect.

December 29 – Richard Feynman delivers a lecture "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom", anticipating the field of nanotechnology.

Technology

June 9 – The USS George Washington is launched at Groton, Connecticut, as the first submarine to carry ballistic missiles (December 30 – commissioned).

August 13 – First automobile delivered with the modern form of three-point seat belt developed by Nils Bohlin for Volvo in Sweden.^[17]

August 31 – Frank Der Yuen is granted a United States patent for the jet bridge (passenger boarding bridge).^[18]

September 16 – The Xerox 914, the first plain paper copier, is introduced to the public.

November – The
Digital Revolution^[22] and goes on to become the most widely manufactured device in history.^[23]^[24]

Agfa introduces the first fully automatic camera
, the Optima.

Eveready Battery engineer Lewis Urry invents the long-lasting alkaline battery
.

Gordon Gould publishes the term Laser.^[25]

float glass process invented by Alastair Pilkington.^[26]

Events

May 7 – English scientist and novelist
Senate House, University of Cambridge
. It is subsequently published as The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution.

PhD in mechanical engineering, at Illinois Institute of Technology.^[27]^[28]

Awards

Nobel Prizes
Emilio Gino Segrè, – Owen Chamberlain

Chemistry – Jaroslav Heyrovský

Medicine – Severo Ochoa, Arthur Kornberg

Births

March 9 – Takaaki Kajita, Japanese nuclear physicist (Nobel Prize in Physics 2015).

May 27 – Donna Strickland, Canadian physicist (Nobel Prize in Physics 2018).

August 3 – Koichi Tanaka, Japanese chemist (Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2002).

August 29 – Stephen Wolfram, British-born mathematician.

September 7 – Drew Weissman, American biochemist (Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2013).^[29]

September 22 –
astrophysicist
(Nobel Prize in Physics 2011).

October 16 –
ornithologist
.

December 25 – Michael P. Anderson (died 2003), American astronaut.

Deaths

January 21 –
forensic pathologist
.

February 15 – Sir Owen Richardson (born 1879), English physicist (Nobel Prize in Physics 1928).

June 9 – Adolf Windaus (born 1876) German chemist (Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1928).

June 11 –
obstetrician
.

September 30 –
physiologist
.

October 29
Samuel James Cameron (born 1878), Scottish obstetrician.

Edith Clarke (born 1883), American electrical engineer, inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame

November 15 –
C. T. R. Wilson (born 1869), Scottish physicist (Nobel Prize in Physics 1927
).

Organisations

Austria joins CERN.

References

^ "Coma Berenicids". Meteor Showers Online. Archived from the original on 2010-11-25. Retrieved 2011-11-08.

^ Pace, Eric (31 December 1998). "R. E. Schreiber, 88, Nuclear Bomb Physicist". The New York Times. Retrieved 2013-10-04.

PMID 13809155
.

United States National Academy of Sciences
. Retrieved 2011-08-15.
PMID 13622694
.

^ Grassé, P.-P. (1959). "La reconstruction du nid et les coordinations inter-individuelles chez Belicositermes natalensis et Cubitermes sp. La théorie de la Stigmergie: Essai d'interprétation du comportement des termites constructeurs". Insectes Sociaux (6): 41–80.

^ "Disc Electrophoresis". Archived from the original on 2011-09-26. Retrieved 2011-10-16.

doi:10.1038/scientificamerican1059-174
.

doi:10.1038/scientificamerican1159-181
.

Zbl 0089.02402
.

^ "Minamata disease". United Nations University. Retrieved 2010-10-17.

PMID 15955947
.

rem
.74 Of the six persons present, one died and the other five recovered after severe cases of radiation sickness.
^ Johnston, Wm. Robert (2005-09-14). "Vinca reactor accident, 1958". Database of radiological incidents and related events – Johnston's Archive. Retrieved 2012-07-02.

^ Martin, Douglas (2010-10-20). "Dr. Georges Mathé, Transplant Pioneer, Dies at 88". The New York Times.

^ Pence, G. E. (2008). "Preventing the Global Spread of AIDS". Medical Ethics: Accounts of the Cases That Shaped and Define Medical Ethics. New York: McGraw-Hill. p. 330.

^ "The man who saved a million lives: Nils Bohlin - inventor of the seat belt". The Independent. London. 2009-08-19. Retrieved 2009-12-08.

^ "Apparatus for facilitating the loading and unloading of passengers and cargo : US Grant US3046908A".

^ "1960 - Metal Oxide Semiconductor (MOS) Transistor Demonstrated". The Silicon Engine. Computer History Museum.

ISBN 9780801886393
.

^ Chan, Yi-Jen (1992). Studies of InAIAs/InGaAs and GaInP/GaAs heterostructure FET's for high speed applications. University of Michigan. p. 1. The Si MOSFET has revolutionized the electronics industry and as a result impacts our daily lives in almost every conceivable way.

ISBN 9781905839780
.

^ "13 Sextillion & Counting: The Long & Winding Road to the Most Frequently Manufactured Human Artifact in History". Computer History Museum. 2018-03-02. Retrieved 2019-07-28.

ISBN 978-1118038239
.

OCLC 02460155
.

ISBN 978-1-84403-611-0
.

OCLC 45226021
.

^ "Alumni Awards 2015: Lifetime Achievement Award: Lois Graham (M.S. ME '49, Ph.D. '59)". Illinois Institute of Technology. 2015. Archived from the original on 2018-11-20. Retrieved 2018-11-20.

^ Gallagher, James (2023-10-02). "Nobel Prize goes to scientists behind mRNA Covid vaccines". BBC News. Retrieved 2023-10-02.

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1959_in_science&oldid=1211280142"

[1] "Coma Berenicids". Meteor Showers Online. Archived from the original on 2010-11-25. Retrieved 2011-11-08.

[2] Pace, Eric (31 December 1998). "R. E. Schreiber, 88, Nuclear Bomb Physicist". The New York Times. Retrieved 2013-10-04.

[3] PMID 13809155
.

[4] United States National Academy of Sciences
. Retrieved 2011-08-15.

[5] PMID 13622694
.

[6] Grassé, P.-P. (1959). "La reconstruction du nid et les coordinations inter-individuelles chez Belicositermes natalensis et Cubitermes sp. La théorie de la Stigmergie: Essai d'interprétation du comportement des termites constructeurs". Insectes Sociaux (6): 41–80.

[7] "Disc Electrophoresis". Archived from the original on 2011-09-26. Retrieved 2011-10-16.

[8] :10.1038/scientificamerican1059-174
.

[9] :10.1038/scientificamerican1159-181
.

[10] Zbl 0089.02402
.

[11] "Minamata disease". United Nations University. Retrieved 2010-10-17.

[12] PMID 15955947
.

[13] rem
.74 Of the six persons present, one died and the other five recovered after severe cases of radiation sickness.

[14] Johnston, Wm. Robert (2005-09-14). "Vinca reactor accident, 1958". Database of radiological incidents and related events – Johnston's Archive. Retrieved 2012-07-02.

[15] Martin, Douglas (2010-10-20). "Dr. Georges Mathé, Transplant Pioneer, Dies at 88". The New York Times.

[16] Pence, G. E. (2008). "Preventing the Global Spread of AIDS". Medical Ethics: Accounts of the Cases That Shaped and Define Medical Ethics. New York: McGraw-Hill. p. 330.

[17] "The man who saved a million lives: Nils Bohlin - inventor of the seat belt". The Independent. London. 2009-08-19. Retrieved 2009-12-08.

[18] "Apparatus for facilitating the loading and unloading of passengers and cargo : US Grant US3046908A".

[19] "1960 - Metal Oxide Semiconductor (MOS) Transistor Demonstrated". The Silicon Engine. Computer History Museum.

[Bassett22-20] ISBN 9780801886393
.

[21] Chan, Yi-Jen (1992). Studies of InAIAs/InGaAs and GaInP/GaAs heterostructure FET's for high speed applications. University of Michigan. p. 1. The Si MOSFET has revolutionized the electronics industry and as a result impacts our daily lives in almost every conceivable way.

[22] ISBN 9781905839780
.

[23] "13 Sextillion & Counting: The Long & Winding Road to the Most Frequently Manufactured Human Artifact in History". Computer History Museum. 2018-03-02. Retrieved 2019-07-28.

[24] ISBN 978-1118038239
.

[25] OCLC 02460155
.

[26] ISBN 978-1-84403-611-0
.

[27] OCLC 45226021
.

[28] "Alumni Awards 2015: Lifetime Achievement Award: Lois Graham (M.S. ME '49, Ph.D. '59)". Illinois Institute of Technology. 2015. Archived from the original on 2018-11-20. Retrieved 2018-11-20.

[29] Gallagher, James (2023-10-02). "Nobel Prize goes to scientists behind mRNA Covid vaccines". BBC News. Retrieved 2023-10-02.

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