1950 in science
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The year 1950 in science and technology included some significant events.
Contents |
[edit] Astronomy and space sciences
- Dutch astronomer Jan Oort postulates the existence of an orbiting cloud of planets (the Oort cloud) at the outermost edge of the Solar System.[1]
[edit] Biology
- Melvin Calvin, James Bassham, and Andrew Benson at the University of California, Berkeley, discover the Calvin cycle in photosynthesis.[2]
- Entomologist Willi Hennig publishes Grundzüge einer Theorie der phylogenetischen Systematik in East Germany, pioneering the study of cladistics.
- Full-scale release of myxomatosis for control of the Australian rabbit population.
[edit] Chemistry
- February 9 - Californium, a radioactive actinide transuranium element, is first synthesized by Stanley G. Thompson, Kenneth Street, Jr., Albert Ghiorso and Glenn T. Seaborg at the University of California, Berkeley.[3][4][5]
[edit] Computer science
- March - Publication of Claude Shannon's paper "Programming a Computer for Playing Chess", seminal in the development of computer chess and introducing the Shannon number.[6]
- April - Publication of Richard Hamming's paper "Error detecting and error correcting codes", seminal in the construction of error detection and correction codes.[7][8]
- October - Publication of Alan Turing's paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence", seminal in the study of artificial intelligence and presenting the Turing test.[9][10]
[edit] Mathematics
- John Forbes Nash, Jr. proposes the Nash equilibrium in game theory, initially in his Princeton doctoral thesis.[11][12][13]
- The prisoner's dilemma is framed by Merrill Flood and Melvin Dresher at RAND and formalized and named by Albert W. Tucker.[14]
[edit] Medicine
- October - Australian-born British thoracic surgeon Norman Barrett describes the condition which will become known as Barrett's oesophagus.[15]
- December 11 - The typical antipsychotic Chlorpromazine is first synthesized.
- Antihistamine discovered.
- An external artificial pacemaker is developed by John A. Hopps in conjunction with Wilfred Gordon Bigelow at Toronto General Hospital.
[edit] Physics
- John Ward derives the Ward–Takahashi identity in quantum field theory.[16]
[edit] Technology
- Canadians Harry Wasylyk, Larry Hansen and Frank Plomp introduce the plastic bin bag for garbage collection.[17]
[edit] Events
- J. Z. Young delivers the BBC Reith Lectures on Doubt and Certainty in Science, introducing the radio audience to current developments in neurophysiology.
[edit] Awards
- Fields Prize in Mathematics (first postwar award): Laurent Schwartz and Atle Selberg
- Nobel Prizes
[edit] Births
- May 16 - J. Georg Bednorz, physicist, Nobel Prize in physics 1987
- October 21 - Ronald McNair (died 1986), astronaut
- November 1 - Robert B. Laughlin, physicist, Nobel prize in physics 1998
[edit] Deaths
- February 25 - George Minot (born 1885), American physician, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1934
- April 28 - Oakes Ames (born 1874), American botanist.
- September 21 - Arthur Milne (born 1896), British space physicist
- December 11 - Leslie Comrie (born 1893), New Zealand astronomer and computing pioneer.
[edit] References
- ^ Oort, Jan (1950). "The structure of the cloud of comets surrounding the Solar System and a hypothesis concerning its origin". Bulletin of the Astronomical Institutes of the Netherlands 11: 91–110. Bibcode 1950BAN....11...91O.
- ^ Bassham, J.; Benson, A.; Calvin, M. (1950). "The path of carbon in photosynthesis". Journal of Biological Chemistry 185 (2): 781–7. PMID 14774424. http://www.jbc.org/cgi/reprint/185/2/781.pdf.
- ^ Thompson, S. G.; Street, Jr. K.; Ghiorso, A.; Seaborg, G. T. (1950). "Element 98". Physical Review 78 (3): 298. Bibcode 1950PhRv...78..298T. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.78.298.2. http://escholarship.org/uc/item/44g7z6hk.
- ^ Thompson, S. G.; Street, Jr. K.; Ghiorso, A.; Seaborg, G. T. (1950). "The New Element Californium (Atomic Number 98)" (PDF). Physical Review 80 (5): 790. Bibcode 1950PhRv...80..790T. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.80.790. http://www.osti.gov/accomplishments/documents/fullText/ACC0050.pdf.
- ^ Street, K., Jr.; Thompson, S. G.; Seaborg, G. T. (1950). "Chemical Properties of Californium" (PDF). Journal of the American Chemical Society 72 (10): 4832. doi:10.1021/ja01166a528. http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA319899&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf.
- ^ Shannon, Claude E. (March 1950). "Programming a Computer for Playing Chess". Philosophical Magazine 41 (314): 256–75. http://archive.computerhistory.org/projects/chess/related_materials/text/2-0%20and%202-1.Programming_a_computer_for_playing_chess.shannon/2-0%20and%202-1.Programming_a_computer_for_playing_chess.shannon.062303002.pdf. Retrieved 2012-01-20.
- ^ Hamming, R. W. (April 1950). "Error detecting and error correcting codes" (PDF). Bell System Technical Journal 29 (2): 147–160. http://www.lee.eng.uerj.br/~gil/redesII/hamming.pdf. Retrieved 2012-05-12.
- ^ O'Connor, J. J.; Robertson, E. F. (January 2012). "Richard Wesley Hamming". MacTutor History of Mathematics archive. University of St Andrews. http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Hamming.html. Retrieved 2012-05-12.
- ^ Turing, A. M. (October 1950). "Computing Machinery and Intelligence". Mind 59 (236): 433–60. doi:10.1093/mind/LIX.236.433. http://loebner.net/Prizef/TuringArticle.html. Retrieved 2011-11-28.
- ^ Epstein, Robert; Roberts, Gary; Beber, Grace, eds. (2009). Parsing the Turing Test: Philosophical and Methodological Issues in the Quest for the Thinking Computer. New York: Kluwer. ISBN 978-1-4020-6708-2.
- ^ Osborne, M. J. (2004), An Introduction to Game Theory, Oxford University Press, p. 23
- ^ Nash, J. F. (1950). "Equilibrium Points in N-person Games". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 36 (1): 48–9. doi:10.1073/pnas.36.1.48. PMC 1063129. PMID 16588946. http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/36/1/48. MR0031701.
- ^ Nash, J. F. (1950). "The Bargaining Problem". Econometrica (18): 155–62. MR0035977.
- ^ Poundstone, William (1992). Prisoner's Dilemma. New York: Doubleday. ISBN 0385415672.
- ^ Barrett, N. R. (October 1950). "Chronic Peptic Ulcer of the Œsophagus and 'Œsophagitis'" (PDF). British Journal of Surgery 38 (150): 175–82. doi:10.1002/bjs.18003815005. PMID 14791960. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bjs.18003815005/pdf. Retrieved 2012-02-08.
- ^ Ward, J. C. (1950). "An identity in quantum electrodynamics". Physical Review 78: 182. Bibcode 1950PhRv...78..182W. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.78.182. http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRev.78.182.
- ^ "The Greatest Canadian Invention". CBC Television. http://www.cbc.ca/inventions/inventions.html?inventionID=21.[dead link]
