1979 in science

none 1979 science 1979 The year 1979 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below. Astronomy and space exploration February 7 – Pluto enters a 20-year period inside the orbit of Neptune for the first time in 230 years. March 7 – The largest magnetar (soft gamma repeater) event is recorded. July 11 – America's first space station, Skylab, is deliberately allowed to burn up on atmospheric entry over the Indian Ocean due to its decaying orbit and the lack of time to build a new spaceship to boost it up. September 1 – The American Pioneer 11 becomes the first spacecraft to visit Saturn when it passes the planet at a distance of 21,000 km. December 24 – The maiden launch of Ariane 1, the first rocket in the Ariane launcher family. Amateur Achievement Award of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific given for the first time. Biology Arthur William Baden Powell publishes New Zealand Mollusca. The Australian night parrot is sighted for the first time since 1912. Computer science May 8 - Radio Shack releases TRSDOS 2.3 VisiCalc becomes the first spreadsheet program. The US Federal Government releases the initial, draft version of Ada (programming language), a strongly typed, comb-structured language with exception handlers, for embedded systems. Conservation April 5 – First stage of Kakadu National Park declared in Australia. Earth sciences The RISE project first discovers hydrothermal vents known as 'black smokers', on a mid-ocean ridge in the Pacific Ocean. History of science Robert Gwyn Macfarlane publishes Howard Florey: The Making of a Great Scientist. Mathematics 'Monstrous moonshine': John Conway and Simon P. Norton prove there is a connection between the Monster group M and the j-function in number theory.Monstrous Moonshine Bulletin of the London Mathematical Society 11 308–339 1979 10.1112/blms/11.3.308 Conway J. H. Norton S. P. 3 The first modern Sudoku, known as Number Place, appears in Dell Pencil Puzzles and Word Games (United States), devised by Howard Garns.http://www.maa.org/editorial/mathgames/mathgames_09_05_05.html Ed Pegg Jr.'s Math Games: Sudoku Variations 2006-10-03 Pegg Ed Jr. 2005-09-15 MAA Online The Mathematical Association of America Medicine August – The eating disorder Bulimia nervosa is first described and named by British psychiatrist Gerald Russell.Russell Gerald Bulimia nervosa: an ominous variant of anorexia nervosa Psychological Medicine 9 3 429–48 August 1979 482466 10.1017/S0033291700031974 23973384 Palmer Robert Bulimia nervosa: 25 years on British Journal of Psychiatry 185 6 447–8 December 2004 15572732 10.1192/bjp.185.6.447 free 2381/16426 free December 9 – The World Health Organization certifies the global eradication of smallpox.Smallpox WHO Factsheet https://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/smallpox/en/ 2007-09-22 dead https://web.archive.org/web/20070921235036/http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/smallpox/en/ 2007-09-21 The last naturally occurring cases of polio are reported in the United States. Tumor protein p53 is identified by Lionel Crawford, David Lane, Arnold J. Levine and Lloyd J. Old. Paleontology Dinosaur eggs found in the Two Medicine Formation of Montana. Technology March 1 – Philips publicly demonstrate a prototype of an optical digital audio disc at a press conference in Eindhoven, Netherlands. June 12 – Human-powered aircraft Gossamer Albatross, built by an American team led by Paul MacCready and piloted by Bryan Allen, makes a successful crossing of the English Channel to win the second Kremer prize. First sale of Post-It Notes in Boise, Idaho. Awards Nobel Prizes Physics – Sheldon Glashow, Abdus Salam, Steven Weinberg Chemistry – Herbert C. Brown, Georg Wittig Medicine – Allan M. Cormack, Godfrey N. Hounsfield Turing Award – Kenneth E. Iverson Births June 29 – Artur Avila, Brazilian-born mathematician. Deaths January – Oscar H. Banker (b. 1895), Armenian American inventor. March 11 – Noël Poynter (b. 1908), English medical historian. March 17 – Henry Aaron Hill (b. 1915), American fluorocarbon chemist, first African American president of the American Chemical Society. April 5 – Eugène Gabritschevsky (b. 1893), Russian biologist and artist. May 6 – Karl Wilhelm Reinmuth (b. 1892), German astronomer. June 1 – Werner Forssmann (b. 1904), German physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. October 10 – Guido Fanconi (b. 1892), Swiss pediatrician. October 12 – Katharine Burr Blodgett (b. 1898), American physicist and chemist. October 30 – Sir Barnes Wallis (b. 1887), English aeronautical engineer. December 4 – Walther Müller (b. 1905), German-born American physicist December 7 – Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (b. 1900), English-born American astronomer and astrophysicist.The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers 2007 Springer 9780387304007 New York References Category:20th century in science Category:1970s in science