1948 in science

none 1948 science 1948 The year 1948 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below. Astronomy and space science February 16 – Miranda, innermost of the large moons of Uranus, is discovered by Gerard Kuiper from the McDonald Observatory in Texas.Moore Patrick Patrick Moore 1995 The Guinness Book of Astronomy 5th Enfield, UK Guinness Publishing 978-0851126432 110 October 10 – An R-1 (missile) on test becomes the first Soviet launch to enter space.http://www.astronautix.com/r/r-1.html https://web.archive.org/web/20160820192642/http://www.astronautix.com/r/r-1.html dead August 20, 2016 R-1 Wade Mark 2020-12-06 Biology August 7 – Teaching and research in Mendelian genetics is prohibited in the Soviet Union in favour of Lysenkoist theories of the inheritance of acquired characteristics.Joravsky David The Lysenko Affair https://archive.org/details/lysenkoaffair0000jora registration Cambridge, Massachusetts Harvard University Press 1970 Russian Research Center studies, 61 978-0-674-53985-3The descent of Lysenko Cohen Barry M. The Journal of Heredity 56 229–233 1965 5 10.1093/oxfordjournals.jhered.a107425 October 5 – Delegates to a conference organised by Sir Julian Huxley at Fontainebleau agree to formation of the International Union for Conservation of Nature.http://www.fni.no/YBICED/97_04_christoffersen.pdf Christoffersen Leif E. 1994 IUCN: A Bridge-Builder for Nature Conservation Green Globe YearBook 2011-11-02 dead https://web.archive.org/web/20081216230117/http://www.fni.no/YBICED/97_04_christoffersen.pdf 2008-12-16 November 20 – The South Island takahē, a flightless bird generally thought to have been extinct for fifty years, is rediscovered by Geoffrey Orbell near Lake Te Anau in the South Island of New Zealand. Last recorded sighting of the Caspian tiger in Kazakhstan. Publication of Fairfield Osborne's Our Plundered Planet, a Malthusian critique of human environmental destruction.Netzley Patricia Environmental Literature ABC-CLIO 1999 California 978-1-57607-000-0The Post War Intellectual Roots of the Population Bomb: Fairfield Osborne's Our Plundered Planet and William Vogt's Road to Survival in retrospect Pierre Desrochers Christine Hoffbauer The Electronic Journal of Sustainable Development http://www.dpi.inpe.br/sil/cst310/Aula2_fundamentos/THE_POST_WAR_INTELLECTUAL_ROOTS_OF_THE_POPULATION_BOMB_-_FAIRFIELD_OSBORNS_OUR_PLUNDERED_PLANET_AND_WILLIAM_VOGTS_ROAD_TO_SURVIVAL_IN_RETROSPECT.pdf 2009 1 3 73–97 2011-12-08 dead https://web.archive.org/web/20120302185414/http://www.dpi.inpe.br/sil/cst310/Aula2_fundamentos/THE_POST_WAR_INTELLECTUAL_ROOTS_OF_THE_POPULATION_BOMB_-_FAIRFIELD_OSBORNS_OUR_PLUNDERED_PLANET_AND_WILLIAM_VOGTS_ROAD_TO_SURVIVAL_IN_RETROSPECT.pdf 2012-03-02 Computer science May 12 – World's first stored-program computer operates, the mechanical ARC (Automatic Relay Calculator) at Birkbeck College, University of London (largely built by Kathleen Booth).Martin Campbell-Kelly Kathleen Booth The Guardian London 2022-11-12 9 (Journal) https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/nov/10/kathleen-booth-obituary 2022-11-13 June 21 – World's first working program run on an electronic stored-program computer, the Manchester Baby (written by Tom Kilburn).Enticknap Nicholas Computing's Golden Jubilee Resurrection 20 Computer Conservation Society Summer 1998 http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/CCS/res/res20.htm#d 0958-7403 2011-11-25 https://web.archive.org/web/20120109142655/http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/CCS/res/res20.htm#d 2012-01-09 dead July–October – Claude E. Shannon publishes "A Mathematical Theory of Communication" in Bell System Technical Journal, regarded as a foundation of information theory,James Ioan 2009 Claude Elwood Shannon 30 April 1916 – 24 February 2001 Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 55 257–265 10.1098/rsbm.2009.0015 free introducing the concept of Shannon entropy and adopting the term Bit. History of science and technology December 17 – The original Wright Flyer goes on display in the Smithsonian Institution. Mathematics May – The Descartes snark (210 vertices) in graph theory is described by Bill Tutte writing as Blanche Descartes.Descartes Blanche 10.2307/3610702 The Mathematical Gazette 0026309 67–69 Network-colourings 32 1948 299 3610702 250434686 Medicine and human sciences January 5 – The first Kinsey Report, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, is published in the United States. April 7 – The World Health Organization is established by the United Nations. July 5 – The National Health Service begins functioning in the United Kingdom, giving the right to universal healthcare, free at point of use.https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/lostdecade/timeline_html.shtml The Lost Decade Timeline BBC 2007-09-25 dead https://web.archive.org/web/20060821133044/http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/lostdecade/timeline_html.shtml 2006-08-21 Winter 1948/49 – Outbreak of Akureyri disease in Iceland. In psychology, Bertram Forer demonstrates the Barnum effect (that people tend to accept generalised descriptions of personality as uniquely applicable to themselves). Julius Axelrod and Bernard Brodie identify the analgesic properties of acetaminophen. Meteorology March 25 – Meteorologists at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City issue the world's first tornado forecast, for the second of the 1948 Tinker Air Force Base tornadoes. Physics April 1 – Physicists Ralph Asher Alpher and George Gamow publish the Alpher–Bethe–Gamow paper about the Big Bang.Alpher R. A. H. Bethe Hans Bethe G. Gamow 1948-04-01 The Origin of Chemical Elements Physical Review 73 7 803–804 10.1103/PhysRev.73.803 1948PhRv...73..803A free May 29 – Casimir effect predicted by Dutch physicist Hendrik Casimir.Casimir H. B. G. 1948 On the attraction between two perfectly conducting plates https://www.dwc.knaw.nl/DL/publications/PU00018547.pdf Proc. Kon. Ned. Akad. Wet. 51 793 Herbert Fröhlich makes a key breakthrough in understanding superconductivity, at the University of Liverpool.Science Places Liverpool http://www.scienceplaces.org/liverpool/liverpool_list.html 2008 2011-03-20 2014-08-15 https://web.archive.org/web/20140815041701/http://www.scienceplaces.org/liverpool/liverpool_list.html dead Rosemary Brown discovers the kaon (or K meson particle).Brown R. Camerini U. Fowler P. H. Peter Fowler (physicist) Muirhead H. Powell C. F. Ritson D. M. 1949-01-15 Observations with Electron-Sensitive Plates Exposed to Cosmic Radiation. Part 2. Further Evidence for the Existence of Unstable Charged Particles, of Mass ∼ 1,000 me, and Observations on their Mode of Decay Nature 163 82–87 10.1038/163082a0 Technology June 18 – Columbia Records unveil the LP records developed by Peter Goldmark of CBS Laboratories.Goldmark Peter Maverick Inventor: My Turbulent Years at CBS New York Saturday Review Press 1973 978-0-8415-0046-4Columbia Diskery: CBS Show Microgroove Platters to Press; Tell How It Began Billboard 1948-06-26 3Marmorstein Gary The Label: the Story of Columbia Records New York Thunder's Mouth Press 2007 978-1-56025-707-3 165 First modern long-span permanent box girder bridge completed, between Cologne and Deutz.David J. Brown Bridges London Mitchell Beazley 1993 978-1-85732-163-0 94 Publications First publication of Norbert Wiener's Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. Publication in Britain of the novel No Highway by former aeronautical engineer Nevil Shute, dealing with the effects of metal fatigue on aircraft. Awards Nobel Prizes Physics – Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett Chemistry – Arne Wilhelm Kaurin Tiselius Medicine – Paul Hermann Müller Births January 30 – Akira Yoshino, Japanese chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. March 1 – Alison Richard, English primatologist and academic. March 9 – László Lovász, Hungarian computer scientist. March 21 – Robert Watson, British atmospheric chemist. May – David Mabberley, English-born plant taxonomist. June 13 – Nina L. Etkin (died 2009), American anthropologist and biologist. June 28 – Kenneth Alan Ribet, American mathematician. July 20 – Martin Green, Australian solar cell researcher. July 27 – Stephen Westaby, English cardiac surgeon. August 4 – Giorgio Parisi, Italian theoretical physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics. August 7 – James P. Allison, American immunologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. August 25 – Nicholas A. Peppas, Greek chemical and biomedical engineer. August 29 – Robert S. Langer, American biomedical engineer. August 30 – Victor Skumin, Russian scientist, psychiatrist and psychologist; describes Skumin syndrome in 1978. September 2 – Christa McAuliffe, born Sharon Christa Corrigan (died 1986), American astronaut. October 29 – Frans de Waal, Dutch primatologist. October 31 – Mu-ming Poo, Chinese neuroscientist. December 30 – Randy Schekman, American cell biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Margaret Allen, American cardiothoracic surgeon. Robert Plomin, American-born psychologist. Deaths January 30 – Orville Wright (born 1871), American pioneer aviator. May 26 – Sir George Newman (born 1870), English public health physician. June 10 – Philippa Fawcett (born 1868), English mathematician. June 21 – D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson (born 1860), Scottish biologist. December 12 – Marjory Stephenson (born 1885), English biochemist. References Category:20th century in science Category:1940s in science