1951 in science

none thumb | right 1951 science 1951 The year 1951 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below. Astronomy and space science July 22 – Soviet space dogs Dezik and Tsygan become the first to enter space, in a 15-minute sub-orbital spaceflight from Kapustin Yar in an R-1 rocket, being safely parachuted back to earth.Siddiqi Asif Challenge to Apollo: The Soviet Union and the Space Race, 1945–1974 2000 NASA 95 https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/static/history/SP-4408pt1.pdf Biology Nesting pairs of the Bermuda petrel, thought to have been extinct for more than 300 years, are found. Niko Tinbergen publishes The Study of Instinct. Chemistry May 28 – Oliver H. Lowry submits his Lowry protein assay procedure for publication.Lowry, Oliver H. Rosebrough, Nira J. Farr, A. Lewis Randall, Rose J. 1951-11-01 Protein Measurement with the Folin Phenol Reagent Journal of Biological Chemistry 193 1 265–75 10.1016/S0021-9258(19)52451-6 14907713 free October 15 – The progestin norethisterone, significant in creation of the combined oral contraceptive pill, is synthesized by Carl Djerassi, Luis E. Miramontes and George Rosenkranz at Syntex in Mexico City. Computer science February – Ferranti deliver their first Mark 1 computer to the University of Manchester (UK). It is the world's first commercially available general-purpose electronic computer.Lavington Simon Hugh Society British Computer A History of Manchester Computers https://books.google.com/books?id=JRbESAAACAAJ 1998 British Computer Society 978-1-902505-01-5 March 30 – Remington Rand delivers the first UNIVAC I computer to the United States Census Bureau. It is inaugurated on June 14.http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/industry/06/14/computing.anniversary/ CNN 50th anniversary of the UNIVAC I 2010-04-20 2001-06-14 May 5 – The Ferranti NIMROD computer is presented at the Science Museum (London) during the Festival of Britain. It is designed exclusively to play Nim, using panels of lights, the first instance of a digital computer designed specifically to play a game.http://www.goodeveca.net/nimrod/ Welcome to Nimrod! 2011-06-21 https://web.archive.org/web/20110723135752/http://www.goodeveca.net/nimrod/ 23 July 2011 live July – Maurice Wilkes introduces the concept of microprogramming.Wilkes Maurice The Best Way to Design an Automatic Computing Machine Report of Manchester University Computer Inaugural Conference 1951 16–18Wilkes, M. V. David Wheeler (computer scientist) Wheeler, D. J. Stanley Gill Gill, S. The preparation of programs for an electronic digital computer, with special reference to the EDSAC and the use of a library of subroutines Cambridge, Massachusetts 1951 Addison-Wesley Press Wilkes M. V. The Growth of Interest in Microprogramming: A Literature Survey 10.1145/356551.356553 ACM Computing Surveys 1 3 139–145 1969 10673679 free . November 29 – LEO becomes the first computer to run a full commercial business application, for the British bakers J. Lyons and Co.Ferry Georgina 2004 A Computer Called LEO: Lyons Tea Shops and the World's First Office Computer London Harper Perennial 978-1-84115-186-1 4 EDVAC binary electronic stored program computer incorporating high speed delay-line memory begins operation at the United States Army's Ballistics Research Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Ground.Wilkes M. V. Automatic Digital Computers Wiley 1956 New York Publication of Sancti Thomae Aquinatis hymnorum ritualium varia specimina concordantiarum ... A first example of word index automatically compiled and printed by IBM punched card machines, a concordance to work by Thomas Aquinas produced by IBM under the direction of Roberto Busa, an early instance of the use of data processing machinery in humanities research. History of science and technology July – The term "Industrial archaeology" is first used in print in Britain.Rix Michael July 1951 Birmingham History Today 1 7 59 Karl Huber's biography of Leibniz is published posthumously. Hans Reichenbach's book The Rise of Scientific Philosophy is published.University of California Press. Mathematics Edward H. Simpson describes Simpson's paradox in statistics.The Interpretation of Interaction in Contingency Tables Simpson Edward H. 1951 Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series B 13 2 238–241 10.1111/j.2517-6161.1951.tb00088.x On Simpson's Paradox and the Sure-Thing Principle Colin R. Blyth 1972 Journal of the American Statistical Association 67 338 364–366 10.2307/2284382 2284382 Medicine August 15 – 1951 Pont-Saint-Esprit mass poisoning, a fatal outbreak, probably of ergotism, in southern France. Richard Asher describes Münchausen syndrome.Richard Asher Munchausen's Syndrome The Lancet 1 6650 10 February 1951 339–341 10.1016/S0140-6736(51)92313-6 14805062 The continental United States becomes malaria-free.https://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/25/health/scientists-eliminate-malaria/index.html?hpt=hp_c5 Scientists race to eliminate malaria as 'wonder drug' loses its powers Ed Yong Ed Yong 2014-03-25 CNNhttp://www.livescience.com/13694-devastating-infectious-diseases-smallpox-plague.html 7 Devastating Infectious Diseases LiveScience.com 2020-02-10 Physics May 8 – Operation Greenhouse: The first thermonuclear weapon, developed by Edward Teller and Stanislaw Ulam, is tested in the "George" test on Enewetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands by the United States. Psychology Solomon Asch begins publication of his conformity experiments showing how group pressure can persuade an individual to conform to an obviously wrong opinion. The World Health Organization's report on maternal deprivation, Maternal Care and Mental Health, written by English psychologist John Bowlby, is published.Bretherton I. The Origins of Attachment Theory: John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth 1992 Developmental Psychology 28 5 759–775 10.1037/0012-1649.28.5.759 Technology May – Carl A. Wiley publishes the concept of the solar sail.Writing as "Russel Saunders" in a fictional story "Are the Clipper Ships gone forever?" in Astounding Science-Fiction. In Memory of Carl A. Wiley IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society Newsletter 27 3 17–18 June 1985 Allan W. Love 10.1109/MAP.1985.27810 June – Carl A. Wiley invents synthetic aperture radar.Synthetic Aperture Radars: A Paradigm for Technology Evolution C. A. Wiley IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems AES-21 3 440–443 May 1985 10.1109/taes.1985.310578 1985ITAES..21..440W 6691398 July 4 – William Shockley of Bell Labs in the United States announces the invention jointly with John Bardeen and Walter Brattain of the grown-junction transistor.http://www.computerhistory.org/semiconductor/timeline/1951-First.html 1951 – First Grown-Junction Transistors Fabricated Computer History Museum 2007 2025-02-16 https://web.archive.org/web/20120929202940/http://www.computerhistory.org/semiconductor/timeline/1951-First.html 2012-09-29 live Also this year, General Electric and RCA develop the alloy-junction transistor. George Downing builds "The Rocket", the first surfboard with a removable fin.Howard Jake Saying Goodbye To The First Surfer To Turn A Board https://stabmag.com/news/saying-goodbye-to-the-first-surfer-to-turn-a-board/ stabmag.com 2019-12-30 2018Marcus Ben 365 Surfboards: The Coolest, Raddest, Most Innovative Boards from Around the World 2013-11-15 Voyageur Press 9781610588553 93 https://books.google.com/books?id=qFL0AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA93 2019-12-30 Organizations August 18 – Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur inaugurated in West Bengal as the first of the Indian Institutes of Technology. c. September – James Watson joins Francis Crick under Max Perutz in the UK Medical Research Council's Unit for Research on the Molecular Structure of Biological Systems at the Cavendish Laboratory in the University of Cambridge led by Sir Lawrence Bragg. Awards Nobel Prizes Physics – John Douglas Cockcroft, Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton Chemistry – Edwin Mattison McMillan; Glenn Theodore Seaborg Medicine – Max Theiler Copley Medal: David Keilin Wollaston Medal for Geology – Olaf Holtedahl Births January 19 – Shimon Sakaguchi, Japanese immunologist, recipient of Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2025. March 21 – Martin Sweeting, English microsatellite pioneer. March 26 – Carl Wieman, American physicist, recipient of Nobel Prize in Physics 2001.Leroy Francis A century of Nobel Prizes recipients: chemistry, physics and medicine Dekker New York 2003 9780824708764 226 April 14 – Greg Winter, English biochemist, recipient of Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2018. May – Chen Saijuan, Chinese molecular biologist. May 15 – Frank Wilczek, American physicist, recipient of Nobel Prize in Physics 2004.The Time Almanac Information Please LLC 2011 75 May 18 – Ben Feringa, Dutch organic chemist, recipient of Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2016. May 26 – Sally Ride (died 2012), American physicist and astronaut. July 1 – Niels Krabbe, Danish ornithologist. July 4 – Susumu Kitagawa, Japanese chemist, recipient of Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2025. August 24 – Robin McLeod (died 2024), Canadian surgeon. September 14 – Duncan Haldane, English-born condensed-matter physicist, recipient of Nobel Prize in Physics 2016. September 18 – John Clark (died 2004), English molecular biologist. September 30 – Barry Marshall, Australian physician, recipient of Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2005. October 27 – Carlos Frenk, Mexican cosmologist. December 18 – Radia Perlman, American computer software designer and network engineer. Deaths January 7 – Lucien Cuénot (born 1866), French biologist. January 13 – Dorothea Bate (born 1878), British paleozoologist. January 30 – Ferdinand Porsche (born 1875), German automobile engineer. March 19 – Jacob Christiaan Koningsberger (born 1867), Dutch biologist and politician.https://resources-huygens-knaw-nl.translate.goog/bwn1880-2000/lemmata/bwn5/koningsberger?_x_tr_sl=nl&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp Doel H.W. van den Koningsberger, Jacob Christiaan (1867-1951) nl Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands 2013-11-12 2024-05-07 https://web.archive.org/web/20190720101450/https://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/bwn1880-2000/lemmata/bwn5/koningsberger 2019-07-20 April 6 – Robert Broom (born 1866), Scottish-born South African paleontologist. April 9 – Vilhelm Bjerknes (born 1862), Norwegian physicist and meteorologist. April 22 – Horace Donisthorpe (born 1870), English entomologist. April 26 – Arnold Sommerfeld (born 1868), German physicist. May 5 – John Flynn (born 1880), Australian medical services pioneer.https://www.flyingdoctor.org.au/about-the-rfds/history/john-flynn-bio/ John Flynn biography Royal Flying Doctor Service May 16 – François Hussenot (born 1912), French aviation engineer, in aviation accident. October 4 – Henrietta Lacks (born 1921), African American source of the HeLa cell line. October 6 – Otto Fritz Meyerhof (born 1884), German-born physician and biochemist. December 11 – Christopher Addison, 1st Viscount Addison (born 1869), English anatomist and politician. References 2 Category:20th century in science Category:1950s in science