1962 in science

Biology

• May 1 – Douglas Harold Copp discovers of the hormone calcitonin.^[4]
• August – The "Hastings Rarities" are exposed as ornithological frauds.^[5]
• Emile Zuckerkandl and Linus Pauling publish a paper introducing what will become known as the molecular clock concept.^[6][7]
• The first nude mouse strain is discovered by N. R. Grist at Ruchill Hospital's Brownlee virology laboratory in Glasgow.^[8][9]
• The Neuroscience Research Program (NRP) is established by Francis O. Schmitt et al.^[10]

Computer science

• May –
  BBN co-presents a paper on "On-Line Man-Computer Communication
  ".
• August – J. C. R. Licklider begins to refer to the Intergalactic Computer Network, effectively conceptualizing what will become the Internet.
• September 19 – The first
  Senate House (University of London). It will still be operable 50 years later.^[11]
• October – J. C. R. Licklider becomes the first head of the computer research program at the United States Department of Defense's ARPA, which he names the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO).
• November 3 – The earliest recorded use of the term "
  American Institute of Industrial Engineers. Mauchly, "inventor of some of the original room-size computers", says that "in a decade or so" everyone would have their own computer with "exchangeable wafer-thin data storage files to provide inexhaustible memories and answer most problems". He is quoted as saying, "There is no reason to suppose the average boy or girl cannot be master of a personal computer."^[12]
• December 7 – The
  multiprogramming, and will be in use for the next decade.^[13]
• December 28 – Mauchly is again reported as saying he "envisions a time when everyone will carry his own personal computer".[14]
• At
  MIT, Ivan Sutherland uses the TX-2 computer to write Sketchpad, the origin of graphical programs used for computer-aided design
  .
• Roger Tomlinson leads development of the Canada Geographic Information System, the world's first geographic information system (GIS).
• Simula I, the first object-oriented programming language, developed at the Norwegian Computing Center in Oslo by Ole-Johan Dahl and Kristen Nygaard, is released.^[15]

Ecology

• June – Rachel Carson's Silent Spring begins serialization in The New Yorker; it is released as a book on September 27.

History of science

• Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is published in the United States.

Medicine

• November – English orthopedic surgeon John Charnley makes the first successful whole hip replacement operation using a high molecular weight polyethylene (HMWP) socket, at Wrightington Hospital, Wigan.^[16]
• angina pectoris), which becomes the world's best-selling drug.^{[17][18][19][20]}
• Joseph Murray performs the first permanent cadaveric kidney transplantation.^[21]
• Nodding disease is first documented, in southern Tanzania.^[22]
• Wade-Dahl-Till valve, a cerebral shunt, is developed by hydraulic engineer Stanley Wade, author Roald Dahl and neurosurgeon Kenneth Till.

Physics

• The muon neutrino is discovered by Leon M. Lederman.^[23]

Psychology

• Stanley Schachter and Jerome E. Singer propose their two-factor theory of emotion.^[24]

Technology

• October – The first practical visible-spectrum (red) light-emitting diode is developed by Nick Holonyak, Jr., while working at the General Electric Company in Syracuse, New York.^[25][26]
• The
  New Austrian Tunnelling method is so named.^[27]

• Fields Prize in Mathematics: Lars Hörmander and John Milnor
• Nobel Prizes
  • Lev Davidovich Landau
  • John Cowdery Kendrew
  • Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins^[28]
  • Peace – Linus Pauling
• Maxwell Medal and Prize of the Institute of Physics (first award): Abdus Salam

• April 27 – Edvard Moser, Norwegian neuroscientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
• April –
  vaccinologist
  .
• May 17 – Ferenc Krausz, Hungarian-born attosecond physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics.
• June 18 –
  theoretical physicist
  .
• June 29 – George D. Zamka, American astronaut.
• September 20 – Jim Al-Khalili, Iraqi-born British theoretical physicist and science communicator.
• Michele Dougherty, South African-born space physicist.

Deaths

• February 19 –
  Pap smear
  .
• March 15 – Arthur Compton (born 1892), American physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics.
• March 19 – Samuel Cate Prescott (born 1872), American food scientist and microbiologist.
• March 24 –
  explorer
  .
• May 13 –
  Henry Trendley Dean (born 1893
  ), American dental researcher.
• July 28 –
  nuclear physicist
  , in aviation accident.
• July 29 – Ronald Fisher (born 1890), English-born statistician and geneticist.
• November 5 – Paul Lester Errington (born 1902), American conservationist.
• November 18 – Niels Bohr (born 1885), Danish physicist.
• December 20 – Emil Artin (born 1898), Austrian-born mathematician.
• December 24 –
  German mathematician
  .