1978 in science

List of years in science       (table)
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Art . Archaeology . Architecture . Literature . Music . Science +...

The year 1978 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Computer science

• February 16 – The first computer bulletin board system is created (CBBS in Chicago, Illinois).
• The RSA algorithm for public-key cryptography, based on the factoring problem, is first publicly described by Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir and Leonard Adleman.

Geophysics

• James Byerlee determines Byerlee's law which gives the stress circumstances in the Earth's crust at which fracturing along a geological fault takes place.

History of science

• October 17 – James Burke's history of science series Connections first airs, on BBC Television in the United Kingdom (with accompanying book).

Awards

• Fields Prize in Mathematics: Pierre Deligne, Charles Fefferman, Grigory Margulis and Daniel Quillen
• Nobel Prizes
  • Physics – Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa, Arno Allan Penzias, Robert Woodrow Wilson
  • Chemistry – Peter D. Mitchell
  • Medicine – Werner Arber, Daniel Nathans, Hamilton O. Smith
• Turing Award – Robert Floyd

Deaths

• January 14 – Kurt Gödel (b. 1906), American mathematician.
• March 9 – Gaston Julia (b. 1893), French mathematician.
• March 23 – Haim Ernst Wertheimer (b. 1893) Jewish biochemist.
• March 31 – Charles Best (b. 1899), Canadian medical scientist.
• July 22 – André Chapelon (b. 1892), French steam locomotive designer.
• September 15 – Willy Messerschmitt (b. 1898), German aircraft engineer.
• November 15 – Margaret Mead (b. 1901), American cultural anthropologist.