1948 in science
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The year 1948 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.
Contents |
[edit] Biology
- August 7 - Teaching and research in Mendelian genetics is prohbited 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, 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]
[edit] 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] and introducing the concept of Shannon entropy.
[edit] History of science
- December 17 - The original Wright Flyer goes on display in the Smithsonian Institution.
[edit] Medicine and human sciences
- July 5 - The National Health Service begins functioning in the United Kingdom, giving the right to universal healthcare, free at point of use.[8]
- 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.
[edit] Physics
- Herbert Fröhlich makes a key breakthrough in understanding superconductivity, at the University of Liverpool.[9]
[edit] Technology
- June 19 - Columbia Records unveil the LP records developed by Peter Goldmark of CBS Laboratories.[10][11][12]
[edit] Publications
- Publication in Britain of the novel No Highway by former aeronautical engineer Nevil Shute, dealing with the effects of metal fatigue on aircraft.
[edit] Awards
[edit] Births
- March 9 - Laszlo Lovasz, computer scientist.
- April 18 - Yasumasa Kanada, mathematician.
- September 2 - Christa McAuliffe (died 1986), astronaut.
- October 29 - Frans de Waal, primatologist.
[edit] Deaths
- January 30 - Orville Wright (born 1871), American pioneer aviator.
- June 21 - D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson (born 1860), Scottish biologist.
- December 12 - Marjory Stephenson (born 1885), English biochemist.
[edit] References
- ^ Joravsky, David (1970). The Lysenko Affair. Russian Research Center studies, 61. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674539850.
- ^ Cohen, Barry M. (1965). "The descent of Lysenko". The Journal of Heredity 56 (5): 229–233. http://jhered.oxfordjournals.org/content/56/5/229.short.
- ^ Christoffersen, Leif E. (1994). "IUCN: A Bridge-Builder for Nature Conservation". Green Globe YearBook. http://www.fni.no/YBICED/97_04_christoffersen.pdf. Retrieved 2011-11-02.
- ^ Netzley, Patricia (1999). Environmental Literature. California: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 1-57607-000-X.
- ^ Desrochers, Pierre; Hoffbauer, Christine (2009). "The Post War Intellectual Roots of the Population Bomb: Fairfield Osborne's Our Plundered Planet and William Vogt's Road to Survival in retrospect" (PDF). The Electronic Journal of Sustainable Development 1 (3): 73–97. http://www.dpi.inpe.br/sil/cst310/Aula2_fundamentos/THE_POST_WAR_INTELLECTUAL_ROOTS_OF_THE_POPULATION_BOMB_-_FAIRFIELD_OSBORNS_OUR_PLUNDERED_PLANET_AND_WILLIAM_VOGTS_ROAD_TO_SURVIVAL_IN_RETROSPECT.pdf. Retrieved 2011-12-08.
- ^ Enticknap, Nicholas (Summer 1998). "Computing's Golden Jubilee". Resurrection (Computer Conservation Society) (20). ISSN 0958-7403. http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/CCS/res/res20.htm#d. Retrieved 2011-11-25.
- ^ James, Ioan (2009). "Claude Elwood Shannon 30 April 1916 - 24 February 2001". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. pp. 257–265. doi:10.1098/rsbm.2009.0015. http://rsbm.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/55/257. Retrieved 2011-10-11.
- ^ "The Lost Decade Timeline". BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/lostdecade/timeline_html.shtml. Retrieved 2007-09-25.
- ^ "Science Places Liverpool". 2008. http://www.scienceplaces.org/liverpool/liverpool_list.html. Retrieved 2011-03-20.
- ^ Goldmark, Peter (1973). Maverick Inventor: My Turbulent Years at CBS. New York: Saturday Review Press. ISBN 0841500460.
- ^ "Columbia Diskery: CBS Show Microgroove Platters to Press; Tell How It Began". Billboard: 3. June 26, 1948.
- ^ Marmorstein, Gary (2007). The Label: the Story of Columbia Records. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press. p. 165. ISBN 9781560257073.
