1946 in science

none 1946 science 1946 The year 1946 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below. Astronomy January 10 – The United States Army Signal Corps' Project Diana bounces radar waves off the Moon. Reginald Aldworth Daly of Harvard University first proposes a giant impact hypothesis to account for formation of the Moon.Origin of the Moon and Its Topography Reginald A. Daly Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 90 2 1946 104–19 3301051 Biology Summer – Ottenby Bird Observatory begins to function on the Swedish island of Öland.Hjort Christian Pettersson Jan 1986 Ottenby fågelstation - 40 år på södra udden https://cdn.birdlife.se/wp-content/uploads/sites/55/2024/02/VF-45-4-1986.pdf Vår Fågelvärld 45 Swedish BirdLife Sverige 189–201 2026-04-14 November 10 – Peter Scott opens the Slimbridge Wetland Reserve in England. December 2 – The International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling is signed in Washington, D.C. to "provide for the proper conservation of whale stocks and thus make possible the orderly development of the whaling industry" through establishment of the International Whaling Commission. Karl von Frisch publishes "Die Tänze der Bienen" ("The dances of the bees").Österreichische Zoologische Zeitschrift 1: pp. 1–48. Edmund Jaeger discovers and later documents, in The Condor,Jaeger Edmund C. Further Observations on the Hibernation of the Poor-will The Condor May–June 1949 51 3 105–109 Earlier I gave an account (Condor, 50, 1948:45) of the behavior of a Poor-will (Phalaenoptilus nuttallinii) which I found in a state of profound torpidity in the winter of 1946–47 in the Chuckawalla Mountains of the Colorado Desert, California. 1365104 3 478309773 0010-5422 10.2307/1365104 (photographs by Kenneth Middleham) a state of extended torpor, approaching hibernation, in a bird, the common poorwill.Hiltner Nita A Look Back The Press-Enterprise Riverside, California Enterprise Media 2011-02-20 http://www.pe.com/local-news/riverside-county/riverside/riverside-headlines-index/20110227-a-look-back.ece https://archive.today/20130131020614/http://www.pe.com/local-news/riverside-county/riverside/riverside-headlines-index/20110227-a-look-back.ece dead January 31, 2013 2011-11-15 Cartography The Chamberlin trimetric projection is developed by Wellman Chamberlin for the National Geographic Society.National Geographic Society Washington, D.C. The Round Earth on Flat Paper: Map Projections Used by Cartographers 1947 Wellman Chamberlin B000WTCPXE Chemistry The structure of the alkaloid strychnine is determined by English organic chemist Robert Robinson.Robinson R. 1946 The constitution of strychnine Experientia 2 1 1946 10.1007/BF02154708 21012825 Computer science February 14–15 – ENIAC, the first non-classified all-electronic Turing complete computer, built under the direction of J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, is announced and dedicated at the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School of Electrical Engineering."1946." Britannica. It is programmable by plugboard and uses conditional branching. December 11 – Frederic Calland Williams receives a patent for a random-access memory device.Computing timeline https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/cgi/computing-timeline.pl The Centre for Computing History 2012-01-29 Earth sciences Arthur Holmes estimates the age of the Earth, using uranium–lead dating. Mathematics June – Joseph Berkson describes Berkson's paradox.Berkson Joseph June 1946 Limitations of the Application of Fourfold Table Analysis to Hospital Data Biometrics Bulletin 2 3 47–53 10.2307/3002000 3002000 21001024 The Blanuša snarks (two snarks with 18 vertices) are discovered in graph theory by Danilo Blanuša.Blanuša Danilo Glasnik Matematičko-Fizički i Astronomski 26310 31–42 II Le problème des quatre couleurs 1 1946 Medicine July 14 – Dr. Benjamin Spock's The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care is first published in New York; it becomes one of the biggest best-sellers of all time.https://www.baltimoresun.com/1998/03/17/echoes-from-the-baby-boom-appreciation-for-50-years-parents-turned-to-the-book-by-dr-benjamin-spock-for-the-most-common-sense-advice-about-raising-children/ The Baltimore Sun Echoes from the baby boom appreciation: for 50 years, parents turned to the book by Dr. Benjamin Spock for the most common-sense advice about raising children Patricia Meisol 17 March 1998 2010-03-31 2010-05-16 https://web.archive.org/web/20100516023311/http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1998-03-17/features/1998076006_1_spock-raising-children-parents/2 live Harold Gillies begins to perform sex reassignment surgery on Michael Dillon, including the first phalloplasty for a trans man.https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/18/books/review/Roach.t.html Girls Will Be Boys Mary Roach The New York Times 2007-03-18 2007-03-25 https://web.archive.org/web/20120714071814/http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/18/books/review/Roach.t.html July 14, 2012 live Chance Brothers of Smethwick, England, produce the first all-glass syringe with interchangeable barrel and plunger, allowing easy mass-sterilisation of components. Alfred Gilman, with Frederick S. Philips, first publish the results of trials of anti-cancer chemotherapy, using mechlorethamine, carried out with Louis S. Goodman.Gilman Alfred Philips Frederick S. The Biological Actions and Therapeutic Applications of the Β-Chloroethyl Amines and Sulfides Science 103 2675 409–15, 436 5 April 1946 1946Sci...103..409G 10.1126/science.103.2675.409 17751251 1673195 Physics January 1 – Atomic Energy Research Establishment established at Harwell, Oxfordshire under John Cockcroft. May 21 – Manhattan Project physicist Louis Slotin accidentally triggers a fission reaction at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and gives himself a lethal dose of hard radiation, making him the second victim of a criticality accident in history. The BBGKY hierarchy of equations for s-particle distribution functions is applied to the derivation of kinetic equations by Nikolay Bogolyubov in a paper received in July 1945 and published in 1946 in RussianN. N. Bogoliubov Kinetic Equations Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics 16 8 691–702 1946 and in English.N. N. Bogoliubov Kinetic Equations Journal of Physics USSR 10 3 265–274 1946 The related kinetic transport theory is considered by John Gamble Kirkwood in a paperJohn G. Kirkwood The Statistical Mechanical Theory of Transport Processes I. General Theory Journal of Chemical Physics 14 3 180 March 1946 10.1063/1.1724117 1946JChPh..14..180K received in October 1945 and published in March 1946. The first paper by Max Born and Herbert S. Green considering a general kinetic theory of liquids is received in February 1946 and published on 31 December 1946.M. Born H. S. Green A General Kinetic Theory of Liquids I. The Molecular Distribution Functions Proceedings of the Royal Society A 188 10–18 31 December 1946 1946RSPSA.188...10B 10.1098/rspa.1946.0093 Technology July 24 – First Martin-Baker ejection seat live-tested from a jet aircraft over England.http://www.martin-baker.com/Products/Ejection-Seats/Mk--1-to-Mk--9/Mk--1.aspx Mk. 1 https://web.archive.org/web/20110714042715/http://www.martin-baker.com/Products/Ejection-Seats/Mk--1-to-Mk--9/Mk--1.aspx 2011-07-14 Martin-Baker dead 2012-10-31 2011-07-14 Awards Nobel Prizes"Nobel Laureates 1946." https://web.archive.org/web/20100109135254/http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/lists/1946.html 2010-01-09 Nobelprize. Physics – Percy Williams Bridgman Chemistry – James B. Sumner, John Howard Northrop, Wendell Meredith Stanley Medicine – Hermann Joseph Muller Births February 26 – Ahmed Zewail (died 2016), Egyptian-born "father of femtochemistry", recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry May 10 – Biruté Galdikas (died 2026), German-born Canadian primatologist May 11 – Robert Jarvik (died 2025), American co-inventor of the Jarvik-7 artificial heart June 13 – Paul L. Modrich, American biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry June 24 – Ellison Onizuka (killed 1986), American astronaut July 2 – Richard Axel, American physiologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine August 2 – Nigel Hitchin, English mathematician August 5 – Shirley Ann Jackson, African American physicist August 11 – Marilyn vos Savant, American polymath September 7 – Francisco Varela (died 2001), Chilean-born biologist and philosopher September 8 – Aziz Sancar, Turkish biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry September 9 – Adrian Smith, English statistician, President of the Royal Society September 28 – Morinobu Endo, Japanese chemist October 14 – Kay Redfield Jamison, American clinical psychologist October 17 – Carol Dweck, American social psychologist October 29 – Peter Barnes, English respiratory scientist December 31 – Roy Porter (died 2002), English medical historian Faiza Al-Kharafi, Kuwaiti electrochemist Deaths March 8 – Frederick W. Lanchester (born 1868), English automotive engineer. March 23 – Gilbert N. Lewis (born 1875), American chemist; first to isolate deuterium. March 26 – Gerhard Heilman (born 1859), Danish paleo-ornithologist. May 2 – Simon Flexner (born 1863), American pathologist and bacteriologist. June 14 – John Logie Baird (born 1888), Scottish-born inventor. August 13 – H. G. Wells (born 1866), English novelist and scientific populariser. September 16 – James Jeans (born 1877), English mathematician and scientist. October 2 – Ignacy Mościcki (born 1867), chemist and President of Poland. October 4 – Barney Oldfield (born 1878), American automobile racer. December 2 – Hilda Lyon (born 1896), English aeronautical engineer. Israel Aharoni (born 1882), Russian-born Jewish zoologist. References 35em Category:20th century in science Category:1940s in science