1925 in science

The year 1925 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Biology

• July 21 - Scopes Trial: In Dayton, Tennessee, high school biology teacher John T. Scopes is found guilty of teaching evolution in class and fined $100.

Chemistry

• May - Rhenium is discovered by Walter Noddack and Ida Tacke in Berlin, the last stable, non-radioactive naturally-occurring element to be found.^[1]

History of science

• Museum of the History of Science opens in the Old Ashmolean building in Oxford, set up by Robert Gunther based largely on the collection given by Dr Lewis Evans.^[2]
• Pharmazie-Historisches Museum der Universität Basel established by donation of the collection of pharmacist Josef Anton Häfliger.

Physics

• January - Wolfgang Pauli announces his exclusion principle.^[3]
• Werner Heisenberg, Max Born and Pascual Jordan set out the matrix formulation of quantum mechanics.

Technology

• June 13 - Charles Francis Jenkins achieves the first synchronized transmission of pictures and sound, using 48 lines, and a mechanical system. A 10-minute film of a miniature windmill in motion is sent across 5 miles from Anacostia to Washington, DC. The images are viewed by representatives of the Bureau of Standards, the U.S. Navy, the Department of Commerce and others. Jenkins calls this "the first public demonstration of radiovision".
• late 1925 or early 1926 - Vladimir K. Zworykin demonstrates a cathode ray tube television system using Braun tubes at the Westinghouse Electric laboratories in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Other events

• Sinclair Lewis's novel Arrowsmith is published in the United States, notable in having the culture of medical science as a principal theme.^[4]

Awards

• Nobel Prizes
  • Physics - James Franck, Gustav Ludwig Hertz
  • Chemistry - Richard Adolf Zsigmondy

Births

• January 7 - Gerald Durrell (died 1995), wildlife conservationist (born in British India).
• August 10 - Stanislav Brebera, Czech chemist.
• October 13 - Margaret Roberts, chemist and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
• October 31 - John Pople (died 2004), British Nobel prize-winning chemist.

Deaths

• February 3 - Oliver Heaviside (born 1850), physicist.
• February 22 - Thomas Clifford Allbutt (born 1836), physician.
• June 3 - Camille Flammarion (born 1842), astronomer.
• June 22 - Felix Klein (born 1849), German mathematician.
• July 26 - Gottlob Frege (born 1848), mathematician.

References