1956 in science

none 1956 science 1956 The year 1956 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below. Biology March – Denham Harman proposes the free-radical theory of aging.Harman Denham Aging: a theory based on free radical and radiation chemistry Journal of Gerontology 11 3 1956 298–300 13332224 10.1093/geronj/11.3.298 Wesley K. Whitten reports developing eight-cell mouse ova to blastocyst stage in vitro.Culture of Tubal Mouse Ova W. K. Whitten 10.1038/177096a0 13288608 Nature 14 January 1956 177 4498 96 1956Natur.177...96W free Capri Bird Observatory is established on Capri. Hjort Christian 2006 Capri Bird Observatory – a brief historical overview https://doi.org/10.34080/os.v16.22725 Ornis Svecica 16 BirdLife Sverige 13–20 18 May 2026 Chemistry July 14 – Second part of the publication of Dorothy Hodgkin's description of the structure of Vitamin B12.Hodgkin, Dorothy Crowfoot; Kamper, Jennifer; Mackay, Maureen; Pickworth, Jenny; Trueblood, Kenneth N; White, John G. 4210164 Structure of vitamin B12 Nature 178 4524 64–66 1956 https://www.nature.com/articles/178064a0 10.1038/178064a0 13348621 1956Natur.178...64H subscription Climatology May – Gilbert Plass publishes his seminal article "The Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climate Change".The Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climate Change Gilbert N. Plass Tellus 8 2 140–54 1956 10.1111/j.2153-3490.1956.tb01206.x 1956TellA...8..140P Computer science July 13 – John McCarthy (Dartmouth), Marvin Minsky (MIT), Claude Shannon (Bell Labs) and Nathaniel Rochester (IBM) assemble the first coordinated research meeting on the topic of artificial intelligence, at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, in the United States. September 13 – The hard disk drive is invented by an IBM team led by Reynold B. Johnson. TX-0 transistorized computer completed at MIT Lincoln Laboratory in the United States.http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/TCMR-V08.pdf The TX-0: Its Past and Present The Computer Museum Report 8 Spring 1984 The Computer Museum, Boston 2021-02-13 2–11 Mathematics February 1 – Joseph Kruskal publishes Kruskal's algorithm.Kruskal Joseph B. 10.1090/S0002-9939-1956-0078686-7 On the shortest spanning subtree of a graph and the traveling salesman problem Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society 7 1 48–50 1956 2033241 free December – Martin Gardner begins his Mathematical Games column in Scientific American. Henri Cartan and Samuel Eilenberg publish a text on homological algebra.Mac Lane Saunders Saunders Mac Lane Review: Homological algebra, by Henri Cartan and Samuel Eilenberg Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 1956 62 6 615–624 https://www.ams.org/journals/bull/1956-62-06/S0002-9904-1956-10082-7/ 10.1090/S0002-9904-1956-10082-7 free Jean-Pierre Serre publishes his "GAGA" paper in algebraic geometry and analytic geometry.Serre Jean-Pierre Géométrie algébrique et géométrie analytique http://www.numdam.org/numdam-bin/item?id=AIF_1956__6__1_0 0082175 1956 Annales de l'Institut Fourier 6 1–42 10.5802/aif.59 free Medicine April – Humphry Osmond first proposes use of the word psychedelic to describe the effect of certain drugs, at a meeting of the New York Academy of Sciences. May 1 – Minamata disease epidemic is identified in Japan by Hajime Hosokawa. June 1 – Elsie Stephenson becomes founding Director of the Nurse Teaching Unit, University of Edinburgh, the first nurse teaching unit within a British university. November – The classic definition of obesity hypoventilation syndrome is published.Burwell, C. Sidney Robin, Eugene D. Whaley, Robert D. Bicklemann, Albert G. Extreme obesity associated with alveolar hypoventilation – a Pickwickian syndrome The American Journal of Medicine 21 5 811–8 1956 13362309 10.1016/0002-9343(56)90094-8 Reproduced as Burwell, C. S. Robin, E. D. Whaley, R. D. Bicklemann, A. G. Extreme obesity associated with alveolar hypoventilation; a Pickwickian syndrome Obesity Research 2 4 390–7 1994 16353591 10.1002/j.1550-8528.1994.tb00084.x Asian flu pandemic originates in China. Use of penicillamine in treatment of Wilson's disease first described.Walshe John M. Wilson's disease; new oral therapy The Lancet 270 6906 25–6 January 1956 13279157 10.1016/S0140-6736(56)91859-1 American voice actor Paul Winchell applies to patent an implantable artificial heart, the first person to do so.US Patent #3097366 of 1963. http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/winchell.html https://web.archive.org/web/20060127002824/http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/winchell.html 2006-01-27 Inventor of the Week Archive Massachusetts Institute of Technology September 2005 2022-11-19 Physics November 15 – Cooper pairs are first described by Leon Cooper.Cooper Leon N. Bound electron pairs in a degenerate Fermi gas Physical Review 104 4 1189–1190 1956 10.1103/PhysRev.104.1189 1956PhRv..104.1189C free November 21 – DIDO heavy water enriched uranium nuclear reactor opens at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment, Harwell, Oxfordshire, England.New Atomic Reactor Opens Birmingham Daily Post 1956-11-22 24 Existence of the antineutrino is experimentally confirmed by the Cowan–Reines neutrino experiment carried out by Clyde L. Cowan and Frederick Reines.1997 The Reines-Cowan Experiments: Detecting the Poltergeist http://library.lanl.gov/cgi-bin/getfile?25-02.pdf Los Alamos Science 25 3 Existence of the antineutron is experimentally confirmed by University of California, Berkeley physicist Bruce Cork. Psychology January 1 – Leon Festinger, Henry W. Riecken and Stanley Schachter's book When Prophecy Fails provides a classic study of disconfirmed expectancy. Technology April 14 – 2-inch quadruplex videotape, the first practical and commercially successful analog recording videotape format, is released for the broadcast television industry by Ampex of Redwood City, California.Charles Bensinger http://videopreservation.conservation-us.org/vid_guide/6/6.html VideoPreservation Website 1981 All About Videotape 2012-04-14http://quadvideotapegroup.com/QuadHistory-PageIndex.htm Some Quad History Quad Videotape Group 2012-04-14 April 17 – Eugene Houdry is granted a patent for the automobile catalytic converter.U.S. 2,742,437. June 8 – General Electric/Telechron introduces model 7H241 "The Snooz Alarm", first snooze alarm clock.http://www.telechron.net/eod/7h241.htm New kind of alarm clock telechron.net 2019-10-08 August 27 – Calder Hall nuclear power station in England is first connected to the National Grid. This Magnox plant is the world's first nuclear power plant to deliver electricity in commercial quantities.Calder Hall Power Station The Engineer 5 October 1956 Official opening is on October 17.http://www.sellafieldsites.com/page/sellafield-site-operations/site-history Sellafield Sites, Site history 2007-12-04 https://web.archive.org/web/20080509131037/http://www.sellafieldsites.com/page/sellafield-site-operations/site-history 2008-05-09 November 11 – First flight of Convair B-58, the first supersonic jet bomber capable of Mach 2 flight,Wilson Stewart Combat Aircraft since 1945 Fyshwick, ACT, Australia Aerospace Publications Pty Ltd 2000 978-1-875671-50-2 38 designed by Robert H. Widmer. First Chamberlin electro-mechanical keyboard instrument, developed and patented by Wisconsin inventor Harry Chamberlin, is introduced.http://egrefin.free.fr/images/Chamberlin/HCInterview.pdf Len Epand A Phantom Orchestra at Your Fingertips Crawdaddy! A27–A28 2011-12-16 April 1976 Awards Nobel Prizes Physics – William Bradford Shockley, John Bardeen, Walter Houser BrattainThese Nobel Prize Winners Weren't Always Noble https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/10/151005-nobel-laureates-forget-racist-sexist-science/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200808155045/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/10/151005-nobel-laureates-forget-racist-sexist-science/ August 8, 2020 National Geographic News 19 January 2021 en 6 October 2015 Chemistry – Sir Cyril Norman Hinshelwood, Nikolay Nikolaevich Semenov Medicine – André Frédéric Cournand, Werner Forssmann, Dickinson W. Richards Births February 28 – Penny Sackett, American-born Australian astronomer and Chief Scientist. April 16 – David M. Brown (died 2003), American astronaut. April 19 – Anne Glover, Scottish biologist. May 3 – Carlo Rovelli, Italian-born theoretical physicist. May 20 – Marlene Zuk, American biologist. July 1 – Gregg L. Semenza, American cell biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. July 25 – Frances Arnold, American biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. September 9 – Avi Wigderson, Israeli-born mathematician. October 17 – Mae Jemison, African American engineer and astronaut. October 19 – Carlo Urbani (died 2003), Italian physician, discoverer of SARS. December 23 – Simon Wessely, English psychiatrist. David Nott, Welsh-born surgeon. Zhuo-Hua Pan, Chinese-born neuroscientist Deaths February 3 – Émile Borel (born 1871), French mathematician. February 28 – Frigyes Riesz (born 1880), Hungarian mathematician. March 17 – Irène Joliot-Curie (born 1897), French radiochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. March 22 – George Sarton (born 1884), Belgian American historian of science. May 24 – Martha Annie Whiteley (born 1866), English chemist and mathematician. August 25 – Alfred Kinsey (born 1894), American biologist, professor of entomology and zoology, and sexologist who founded the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University (Bloomington). September 22 – Frederick Soddy (born 1877), English radiochemist. October 30 – María Teresa Ferrari (born 1887), Argentine physician. November 10 – Henry Luke Bolley (born 1865), American plant pathologist. November 24 – Sir Lionel Whitby (born 1895), English haematologist, clinical pathologist, pharmacologist and army officer. References Category:20th century in science Category:1950s in science