1962 in science

none thumb|Light Emitting Diodes, or LEDs 1962 science 1962 The year 1962 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below. Astronomy and space exploration January 26 – The Ranger 3 space probe is launched to study the Moon, but later misses it by 22,000 miles. February 4–5 – During a new moon and total solar eclipse, an extremely rare grand conjunction of the classical planets occurs, including all five of the naked-eye planets plus the Sun and Moon, all within 16° of each another on the ecliptic. February 19 – Penumbral lunar eclipse. February 20 – Mercury program: While aboard Friendship 7, John Glenn orbits the Earth three times in 4 hours, 55 minutes, becoming the first American to do so. April 26 The Ranger 4 spacecraft crashes into the Moon. It is also the first spacecraft to impact the far side of the Moon.Discussion Space Policy 14 1 1998 5–8 10.1016/S0265-9646(97)00038-6 1998SpPol..14....5. First successful launch of a Zenit reconnaissance satellite, Kosmos 4, by the Soviet Union (although few satisfactory photographs are obtained on this mission).http://www.astronautix.com/craft/zenit2.htm Zenit-2 Wade Mark Encyclopedia Astronautica 2025-07-13 dead https://web.archive.org/web/20120523064141/http://www.astronautix.com/craft/zenit2.htm 2012-05-23 Wayback Machine May 24 – Mercury program: Scott Carpenter becomes the second American to orbit the Earth aboard Aurora 7. July 17 – Penumbral lunar eclipse. July 11 – First live transatlantic television broadcast from the United States to Britain, via AT&T's Telstar, the world's first active, direct relay communications satellite (launched the previous day on a NASA Delta rocket from Cape Canaveral) and Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station.The First Transatlantic Satellite Relay https://web.archive.org/web/20110723002418/http://www.tvhistory.btinternet.co.uk/html/telstar.html 2011-07-23 http://www.tvhistory.btinternet.co.uk/html/telstar.html British TV History 2012-01-10 July 22 – Mariner program: The Mariner 1 spacecraft flies erratically several minutes after launch and has to be destroyed. July 31 – Annular solar eclipse. August 5 – 3C 273, the first object to be identified as a quasar, is found by John Bolton with the radio telescope at the Parkes Observatory in New South Wales.Brad Collis Fields of Discovery: Australia's CSIRO https://archive.org/details/fieldsdiscoverya00coll_879 limited Allen & Unwin 2002 391 2002fdac.book.....C August 15 – Penumbral lunar eclipse. September 29 – The Canadian Alouette 1, the first satellite built outside the United States or the Soviet Union, is launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. December 14 – Mariner program: The Mariner 2 spacecraft flies by Venus, the first to carry out a successful planetary encounter. Olin Eggen, Donald Lynden-Bell, and Allan Sandage theorize galaxy formation by a single (relatively) rapid monolithic collapse, with the halo forming first, followed by the disk. Biology May 1 – Douglas Harold Copp discovers of the hormone calcitonin.Copp D. Harold Cameron E. C. Cheney Barbara A. Davidson A. George F. Henze K. G. 1962 Evidence for Calcitonin—A New Hormone from the Parathyroid That Lowers Blood Calcium https://academic.oup.com/endo/article-lookup/doi/10.1210/endo-70-5-638 Endocrinology 70 5 638–649 10.1210/endo-70-5-638 13881211 0013-7227 subscription August – The "Hastings Rarities" are exposed as ornithological frauds.In the magazine British Birds. Emile Zuckerkandl and Linus Pauling publish a paper introducing what will become known as the molecular clock concept.Zuckerkandl E. L. Pauling Kasha, M. Pullman, B. Horizons in Biochemistry: Albert Szent-Györgyi dedicatory volume 1962 Academic Press New York 189–225 Molecular Disease, Evolution and Genetic HeterogeneityGregory J. Morgan Emile Zuckerkandl, Linus Pauling, and the Molecular Evolutionary Clock, 1959-1965 Journal of the History of Biology 31 2 1998 155–178 10.1023/A:1004394418084 11620303 5660841 The first nude mouse strain is discovered by N. R. Grist at Ruchill Hospital's Brownlee virology laboratory in Glasgow.Mouse (immunodeficient) http://www.animalresearch.info/en/science/animalsused/mouse-nude AnimalResearch.info 2011-08-04 https://web.archive.org/web/20110904024255/http://www.animalresearch.info/en/science/animalsused/mouse-nude 2011-09-04 deadNMRI Nude Mice http://www.criver.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/NMRI%20nude24.04.07.pdf Charles River 2011-08-04 https://web.archive.org/web/20111001044057/http://www.criver.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/NMRI%20nude24.04.07.pdf 2011-10-01 dead The Neuroscience Research Program (NRP) is established by Francis O. Schmitt et al.http://newsoffice.mit.edu/1995/obit-schmitt Francis O. Schmitt, pioneer in molecular biology and neuroscience, dies at 91 1995-10-04 Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT News 2017-06-19 Computer science May – J. C. R. Licklider of BBN co-presents a paper on "On-Line Man-Computer Communication". August – J. C. R. Licklider begins to refer to the Intergalactic Computer Network, effectively conceptualizing what will become the Internet. September 19 – The first ICT 1301 business mainframe sold, "Flossie", is installed at Senate House (University of London). It will still be operable 50 years later.The ICT 1301 Resurrection Project http://ict1301.co.uk/1301ccsx.htm 2012-09-29 October – J. C. R. Licklider becomes the first head of the computer research program at the United States Department of Defense's ARPA, which he names the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO). November 3 – The earliest recorded use of the term "personal computer" features in The New York Times in a story about John Mauchly's speech the day before to the American Institute of Industrial Engineers. Mauchly, "inventor of some of the original room-size computers", says that "in a decade or so" everyone would have their own computer with "exchangeable wafer-thin data storage files to provide inexhaustible memories and answer most problems". He is quoted as saying, "There is no reason to suppose the average boy or girl cannot be master of a personal computer."Pocket Computer May Replace Shopping List The New York Times 1962-11-03 December 7 – The Atlas supercomputer, the most powerful in the world at this date, is dedicated at the University of Manchester in England. It is the first system designed for multiprogramming, and will be in use for the next decade.Atlas Milestones in Computer Science and Information Technology Edwin D. Reilly Greenwood Publishing 2003 20 December 28 – Mauchly is again reported as saying he "envisions a time when everyone will carry his own personal computer".1962-12-28 Computers for All Hillsboro (Ohio) Press-Gazette http://www.firstmention.com/pc/ 2012-01-10 https://archive.today/20131213095753/http://www.firstmention.com/pc/ 2013-12-13 dead At MIT, Ivan Sutherland uses the TX-2 computer to write Sketchpad, the origin of graphical programs used for computer-aided design. Roger Tomlinson leads development of the Canada Geographic Information System, the world's first geographic information system (GIS). Simula I, the first object-oriented programming language, developed at the Norwegian Computing Center in Oslo by Ole-Johan Dahl and Kristen Nygaard, is released.Kristen Nygaard and Ole-Johan Dahl. 1978. The development of the SIMULA languages. History of programming languages. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, USA, 439–480. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/800025.1198392 Ecology June – Rachel Carson's Silent Spring begins serialization in The New Yorker; it is released as a book on September 27. History of science Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is published in the United States. Medicine November – English orthopedic surgeon John Charnley makes the first successful whole hip replacement operation using a high molecular weight polyethylene (HMWP) socket, at Wrightington Hospital, Wigan.Waugh William Springer-Verlag London 1990 John Charnley: The Man and the Hip 978-3-540-19587-0 122–4 James W. Black synthesises propranolol, the first beta blocker (used for regulation of angina pectoris), which becomes the world's best-selling drug.Stapleton Melanie P. 1997 Sir James Black and Propranolol Texas Heart Institute Journal 24 4 336–342 325477 94564872005 http://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/83/8325/8325tagamet.html "anTAGonist" and "ciMETidine" American Chemical Society 2005-12-25https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/medicine-obituaries/7507080/Sir-James-Black-OM.html Sir James Black, OM 23 March 2010 The Daily Telegraph London 2011-08-05http://www.theage.com.au/world/led-the-way-in-heart-drug-find-20100324-qwo8.html Led the way in heart drug find 25 March 2010 The Age 2010-03-25 Melbourne Joseph Murray performs the first permanent cadaveric kidney transplantation.Calixto Machado The first organ transplant from a brain-dead donor Neurology 2005 64 1938–42 11 10.1212/01.wnl.0000163515.09793.cb 15955947 11058683 Nodding disease is first documented, in southern Tanzania.African outbreak stumps experts Wadman Meredith 2011-07-13 Nature 475 7355 148–149 10.1038/475148a 21753824 free Wade-Dahl-Till valve, a cerebral shunt, is developed by hydraulic engineer Stanley Wade, author Roald Dahl and neurosurgeon Kenneth Till. Physics The muon neutrino is discovered by Leon M. Lederman.https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/03/science/leon-lederman-died-particle-accelerators.html Leon Lederman, 96, Explorer (and Explainer) of the Subatomic World, Dies The New York Times 2018-10-03 Johnson George Psychology Stanley Schachter and Jerome E. Singer propose their two-factor theory of emotion.Schachter S. Singer J. 1962 Cognitive, Social, and Physiological Determinants of Emotional State Psychological Review 69 5 379–399 10.1037/h0046234 14497895 Technology October – The first practical visible-spectrum (red) light-emitting diode is developed by Nick Holonyak Jr., while working at the General Electric Company in Syracuse, New York.Nick Holonyak S. F. Bevacqua Coherent (Visible) Light Emission from Ga(As1−xPx) Junctions Applied Physics Letters 1962-12-01 1 4 82–3 http://apl.aip.org/resource/1/applab/v1/i4/p82_s1 10.1063/1.1753706 1962ApPhL...1...82H 2012-10-10 2013-02-23 https://archive.today/20130223084736/http://apl.aip.org/resource/1/applab/v1/i4/p82_s1 dead subscriptionLED at 50: An illuminating history by the light's inventor https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19886534 2012-10-10 2012-10-10 BBC News The New Austrian Tunnelling method is so named.Golser, Johann. The New Austrian Tunneling Method (NATM): Theoretical Background & Practical Experiences. 2nd Shotcrete conference, Easton (USA), 4–8 October 1976. Awards Fields Prize in Mathematics: Lars Hörmander and John Milnor Nobel Prizes Physics – Lev Davidovich Landau Chemistry – Max Ferdinand Perutz, John Cowdery Kendrew Medicine – Francis Harry Compton Crick, James Dewey Watson, Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins6 Women Scientists Who Were Snubbed Due to Sexism https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/5/130519-women-scientists-overlooked-dna-history-science/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190903184929/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/5/130519-women-scientists-overlooked-dna-history-science/ dead September 3, 2019 National Geographic 19 January 2021 Peace – Linus Pauling Maxwell Medal and Prize of the Institute of Physics (first award): Abdus Salam Births April 27 – Edvard Moser, Norwegian neuroscientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. April – Sarah Gilbert, English vaccinologist. May 17 – Ferenc Krausz, Hungarian-born attosecond physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics. June 18 – Lisa Randall, American theoretical physicist. June 29 – George D. Zamka, American astronaut. September 20 – Jim Al-Khalili, Iraqi-born British theoretical physicist and science communicator. October 6 – David Baker, American biochemist and computational biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Michele Dougherty, South African-born space physicist. Deaths February 19 – Georgios Papanikolaou (born 1883), Greek American inventor of the Pap smear. March 15 – Arthur Compton (born 1892), American physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics. March 19 – Samuel Cate Prescott (born 1872), American food scientist and microbiologist. March 24 – Auguste Piccard (born 1884), Swiss physicist and explorer. April 27 – Willem Karel Dicke (born 1905), Dutch pediatrician. May 13 – Henry Trendley Dean (born 1893), American dental researcher. July 28 – Natan Yavlinsky (born 1912), Russian nuclear physicist, in aviation accident. July 29 – Ronald Fisher (born 1890), English-born statistician and geneticist. November 5 – Paul Lester Errington (born 1902), American conservationist. November 18 – Niels Bohr (born 1885), Danish physicist. December 20 – Emil Artin (born 1898), Austrian-born mathematician. December 24 – Wilhelm Ackermann (born 1896), German mathematician. References 33em Category:20th century in science Category:1960s in science