1955 in science

The year 1955 in science and technology included many events, some of which are listed below.

Astronomy

• January 8 - Penumbral lunar eclipse.
• June 20 - Total solar eclipse of 7 min 8 sec duration, the longest between the 11th and 22nd centuries, visible in Southeast Asia. During the entire Second Millennium, only seven such eclipses exceed seven minutes of totality.
• June 5 - Penumbral lunar eclipse.
• November 29 - Partial lunar eclipse.
• December 14 - Annular solar eclipse.

Biochemistry

• February 26 - Rosalind Franklin publishes her observation that tobacco mosaic virus rods are all of identical length.^[1]
• December 22 - Cytogeneticist Joe Hin Tjio working with Albert Levan at Lund University demonstrates that there are forty-six human chromosomes.^[2][3]

Chemistry

• February 19 - Mendelevium (atomic number 101) is first synthesized by Albert Ghiorso, Glenn T. Seaborg, Gregory R. Choppin, Bernard G. Harvey, and Stanley G. Thompson (team leader) at the University of California, Berkeley.^[4]

Computer science

• October 2 (11:45 p.m.) - The ENIAC computer is deactivated at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, having been in continuous operation since 1947.^[5]
• Maurice Wilkes publishes a description of microprogramming in Electrical Engineering.
• RAND publishes A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates.

History of science and technology

• The term "Industrial archaeology" first appears in print.^[6]

Mathematics

• In the classification of finite simple groups, the Brauer–Fowler theorem is published^[7] and Claude Chevalley introduces Chevalley groups.^[8]

Medicine

• December 24 - Henry K. Beecher publishes a paper indicating the powerful effect of placebos on patient outcomes.^[9]
• Outbreak of "Royal Free disease" or "benign myalgic encephalomyelitis", strongly resembling what will later be known as chronic fatigue syndrome, among staff at the Royal Free Hospital in London.^[10]

Physics

• March - Joseph Rotblat publishes his conclusions that contamination caused by nuclear fallout after the U.S. Castle Bravo hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll is greater than officially stated.^[11]
• Existence of the antiproton is experimentally confirmed by University of California, Berkeley, physicists Emilio Segrè and Owen Chamberlain.
• University of Liverpool cyclotron begins operation.^[12]

Technology

• The first accurate atomic clock, a caesium standard based on a certain transition of the caesium-133 atom, is built by Louis Essen with J.V.L. Parry at the National Physical Laboratory (United Kingdom).^[13]
• Strömsund Bridge in Sweden completed, the first significant cable-stayed bridge of the modern era.^[14]
• Swiss electrical engineer George de Mestral is granted a patent for the Velcro fabric hook-and-loop fastener.^[15]
• American electrical engineer Eugene Polley invents the Zenith Flash-Matic, the first wireless television remote control.^[16][17]

Events

• July 9 - Russell–Einstein Manifesto issued in London by Bertrand Russell, Albert Einstein, Max Born and other prominent scientists drawing the attention of world political leaders to the dangers posed by nuclear weapons.

Publications

• Eugene Garfield proposes the concept of citation indexing for scientific literature.^[18]

Awards

• Nobel Prizes
  • Physics - Willis Eugene Lamb, - Polykarp Kusch
  • Chemistry - Vincent du Vigneaud
  • Medicine- Axel Hugo Theodor Theorell

Births

• February 24 - Steve Jobs (died 2011), American computing entrepreneur.
• April 20 - Svante Pääbo, Swedish evolutionary geneticist.
• June 8 - Tim Berners-Lee, English-born creator of the world wide web.
• October 28 - Bill Gates, American software designer and entrepreneur.

Deaths

• February 2 - Oswald Avery (born 1877), Canadian American bacteriologist.
• March 11 - Sir Alexander Fleming (born 1881), British bacteriologist, winner of the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
• April 10 - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ (born 1881), French-born paleontologist and philosopher.
• April 18 - Albert Einstein (born 1879), German-born winner of the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics.
• August 11 - Robert W. Wood (born 1868), American optical physicist.
• August 12 - James B. Sumner (born 1887), American winner of the 1946 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
• December 13 - Antonio Egas Moniz (born 1874), Portuguese neurologist, winner of the 1949 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

References