1996 in science
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1996 in science |
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The year 1996 in science and technology involved many significant events, listed below.
Astronomy and space exploration
[edit]- January 30 – Comet Hyakutake is discovered.[1]
- February 17 – NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft launched. The craft landed on asteroid 433 Eros in 2001.[2]
- May – First naked-eye observation of Comet Hale-Bopp.[3]
- June 4 – The European Space Agency's Cluster is lost when the maiden flight of the Ariane 5 rocket fails, self-destructing 37 seconds after launch from the Guiana Space Centre because of a software bug in the computer control system.[4]
- October 3 – Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez demonstrate the existence of a supermassive compact object at the centre of our galaxy, later identified as a black hole.[5]
- November 7 – NASA launches the Mars Global Surveyor.[6]
- The second 9.8 m reflecting telescope opens at Keck Observatory, Mauna Kea, Hawaii.[7]
Biology
[edit]- July 5 – Dolly the sheep, the first mammal to be successfully cloned from an adult cell, is born at The Roslin Institute in Scotland.[8]
- August 6 – NASA announces that the Allan Hills 84001 meteorite thought to originate from Mars, may contain evidence of primitive life-forms;[9] further tests are inconclusive.
- The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae's genome is sequenced, the first eukaryotic genome to be fully sequenced.[10]
Chemistry
[edit]- February 9 – Copernicium first created at the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung in Darmstadt, Germany, by Sigurd Hofmann, Victor Ninov and others.[11]
Computer science
[edit]- January
- The Google web search engine originates as "BackRub", a research project using PageRank by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, PhD students at Stanford University, California.[12]
- First USB specification issued.
- January 23 – The first version of the Java programming language is released.[13]
- February 10 – Deep Blue defeats chess grand-master Garry Kasparov for the first time.[14]
- April 3 – Jennifer Ringley becomes an early practitioner of lifecasting (video stream), from her dorm room at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.[15]
- October – The Shetland Times and The Shetland News become involved in a landmark legal case over alleged copyright infringement and deep linking in their websites.[16]
- The page ranking web search engine RankDex is originated by Robin Li.[17][18][19][20]
- Brewster Kahle, with Bruce Gilliat, develops the Wayback Machine software to crawl and archive World Wide Web pages.[21]
- Lov Grover, at Bell Labs, publishes the quantum database search algorithm.[22]
- IRCnet is founded.[23]
Exploration
[edit]- May 23 – Swede Göran Kropp reaches Mount Everest summit alone without oxygen after having bicycled there from Sweden.[24]
Medicine
[edit]- March
- The Cochrane Library launched.[25]
- The role of CCR5 in HIV/AIDS infection begins to be published.[26]
- July 7–12 – XI International AIDS Conference, 1996, Vancouver, reports major advances in the management of HIV/AIDS including combination therapy (the "triple cocktail") using protease inhibitors.[27] Within a week after the conference, over 75,000 patients who have been using antibiotics and chemotherapy as treatment against opportunistic infections begin an effective antiviral regimen which greatly increases their immune system strength and therefore their health.[28]
- New variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease first identified in humans, in the United Kingdom.[29]
- Montreal Cognitive Assessment is created by Ziad Nasreddine in Montreal, Quebec.[30]
- Donepezil (Aricept), a palliative treatment for moderate Alzheimer's disease, is approved in the United States.[31][32][33]
- Sildenafil (Viagra), a treatment for erectile dysfunction, is patented by Pfizer.[34]
Meteorology
[edit]- January 7 – A large blizzard hits the Eastern United States, killing 60.[35]
- May 15 – Severe thunderstorms and a tornado in Bangladesh kills at least 443 people.[36]
- July 18–21 – Storms provoke severe flooding on the Saguenay River in Quebec,[37] in one of Canada's most costly natural disasters.[38]
Philosophy
[edit]- Australian philosopher David Chalmers publishes The Conscious Mind: in search of a fundamental theory.[39]
Technology
[edit]- Zenith introduces the first HDTV-compatible front projection television in the United States. Broadcasters, TV & PC manufacturers set industry standards for digital HDTV.[40]
- APS film format is introduced.[41]
Publications
[edit]- May – Sokal affair: American mathematical physicist Alan Sokal hoaxes the editors into publishing a deliberately nonsensical paper, "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity", in a "science wars" issue of the journal Social Text (Duke University Press)[42] as a critique of the intellectual rigor of postmodernism in academic cultural studies.[43]
- Belgian physical chemist Ilya Prigogine publishes La Fin des certitudes (translated as The End of Certainty: time, chaos, and the new laws of nature).[44]
- French-born archaeologist Denise Schmandt-Besserat publishes How Writing Came About.[45]
Awards
[edit]- Nobel Prize[46]
- Kyoto Prize
- Willard Van Orman Quine is awarded the Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy for his "outstanding contributions to the progress of philosophy in the 20th century by proposing numerous theories based on keen insights in logic, epistemology, philosophy of science and philosophy of language."[47]
- Turing Award for Computing: Amir Pnueli[48]
- Wollaston Medal for Geology: Nicholas John Shackleton[49]
Births
[edit]Deaths
[edit]- January 12 – Bartel Leendert van der Waerden (b. 1903), Dutch mathematician.[51]
- February 20 – Solomon Asch (b. 1907), Polish American social psychologist.[52]
- March 19 – Chen Jingrun (b. 1933), Chinese mathematician.[53]
- March 26 – David Packard (b. 1912), American electrical engineer.[54]
- June 6 – George Davis Snell (b. 1903), American mouse geneticist and basic transplant immunologist.[55]
- June 17 – Thomas Kuhn (b. 1922), American philosopher of science.[56]
- August 1 – Tadeusz Reichstein (b. 1897), Polish-Swiss winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.[57]
- August 9 – Sir Frank Whittle (b. 1907), English aeronautical engineer.[58]
- August 12 – Victor Ambartsumian (b. 1908), Soviet Armenian theoretical astrophysicist.[59]
- September 1 – Karl Kehrle (Brother Adam) (b. 1898), British Benedictine monk and beekeeper.[60]
- September 10 – Hans List (b. 1896), Austrian inventor.[61]
- September 20 – Paul Erdős (b. 1913), Hungarian-born mathematician.[62]
- October 5 – Seymour Cray (b. 1925), American supercomputer architect.[63]
- November 13 – Bobbie Vaile (b. 1959), Australian astrophysicist.[64]
- November 19 – Grace Bates (b. 1914), American mathematician.[65]
- November 21 – Abdus Salam (b. 1926), Punjabi-born winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics.[66]
- December 20 – Carl Sagan (b. 1934), American astronomer.[67]
References
[edit]- ^ "Comet Hyakutake in March 1996". epod.usra.edu. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
- ^ "Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous Shoemaker". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2018-02-20.
- ^ "Hale-Bopp and Hyakutake". www.pbs.org. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
- ^ Gleick, James (1996-12-01). "A Bug and A Crash". New York Times Magazine. Archived from the original on 2012-04-20. Retrieved 2012-04-07.
- ^ Eckart, A.; Genzel, R. (1996). "Observations of stellar proper motions near the Galactic Centre". Nature. 383 (6599): 415. Bibcode:1996Natur.383..415E. doi:10.1038/383415a0. S2CID 4285760.
- ^ "Mars Global Surveyor". mars.nasa.gov. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
- ^ "Keck telescopes". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
- ^ "1997: Dolly the sheep is cloned". BBC News. 22 February 1997. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
- ^ "CNN - Ancient meteorite may point to life on Mars - Aug. 7, 1996". edition.cnn.com. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
- ^ Engel, Stacia R.; Dietrich, Fred S.; Fisk, Dianna G.; Binkley, Gail; Balakrishnan, Rama; Costanzo, Maria C.; Dwight, Selina S.; Hitz, Benjamin C.; Karra, Kalpana; Nash, Robert S.; Weng, Shuai; Wong, Edith D.; Lloyd, Paul; Skrzypek, Marek S.; Miyasato, Stuart R.; Simison, Matt; Cherry, J. Michael (2014). "The Reference Genome Sequence of Saccharomyces cerevisiae: Then and Now". G3. 4 (3): 389–398. doi:10.1534/g3.113.008995. PMC 3962479. PMID 24374639.
- ^ Hofmann, S.; Ninov, V.; Heßberger, F. P.; Armbruster, P.; Folger, H.; Münzenberg, G.; Schött, H. J.; Popeko, A. G.; Yeremin, A. V.; Saro, S.; Janik, R.; Leino, M. (1996). "The new element 112". Zeitschrift für Physik A. 354 (3): 229–230. Bibcode:1996ZPhyA.354..229H. doi:10.1007/BF02769517. S2CID 119975957.
- ^ "Our history in depth". Corporate Information. Retrieved 2012-04-16.
- ^ Davis, Daniel Paul (2015). Hysterically Historical: January II. Booktango. p. 71. ISBN 9781468964226.
- ^ Newborn, Monty (2011). Beyond Deep Blue: Chess in the Stratosphere. Springer Science & Business Media. pp. 7–9. ISBN 9780857293411.
- ^ "Jennicam And The Birth Of 'Lifecasting'". Digg. 13 April 2015. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
- ^ Smartt, Ursula (2014). Media & entertainment law (Second ed.). Abingdon, Oxon: Taylor & Francis. p. 425. ISBN 9781317808169.
- ^ Greenberg, Andy (2009-10-05). "The Man Who's Beating Google". Forbes. Archived from the original on September 22, 2009.
- ^ Yanhong Li (1998). "Toward a qualitative search engine". IEEE Internet Computing. 2 (4): 24–29. doi:10.1109/4236.707687. S2CID 14854613.
- ^ "About RankDex". IDD Information Services. Retrieved 2014-06-04.
- ^ USPTO, "Hypertext Document Retrieval System and Method" Archived 2011-12-05 at the Wayback Machine, US Patent number: 5920859, Inventor: Yanhong Li, Filing date: 5 February 1997, Issue date: 6 July 1999.
- ^ Kahle, Brewster (March 1997). "Archiving the Internet". Scientific American. Archived from the original on 2012-04-03. Retrieved 2011-08-19.
- ^ "The first quantum search algorithm on a scalable quantum computer has important implications". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
- ^ Getting information from the IRC system: Linux Basic. AL1-032 (in Polish). NOITE S.C. p. 5.
- ^ "Historical Badass: Goran Kropp, the Man Who Rode to Everest - adventure journal". www.adventure-journal.com. Archived from the original on 21 February 2018. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
- ^ "About the Cochrane Library". The Cochrane Library. Archived from the original on 2011-01-05. Retrieved 2011-01-25.
- ^ Samson, M.; et al. (March 1996). "Molecular cloning and functional expression of a new human CC-chemokine receptor gene". Biochemistry. 35 (11): 3362–7. doi:10.1021/bi952950g. PMID 8639485.
- ^ Hammer, S. M.; et al. (September 1997). "A controlled trial of two nucleoside analogues plus indinavir in persons with human immunodeficiency virus infection". The New England Journal of Medicine. 337 (11): 725–33. doi:10.1056/NEJM199709113371101. PMID 9287227. S2CID 24043435.
- ^ Engel, Jonathan (2006). The Epidemic. New York: Smithsonian Books/Collins. p. 246. ISBN 978-0-06-114488-2.
- ^ Will, R. G.; Ironside, J. W.; Zeidler, M.; Estibeiro, K.; Cousens, S. N.; Smith, P. G.; Alperovitch, A.; Poser, S.; Pocchiari, M.; Hofman, A. (1996). "A new variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in the UK". The Lancet. 347 (9006): 921–925. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(96)91412-9. PMID 8598754. S2CID 14230097.
- ^ Nasreddine, Z. S.; et al. (2005). "The Montreal Cognitive Assessment, MoCA: a brief screening tool for mild cognitive impairment". Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. 53 (4): 695–9. doi:10.1111/j.1532-5415.2005.53221.x. PMID 15817019. S2CID 9014589.
- ^ Hofmann, M.; Hock, C. (2001). "Alzheimer's Disease: Antidementive Drugs". International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences. pp. 418–423. doi:10.1016/B0-08-043076-7/03738-4. ISBN 9780080430768.
- ^ Tsopelas, Nicholas D.; Marin, Deborah B. (2001). "Cholinergic Treatments of Alzheimer's Disease". Functional Neurobiology of Aging. pp. 475–486. doi:10.1016/B978-012351830-9/50034-2. ISBN 9780123518309.
- ^ Bozyczko-Coyne, D.; Williams, M. (2007). "Neurodegeneration". Comprehensive Medicinal Chemistry II. pp. 193–228. doi:10.1016/B0-08-045044-X/00168-1. ISBN 9780080450445.
- ^ Boolell, M.; Allen, M. J.; Ballard, S. A.; Gepi-Attee, S.; Muirhead, G. J.; Naylor, A. M.; Osterloh, I. H.; Gingell, C. (1996). "Sildenafil: an orally active type 5 cyclic GMP-specific phosphodiesterase inhibitor for the treatment of penile erectile dysfunction". International Journal of Impotence Research. 8 (2): 47–52. PMID 8858389.
- ^ Lipman, Don (7 January 2013). "One wild storm: A look back at the 'Blizzard of '96'". Washington Post. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
- ^ "Death Toll in Bangladesh Tornado Rises to at Least 443". The New York Times. 15 May 1996. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
- ^ "GEOSCAN Search Results: Fastlink". geoscan.nrcan.gc.ca. 2015-12-07. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
- ^ "'What am I going to do?': Saguenay resident recalls flood that swept away his home". CBC News. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
- ^ "The Conscious Mind David J. Chalmers". www.oupcanada.com. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
- ^ Constable, George; Somerville, Bob (2003). A Century of Innovation: Twenty Engineering Achievements that Transformed Our Lives. Joseph Henry Press. p. 71. ISBN 9780309089081.
- ^ Andrews, Philip (2015). Langford's Starting Photography: The Guide to Creating Great Images. CRC Press. p. 46. ISBN 9781317552833.
- ^ Sokal, Alan D. (1996). "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity". Social Text (46/47): 217–252. doi:10.2307/466856. JSTOR 466856. S2CID 1546862.
- ^ Sokal, Alan D. (May 1996). "A Physicist Experiments With Cultural Studies". Lingua Franca. Retrieved 2015-03-09.
- ^ Prigogine, Ilya (1 January 1996). La Fin des certitudes (in French). Éditions Odile Jacob. Retrieved 20 February 2018 – via Amazon.
- ^ Schmandt-Besserat, Denise (1996-06-05). How Writing Came About By Denise Schmandt-Besserat. University of Texas Press. ISBN 9780292774865. Archived from the original on 2020-08-31. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
{{cite book}}
:|website=
ignored (help) - ^ "Nobel Prizes 1996". www.nobelprize.org. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
- ^ "Willard Van Orman Quine". Inamori Foundation. Archived from the original on 2013-07-20. Retrieved 15 December 2012.
- ^ "Amir Pnueli". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
- ^ "The Geological Society of London - Wollaston Medal". www.geolsoc.org.uk. Retrieved 21 February 2018.
- ^ "Dolly the sheep". National Museums Scotland. Archived from the original on 21 February 2018. Retrieved 21 February 2018.
- ^ Sets and Extensions in the Twentieth Century. Elsevier. 2012. p. 175. ISBN 9780080930664.
- ^ "About Solomon Asch". www.brynmawr.edu. Archived from the original on 6 August 2019. Retrieved 21 February 2018.
- ^ Song, Yuwu (2014). Biographical Dictionary of the People's Republic of China. McFarland. p. 35. ISBN 978-1-4766-0298-1.
- ^ "Obituary: David Packard". The Independent. 28 March 1996. Archived from the original on 2022-05-01. Retrieved 21 February 2018.
- ^ "George Davis Snell - American geneticist". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 21 February 2018.
- ^ Edge, David; Harre, Rom; Brown, Andrew; Barnes, Barry; Mulkay, Michael; Fuller, Steve; Rudwick, Martin; Giere, Ronald N.; Bloor, David (1997). "Obituary: Thomas S. Kuhn (18 July 1922 - 17 June 1996)". Social Studies of Science. 27 (3): 483–502. doi:10.1177/030631297027003005. JSTOR 285595. PMID 11619257. S2CID 28154701.
- ^ "Tadeus Reichstein - Biographical". www.nobelprize.org. Retrieved 21 February 2018.
- ^ "Obituaries: Air Commodore Sir Frank Whittle". The Independent. 10 August 1996. Archived from the original on 2022-05-01. Retrieved 21 February 2018.
- ^ "Viktor Amazaspovich Ambartsumian - Armenian astronomer". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 21 February 2018.
- ^ "Brother Adam - British apiarist". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 21 February 2018.
- ^ HANS LIST 1896-1996
- ^ "Paul Erdős - Hungarian mathematician". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 21 February 2018.
- ^ "Seymour R. Cray - American engineer". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 21 February 2018.
- ^ "U-W - Women in Astronomy: A Comprehensive Bibliography (Science Reference Services, Library of Congress)". www.loc.gov. Retrieved 21 February 2018.
- ^ Beery, Janet L.; Greenwald, Sarah J.; Jensen-Vallin, Jacqueline A.; Mast, Maura B. (2017). Women in Mathematics: Celebrating the Centennial of the Mathematical Association of America. Springer. p. 97. ISBN 9783319666945.
- ^ Kibble, T. W. B. (1998). "Muhammad Abdus Salam, K. B. E.. 29 January 1926–21 November 1996". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 44: 387–401. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1998.0025.
- ^ "CNN - Carl Sagan dies at 62 - Dec. 20, 1996". edition.cnn.com. Retrieved 21 February 2018.