1948 in science
From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
|
|||
---|---|---|---|
|
The year 1948 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.
Contents
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.[1][2]
- October 5 – Delegates to a conference organised by Sir Julian Huxley at Fontainebleau agree to formation of the International Union for Conservation of Nature.[3]
- November 20 – The 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.
- Publication of Fairfield Osborne's Our Plundered Planet, a Malthusian critique of human environmental destruction.[4][5]
Computer science
- June 21 – World's first working program run on an electronic stored-program computer, the Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine ("Baby") (written by Tom Kilburn).[6]
- July–October – Claude E. Shannon publishes "A Mathematical Theory of Communication" in Bell System Technical Journal, regarded as a foundation of information theory,[7] introducing the concept of Shannon entropy and adopting the term Bit.
History of science
- December 17 – The original Wright Flyer goes on display in the Smithsonian Institution.
Medicine and human sciences
- 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.[8]
- August 30 – Russian scientist Victor Skumin[9] first describes "cardioprosthetic psychopathological syndrome",[10] later known as Skumin syndrome,[11] a form of anxiety suffered by recipients of artificial heart valves.
- In psychology, Bertram Forer demonstrates the Forer effect (that people tend to accept generalised descriptions of personality as uniquely applicable to themselves).
- Kinsey Report, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, is published in the United States.
- 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.[12]
- Herbert Fröhlich makes a key breakthrough in understanding superconductivity, at the University of Liverpool.[13]
Technology
- June 18 – Columbia Records unveil the LP records developed by Peter Goldmark of CBS Laboratories.[14][15][16]
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
Births
- March 9 – László Lovász, Hungarian computer scientist.
- April 18 – Yasumasa Kanada, Japanese mathematician.
- June 13 – Nina L. Etkin (died 2009), American anthropologist and biologist.
- June 28 – Kenneth Alan Ribet, American mathematician.
- August 25 – Nicholas A. Peppas, Greek chemical and biomedical engineer.
- August 29 – Robert S. Langer, American biomedical engineer.
- September 2 – Christa McAuliffe, born Sharon Christa Corrigan (died 1986), American astronaut.
- October 29 – Frans de Waal, Dutch primatologist.
- December 30 – Randy Schekman, American cell biologist, winner 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
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.