1945 in science

The year 1945 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Biology

• Salvador Edward Luria and Alfred Day Hershey independently recognize that viruses undergo mutations.

Chemistry

• A team at Oak Ridge National Laboratory led by Charles Coryell discovers chemical element 61, the only one still missing between 1 and 96 on the periodic table, which they will name promethium.^[1] Found by analysis of fission products of irradiated uranium fuel, its discovery is not made public until 1947.
• Dorothy Hodgkin and C. H. (Harry) Carlisle publish the first three-dimensional molecular structure of a steroid, cholesteryl iodide.^[2][3]

Trinity nuclear test

• A team at American Cyanamid's Lederle Laboratories, Pearl River, New York, led by Yellapragada Subbarow, obtain folic acid in a pure crystalline form.^[4][5]

Computer science

• June 30 - Distribution of John von Neumann's First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC, containing the first published description of the logical design of a computer with stored-program and instruction data stored in the same address space within the memory (von Neumann architecture).
• July - Publication of Vannevar Bush's article "As We May Think" proposing a proto-hypertext collective memory machine which he calls 'memex'.
• November - Assembly of the world's first general purpose electronic computer, the Electronic Numerical Integrator Analyzer and Computer (ENIAC), is completed in the United States, covering 1,800 square feet (170 m²) of floor space, and the first set of calculations is run on it.

Mathematics

• George Stigler solves the Stigler diet problem heuristically.^[6]

Medicine

• February - Raymond L. Libby of American Cyanamid's research laboratories at Stamford, Connecticut, announces a method of orally administering the antibiotic penicillin.^[7]
• The Amsler grid is introduced for monitoring of the central visual field.

Meteorology

• High-altitude west-to-east winds across Pacific, discovered by Japanese in 1942 and by Americans in 1944, are dubbed "jet stream".

Physics

• July 16 - Nuclear testing: the Trinity test, the first test of an atomic bomb, using 6 kilograms of plutonium, succeeds in detonating an explosion equivalent to that of 20 kilotons of TNT.
• August 6 and 9 - Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki make the world aware of the power of nuclear weapons.
• August 11 - The Smyth Report is released by the United States government, informing the public of the basics of nuclear fission and its military and civilian applications, and emphasizing the role played by physics in the development of the atomic bomb.
• August 21 - American physicist Harry Daghlian accidentally drops a tungsten carbide brick onto a plutonium–gallium alloy bomb core, exposing himself to a lethal dose of neutron radiation and becoming the first known fatality due to a criticality accident 25 days later.

Technology

• March 2 - The Bachem Ba 349 Natter is launched from Stetten am kalten Markt. The Natter is the first manned rocket, developed as an anti-aircraft weapon. The launch fails and the pilot dies.^[8]
• October - Arthur C. Clarke puts forward the idea of a geosynchronous communications satellite.^[9][10][11]
• November - Slinky toy first demonstrated by engineer Richard T. James in Philadelphia.
• The first desalination plant becomes operational.^[12]

Institutions

• Kathleen Lonsdale and Marjory Stephenson become the first women elected as Fellows of the Royal Society of London.

Publications

• Argentine physicist Ernesto Sabato publishes Uno y el Universo ("One and the Universe"), a collection of essays criticizing the apparent moral neutrality of science and warning of dehumanization in technological societies.
• First book in the New Naturalist series is published in the United Kingdom, E. B. Ford's Butterflies.

Awards

• Nobel Prizes
  • Physics - Wolfgang Pauli
  • Chemistry - Artturi Ilmari Virtanen
  • Medicine - Sir Alexander Fleming, Ernst Boris Chain, Sir Howard Walter Florey

Births

• January 4 - Richard R. Schrock, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate.
• February 9 - Yoshinori Ohsumi, Japanese cell biologist, Nobel Prize laureate.
• April 11 - John Krebs, English zoologist.
• April 30 - Mike Smith (killed 1986), American astronaut.
• August 1 - Douglas Osheroff, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate.
• September 18 - John McAfee, Scottish American computer programmer.
• October 2 - Martin Hellman, American cryptologist.
• Undated - Lyn Evans, Welsh physicist.

Deaths

• March 23 - Napier Shaw (born 1854), English meteorologist.
• May 14 - Isis Pogson (born 1852), English astronomer and meteorologist.
• August 4 - Gerhard Gentzen (born 1909), German mathematician.
• August 10 - Robert Goddard (born 1882), American rocket scientist.
• August 31 - Stefan Banach (born 1892), Polish mathematician.
• September 24 - Hans Geiger (born 1882), German inventor of the Geiger counter.
• October 1 - Walter Bradford Cannon (born 1871), American physiologist.
• November 20 - Francis William Aston (born 1877), English chemist, Nobel Prize laureate.
• December 4 - Thomas Hunt Morgan (born 1866), American biologist, Nobel Prize laureate.
• December 11 - Charles Fabry (born 1867), French optical physicist.
• December 21/22 - Arthur Korn (born 1870), German-born inventor.

References