1948 in science

The year 1948 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

List of years in science (table)
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Astronomy and space science

• February 16 – Miranda, innermost of the large moons of Uranus, is discovered by Gerard Kuiper from the McDonald Observatory in Texas.^[1]
• October 10 – An R-1 (missile) on test becomes the first Soviet launch to enter space.^[2]

Biology

• August 7 – Teaching and research in Mendelian genetics is prohibited in the Soviet Union in favour of Lysenkoist theories of the inheritance of acquired characteristics.^[3][4]
• October 5 – Delegates to a conference organised by Sir Julian Huxley at Fontainebleau agree to formation of the International Union for Conservation of Nature.^[5]
• November 20 – The South Island takahē, a flightless bird generally thought to have been extinct for fifty years, is rediscovered by Geoffrey Orbell near Lake Te Anau in the South Island of New Zealand.
• Last recorded sighting of the Caspian tiger in Kazakhstan.
• Publication of Fairfield Osborne's Our Plundered Planet, a Malthusian critique of human environmental destruction.^[6][7]

Computer science

• May 12 – World's first stored-program computer operates, the mechanical ARC (Automatic Relay Calculator) at Birkbeck College, University of London (largely built by Kathleen Booth).^[8]
• June 21 – World's first working program run on an electronic stored-program computer, the Manchester Baby (written by Tom Kilburn).^[9]
• July–October – Claude E. Shannon publishes "A Mathematical Theory of Communication" in Bell System Technical Journal, regarded as a foundation of information theory,^[10] introducing the concept of Shannon entropy and adopting the term Bit.

History of science

• December 17 – The original Wright Flyer goes on display in the Smithsonian Institution.

Medicine and human sciences

• January 5 – The first Kinsey Report, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, is published in the United States.
• April 7 – The World Health Organization is established by the United Nations.
• July 5 – The National Health Service begins functioning in the United Kingdom, giving the right to universal healthcare, free at point of use.^[11]
• Winter 1948/49 – Outbreak of Akureyri disease in Iceland.
• In psychology, Bertram Forer demonstrates the Barnum effect (that people tend to accept generalised descriptions of personality as uniquely applicable to themselves).
• Julius Axelrod and Bernard Brodie identify the analgesic properties of acetaminophen.

Meteorology

• March 25 – Meteorologists at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City issue the world's first tornado forecast, for the second of the 1948 Tinker Air Force Base tornadoes.

Physics

• April 1 – Physicists Ralph Asher Alpher and George Gamow publish the Alpher–Bethe–Gamow paper about the Big Bang.^[12]
• May 29 – Casimir effect predicted by Dutch physicist Hendrik Casimir.^[13]
• Herbert Fröhlich makes a key breakthrough in understanding superconductivity, at the University of Liverpool.^[14]

Technology

• June 18 – Columbia Records unveil the LP records developed by Peter Goldmark of CBS Laboratories.^[15][16][17]
• First modern long-span permanent box girder bridge completed, between Cologne and Deutz.^[18]

Publications

• First publication of Norbert Wiener's Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine.
• Publication in Britain of the novel No Highway by former aeronautical engineer Nevil Shute, dealing with the effects of metal fatigue on aircraft.

Awards

• Nobel Prizes
  • Physics – Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett
  • Chemistry – Arne Wilhelm Kaurin Tiselius
  • Medicine – Paul Hermann Müller

Births

• January 30 – Akira Yoshino, Japanese chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
• March 1 – Alison Richard, English primatologist and academic.
• March 9 – László Lovász, Hungarian computer scientist.
• March 21 – Robert Watson, British atmospheric chemist.
• May – David Mabberley, English-born plant taxonomist.
• June 13 – Nina L. Etkin (died 2009), American anthropologist and biologist.
• June 28 – Kenneth Alan Ribet, American mathematician.
• July 20 – Martin Green, Australian solar cell researcher.
• August 4 – Giorgio Parisi, Italian theoretical physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics.
• August 7 – James P. Allison, American immunologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
• August 25 – Nicholas A. Peppas, Greek chemical and biomedical engineer.
• August 29 – Robert S. Langer, American biomedical engineer.
• August 30 – Victor Skumin, Russian scientist, psychiatrist and psychologist; describes Skumin syndrome in 1978.
• September 2 – Christa McAuliffe, born Sharon Christa Corrigan (died 1986), American astronaut.
• October 29 – Frans de Waal, Dutch primatologist.
• October 31 – Mu-ming Poo, Chinese neuroscientist.
• December 30 – Randy Schekman, American cell biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
• Margaret Allen, American cardiothoracic surgeon.
• Robert Plomin, American-born psychologist.

Deaths

• January 30 – Orville Wright (born 1871), American pioneer aviator.
• May 26 – Sir George Newman (born 1870), English public health physician.
• June 10 – Philippa Fawcett (born 1868), English mathematician.
• June 21 – D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson (born 1860), Scottish biologist.
• December 12 – Marjory Stephenson (born 1885), English biochemist.

References

1. Moore, Patrick (1995). The Guinness Book of Astronomy (5th ed.). Enfield, UK: Guinness Publishing. p. 110. ISBN 978-0851126432.
2. Wade, Mark. . Archived from the original on August 20, 2016. Retrieved 2020-12-06.
3. Joravsky, David (1970). The Lysenko Affair. Russian Research Center studies, 61. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-53985-3.
4. Cohen, Barry M. (1965). "The descent of Lysenko". The Journal of Heredity. 56 (5): 229–233. doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.jhered.a107425.
5. Christoffersen, Leif E. (1994). (PDF). Green Globe YearBook. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-12-16. Retrieved 2011-11-02.
6. Netzley, Patricia (1999). Environmental Literature. California: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-57607-000-0.
7. Desrochers, Pierre; Hoffbauer, Christine (2009). (PDF). The Electronic Journal of Sustainable Development. 1 (3): 73–97. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-03-02. Retrieved 2011-12-08.
8. Campbell-Kelly, Martin (2022-11-12). "Kathleen Booth". The Guardian. London. p. 9 (Journal). Retrieved 2022-11-13.
9. Enticknap, Nicholas (Summer 1998). . Resurrection. Computer Conservation Society (20). ISSN 0958-7403. Archived from the original on 2012-01-09. Retrieved 2011-11-25.
10. James, Ioan (2009). "Claude Elwood Shannon 30 April 1916 – 24 February 2001". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 55: 257–265. doi:10.1098/rsbm.2009.0015.
11. . BBC. Archived from the original on 2006-08-21. Retrieved 2007-09-25.
12. Alpher, R. A.; Bethe, H.; Gamow, G. (1948-04-01). (PDF). Physical Review. 73 (7): 803–804. Bibcode:1948PhRv...73..803A. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.73.803. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-10-12. Retrieved 2011-03-10.
13. Casimir, H. B. G. (1948). "On the attraction between two perfectly conducting plates" (PDF). Proc. Kon. Ned. Akad. Wet. 51: 793.
14. "Science Places Liverpool". 2008. Retrieved 2011-03-20.
15. Goldmark, Peter (1973). Maverick Inventor: My Turbulent Years at CBS. New York: Saturday Review Press. ISBN 978-0-8415-0046-4.
16. "Columbia Diskery: CBS Show Microgroove Platters to Press; Tell How It Began". Billboard: 3. 1948-06-26.
17. Marmorstein, Gary (2007). The Label: the Story of Columbia Records. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press. p. 165. ISBN 978-1-56025-707-3.
18. Brown, David J. (1993). Bridges. London: Mitchell Beazley. p. 94. ISBN 978-1-85732-163-0.