1913 in science

The year 1913 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Chemistry

• Protactinium is first identified by Kasimir Fajans and O. H. Göhring
• Henry Moseley shows that nuclear charge is the real basis for numbering the elements and discovers a systematic relation between wavelength and atomic number by using x-ray spectra obtained by diffraction in crystals.

Geology

• Albert Michelson measures tides in the solid body of the Earth.

History of science

• Pierre Duhem begins publication of Le Système du Monde: Histoire des Doctrines cosmologiques de Platon à Copernic in Paris.

Mathematics

• Publication of the 3rd volume of Principia Mathematica by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell, one of the most important and seminal works in mathematical logic and philosophy.

Medicine

• Nikolay Anichkov first demonstrates the significance and role of cholesterol in atherosclerosis pathogenesis.^[1]
• Albert Schweitzer sets up the Albert Schweitzer Hospital at Lambaréné in French Equatorial Africa.

Physics

• William Henry Bragg and William Lawrence Bragg work out the Bragg condition for strong X-ray reflection.
• Niels Bohr presents his quantum model of the atom.^[2][3]
• Robert Millikan measures the fundamental unit of electric charge.
• Johannes Stark demonstrates that strong electric fields will split the Balmer spectral line series of hydrogen.

Psychology

• John B. Watson publishes the article "Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It" — sometimes called "The Behaviorist Manifesto".^[4]

Technology

• April 29 - Swedish American engineer Gideon Sundback of Hoboken, New Jersey, patents the all-purpose zipper.
• French inventor René Lorin patents the ramjet, but attempts to build a prototype fail due to inadequate materials.^[5]

Publications

• Die Naturwissenschaften first published by Die Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften e. V.
• Journal of Ecology first published.

Awards

• Nobel Prize
  • Physics - Heike Kamerlingh-Onnes
  • Chemistry - Alfred Werner
  • Medicine - Charles Richet

Births

• April 20 - Willi Hennig (died 1976), entomologist and pioneer of cladistics.
• May 13 - Erich Lackner, civil engineer.
• June 10 - Edward Abraham (died 1999), biochemist.
• March 26 - Paul Erdős (died 1996), mathematician.

Deaths

• January 2 - Léon Teisserenc de Bort (born 1855), meteorologist.
• February 20 - Robert von Lieben (born 1878), physicist.
• April 14 - Carl Hagenbeck (born 1844), zoologist.
• May 28 - John Lubbock (born 1834), naturalist and archaeologist.
• September 29 - Rudolf Diesel (born 1858), mechanical engineer (lost overboard this night).
• November 7 - Alfred Russel Wallace (born 1823), biologist.

References