1979 in science

The year 1979 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Astronomy and space exploration

• February 7 – Pluto enters a 20-year period inside the orbit of Neptune for the first time in 230 years.
• March 7 – The largest Magnetar (Soft gamma repeater) event is recorded.
• September 1 – The American Pioneer 11 becomes the first spacecraft to visit Saturn when it passes the planet at a distance of 21,000 km.
• Amateur Achievement Award of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific given for the first time.

Biology

• Baden Powell publishes New Zealand Mollusca.

Computer science

• VisiCalc becomes the first spreadsheet program.
• The US Federal Government releases the initial, draft version of Ada (programming language), a strongly typed, comb-structured language with exception handlers, for embedded systems.

Mathematics

• 'Monstrous moonshine': John Conway and Simon P. Norton prove there is a connection between the Monster group M and the j-function in number theory.^[1]
• The first modern Sudoku, known as Number Place, appears in Dell Pencil Puzzles and Word Games (United States), devized by Howard Garns.^[2]

Medicine

• August – The eating disorder Bulimia nervosa is first described and named by British psychiatrist Gerald Russell.^[3][4]
• The World Health Organization certifies the global eradication of smallpox.^[5]

Technology

• June 12 – Human-powered aircraft Gossamer Albatross, built by an American team led by Paul MacCready and piloted by Bryan Allen, makes a successful crossing of the English Channel to win the second Kremer prize.

Awards

• Nobel Prizes
  • Physics – Sheldon Lee Glashow, Abdus Salam, Steven Weinberg
  • Chemistry – Herbert C. Brown, Georg Wittig
  • Medicine – Allan M. Cormack, Godfrey N. Hounsfield
• Turing Award – Kenneth E. Iverson

Births

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Deaths

• May 6 – Karl Wilhelm Reinmuth (b. 1892), German astronomer.
• September 26 – Sir Barnes Wallis (b. 1887), English aeronautical engineer.

References