1986 in science

The year 1986 in science and technology involved many significant events, some not listed below.

List of years in science (table)
… 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 …
Art Archaeology Architecture Literature Music Philosophy Science +...

Astronomy and space exploration

• January 24 – NASA Voyager 2 space probe makes first encounter with Uranus.
• January 28 – NASA Space Shuttle Challenger explodes on launch, killing all seven astronauts aboard. Their bodies are located by United States Navy divers on March 9.
• February 19 – The Soviet Union launches the Mir space station.
• March 8 – Japanese spacecraft Suisei flies by Halley's Comet, studying its UV hydrogen corona and solar wind.
• October 10 – Aten asteroid 3753 Cruithne, in co-orbital configuration with Earth, is identified by Duncan Waldron.

Biology

• May – First reported methods for constructing a monoclonal antibody containing parts from mouse and human antibodies, a required first step toward the development of humanized antibodies used later as medical therapeutics (such as Infliximab).^[1][2]
• English epidemiologist David Barker proposes his fetal origins hypothesis.^[3]

Computer science

• January 16 – The Internet Engineering Task Force, a standards organization that develops and promotes Internet standards, holds its first meeting, consisting of 21 United States government-funded researchers.
• January 19 – The first MS-DOS-based personal computer virus, Brain, starts to spread.^[4]
• April 3 – IBM unveils the PC Convertible, the first laptop computer.
• June 23 – Eric Thomas develops LISTSERV, the first email list management software.^[5]
• Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) is visualized by Mark Crispin.
• 3D printing is developed by Charles Hull.
• Pixar is founded.

Mathematics

• Summer – Kenneth Alan Ribet demonstrates proof of the ε-conjecture, subsequently known as Ribet's theorem^[6] confirming Gerhard Frey's suggestion that the Taniyama–Shimura conjecture implies Fermat's Last Theorem.^[7]
• Lawrence Paulson makes the first release of Isabelle (proof assistant).^[8]
• Lee Sallows introduces the alphamagic square.^[9]

Technology

• January 11 – The Gateway Bridge is opened in Brisbane, Australia, the world's largest prestressed concrete single box bridge.
• April 26 – Chernobyl disaster: An RBMK at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic reaches prompt criticality.
• December 23 – Rutan Voyager becomes the first aircraft to fly around the world without stopping or refueling, landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California after a nine-day trip piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager.

Awards

• Crafoord Prize in Geosciences: Gerald Wasserburg and Claude Jean Allègre
• Fields Prize in Mathematics: Simon Donaldson, Gerd Faltings and Michael Freedman
• Nobel Prizes
  • Physics – Ernst Ruska, Gerd Binnig, Heinrich Rohrer
  • Chemistry – Dudley R. Herschbach, Yuan T. Lee, John C. Polanyi
  • Medicine – Stanley Cohen, Rita Levi-Montalcini
• Turing Award – John Hopcroft, Robert Tarjan
• Wollaston Medal for Geology – Claude Jean Allègre

Births

• November 8 – Aaron Swartz (suicide 2013), American computer programmer and Internet hactivist.

Deaths

 

Crew of NASA Space Shuttle Challenger mission STS-51-L

• January 7 – Rex Wailes (b. 1901), English engineer and historian of technology.
• January 28
  • Crew of United States Space Shuttle Challenger mission STS-51-L:
    • Greg Jarvis (b. 1944)
    • Christa McAuliffe (b. 1948)
    • Ronald McNair (b. 1950)
    • Ellison Onizuka (b. 1946)
    • Judith Resnik (b. 1949)
    • Dick Scobee (b. 1939)
    • Michael J. Smith (b. 1945)
  • Dorothée Pullinger (b. 1894), French-born British production engineer.
• April 22 – Dame Honor Fell (b. 1900), English biologist.
• July 6 – William Rashkind (b. 1922), American cardiologist.
• July 21 – Zhang Yuzhe (b. 1902), Chinese astronomer.
• October 22 – Albert Szent-Györgyi (b. 1893), Hungarian physiologist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
• October 31 – Edward Adelbert Doisy (b. 1893), American biochemist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
• June 7 – Robert S. Mulliken (b. 1896), American physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
• November 25 – Sir Ivan Magill (b. 1888), British anesthesiologist.

References

1. Jones, Peter T.; Dear, Paul H.; Foote, Jefferson; Neuberger, Michael S.; Winter, Greg (1986). "Replacing the complementarity-determining regions in a human antibody with those from a mouse". Nature. 321 (6069): 522–525. Bibcode:1986Natur.321..522J. doi:10.1038/321522a0. PMID 3713831. S2CID 4315811.
2. Waldman, Thomas A. (2003). "Immunotherapy: past, present and future". Nature Medicine. 9 (3): 269–277. doi:10.1038/nm0303-269. PMID 12612576. S2CID 9745527.
3. Barker, David; Osmond, C. (1986). "Infant mortality, childhood nutrition and ischaemic heart disease in England and Wales". The Lancet. 327 (8489). London: 1077–1081. doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(86)91340-1. PMID 2871345. S2CID 35375657.
4. Leyden, John (January 19, 2006). "PC virus celebrates 20th birthday". The Register. Retrieved July 29, 2011.
5. "1986". Retrieved January 25, 2013.
6. Ribet, Ken (1990). "On modular representations of Gal(Q/Q) arising from modular forms" (PDF). Inventiones Mathematicae. 100 (2): 431–471. Bibcode:1990InMat.100..431R. doi:10.1007/BF01231195. hdl:10.1007/BF01231195. S2CID 120614740.
7. Frey, Gerhard (1986). "Links between stable elliptic curves and certain Diophantine equations". Annales Universitatis Saraviensis. Series Mathematicae. 1 (1): iv+40. ISSN 0933-8268. MR 0853387.
8. Paulson, L. C. (1986). "Natural deduction as higher-order resolution". The Journal of Logic Programming. 3 (3): 237–258. arXiv:cs/9301104. doi:10.1016/0743-1066(86)90015-4. S2CID 27085090.
9. . Encyclopedia of Science. Archived from the original on October 10, 2017. Retrieved May 12, 2012.