1956 in science
From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
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The year 1956 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.
Contents
Biology
- March – Denham Harman proposes the free-radical theory of aging.[1]
- Wesley K. Whitten reports developing eight-cell mouse ova to blastocyst stage in vitro.[2]
Climatology
- May – Gilbert Plass publishes his seminal article "The Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climate Change".[3]
Computer science
- September 13 – The hard disk drive is invented by an IBM team led by Reynold B. Johnson.
Mathematics
- December – Martin Gardner begins his Mathematical Games column in Scientific American.
Medicine
- May 1 – Minamata disease epidemic is identified in Japan.
- November – The classic definition of obesity hypoventilation syndrome is published.[4]
- Asian flu pandemic originates in China.
Physics
- Existence of the antineutrino is experimentally confirmed by the Cowan–Reines neutrino experiment carried out by Clyde L. Cowan and Frederick Reines.[5]
- Existence of the antineutron is experimentally confirmed by University of California, Berkeley physicist Bruce Cork.
- DIDO heavy water enriched uranium nuclear reactor begins operation at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment, Harwell, Oxfordshire.
- November 15 – Cooper pairs are first described by Leon Cooper.[6]
Psychology
- January 1 – Leon Festinger, Henry W. Riecken and Stanley Schachter's book When Prophecy Fails provides a classic study of disconfirmed expectancy.
Technology
- April 14 – 2-inch quadruplex videotape, the first practical and commercially successful analog recording videotape format, is released for the broadcast television industry by Ampex of Redwood City, California.[7][8]
- August 27 – Calder Hall nuclear power station in England is first connected to the National Grid. This Magnox plant is the world's first nuclear power plant to deliver electricity in commercial quantities.[9] Official opening is on October 17.[10]
- November 11 – First flight of Convair B-58, the first supersonic jet bomber capable of Mach 2 flight,[11] designed by Robert H. Widmer.
- First Chamberlin electro-mechanical keyboard instrument, developed and patented by Wisconsin inventor Harry Chamberlin, is introduced.[12]
Awards
Births
- April 16 – David M. Brown (died 2003), American astronaut.
- April 19 – Anne Glover, Scottish biologist.
- May 20 – Marlene Zuk, American biologist.
- October 19 – Carlo Urbani (died 2003), Italian physician, discoverer of SARS.
Deaths
- February 3 – Émile Borel (born 1871), French mathematician.
- March 17 – Irène Joliot-Curie (born 1897), French radiochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
- March 22 – George Sarton (born 1884), Belgian American historian of science.
- August 25 – Alfred Kinsey (born 1894), American biologist, professor of entomology and zoology, and sexologist who founded the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University (Bloomington).
- September 22 – Frederick Soddy (born 1877), English radiochemist.
- October 30 – María Teresa Ferrari (born 1887), Argentine physician.
- November 10 – Henry Luke Bolley (born 1865), American plant pathologist.
References
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