1945 in science

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The year 1945 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Biology

• Salvador Edward Luria and Alfred Day Hershey independently recognize that viruses undergo mutations.

Chemistry

• A team at Oak Ridge National Laboratory led by Charles Coryell discovers chemical element 61, the only one still missing between 1 and 96 on the periodic table, which they will name promethium.
• Dorothy Hodgkin and C. H. (Harry) Carlisle publish the first three-dimensional molecular structure of a steroid, cholesteryl iodide.

Trinity nuclear test

Computer science

• June 30 - Distribution of John von Neumann's First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC, containing the first published description of the logical design of a computer with stored-program and instruction data stored in the same address space within the memory (von Neumann architecture).
• November - Assembly of the world's first general purpose electronic computer, the Electronic Numerical Integrator Analyzer and Computer (ENIAC), is completed, covering 1800 feet of floor space, and the first set of calculations is run on it.

Medicine

• The Amsler grid is introduced for monitoring of the central visual field.

Meteorology

• High-altitude west-to-east winds across Pacific, discovered by Japanese in 1942 and by Americans in 1944, are dubbed "jet stream".

Physics

• July 16 - Nuclear testing: The Trinity test, the first test of an atomic bomb, using 6 kilograms of plutonium, succeeds in detonating an explosion equivalent to that of 20 kilotons of TNT.
• August 6 & 9 - Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki make the world aware of the power of nuclear weapons.
• August 11 - Smyth Report released by the United States government, informing the public of the basics of nuclear fission and its military and civilian applications, and emphasizing the role played by physics in the development of the atomic bomb.

Events

• Kathleen Lonsdale and Marjory Stephenson become the first women elected as Fellows of the Royal Society of London.

Awards

• Nobel Prizes
  • Physics - Wolfgang Pauli
  • Chemistry - Artturi Ilmari Virtanen
  • Medicine - Sir Alexander Fleming, Ernst Boris Chain, Sir Howard Walter Florey

Births

• April 11 - John Krebs, English zoologist.
• April 30 - Michael J. Smith (died 1986), astronaut.

Deaths

• March 23 - Napier Shaw (born 1854), English meteorologist.
• August 4 - Gerhard Gentzen (born 1909), German mathematician.
• August 10 - Robert Goddard (born 1882), American rocket scientist.
• August 31 - Stefan Banach (born 1892), Polish mathematician.
• October 1 - Walter Bradford Cannon (born 1871), American physiologist.
• September 24 - Hans Geiger (born 1882), German inventor of the Geiger counter.
• December 4 - Thomas Hunt Morgan (born 1866), American biologist.
• December 21/22 - Arthur Korn (born 1870), German-born inventor.