1979 in science
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The year 1979 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.
Contents |
Astronomy and space exploration[edit]
- February 7 – Pluto enters a 20-year period inside the orbit of Neptune for the first time in 230 years.
- March 7 – The largest Magnetar (Soft gamma repeater) event is recorded.
- September 1 – The American Pioneer 11 becomes the first spacecraft to visit Saturn when it passes the planet at a distance of 21,000 km.
- Amateur Achievement Award of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific given for the first time.
Biology[edit]
- Baden Powell publishes New Zealand Mollusca.
Computer science[edit]
- VisiCalc becomes the first spreadsheet program.
- The US Federal Government releases the initial, draft version of Ada (programming language), a strongly typed, comb-structured language with exception handlers, for embedded systems.
Mathematics[edit]
- 'Monstrous moonshine': John Conway and Simon P. Norton prove there is a connection between the Monster group M and the j-function in number theory.[1]
- The first modern Sudoku, known as Number Place, appears in Dell Pencil Puzzles and Word Games (United States), devized by Howard Garns.[2]
Medicine[edit]
- August – The eating disorder Bulimia nervosa is first described and named by British psychiatrist Gerald Russell.[3][4]
- The last naturally occurring cases of Polio are reported in the United States.
- The World Health Organization certifies the global eradication of smallpox.[5]
Technology[edit]
- June 12 – Human-powered aircraft Gossamer Albatross, built by an American team led by Paul MacCready and piloted by Bryan Allen, makes a successful crossing of the English Channel to win the second Kremer prize.
Awards[edit]
Births[edit]
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Deaths[edit]
- January – Oscar H. Banker (b. 1895), Armenian American inventor.
- April 5 – Eugène Gabritschevsky (b. 1893), Russian biologist and artist.
- May 6 – Karl Wilhelm Reinmuth (b. 1892), German astronomer.
- September 26 – Sir Barnes Wallis (b. 1887), English aeronautical engineer.
References[edit]
- ^ "Monstrous Moonshine". Bulletin of the London Mathematical Society 11: 308–339. 1979.
- ^ Pegg, Ed, Jr. (2005-09-15). "Ed Pegg Jr.'s Math Games: Sudoku Variations". MAA Online. The Mathematical Association of America. Retrieved 2006-10-03.
- ^ Russell, Gerald (August 1979). "Bulimia nervosa: an ominous variant of anorexia nervosa" (PDF). Psychological Medicine 9 (3): 429–48. doi:10.1017/S0033291700031974. PMID 482466. Retrieved 2012-04-10.
- ^ Palmer, Robert (December 2004). "Bulimia nervosa: 25 years on". British Journal of Psychiatry 185 (6): 447–8. doi:10.1192/bjp.185.6.447. PMID 15572732. Retrieved 2012-04-10.
- ^ "Smallpox". WHO Factsheet. Retrieved 2007-09-22.
