1984 in science

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The year 1984 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Contents 1 Astronomy and space exploration 2 Biology 3 Chemistry and Physics 4 Technology 5 Awards 6 Births 7 Deaths 8 References

Astronomy and space exploration

• February 7 – Astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart make the first untethered space walk.
• The NRAO converts the 36-foot Radio Telescope on Kitt Peak (originally built in 1967) to a 12 Meter Telescope.

Biology

• First known case of Bovine spongiform encephalopathy, in England.^[1]
• The enzyme telomerase is discovered by Carol W. Greider and Elizabeth Blackburn in the ciliate Tetrahymena.^[2]

Chemistry and Physics

• Peter Kramer ^[3] and Dan Shechtman ^[4] publish their discoveries of what will soon afterwards be named quasicrystals.^[5]

Technology

• July 21 – In Jackson, Michigan, a factory robot crushes a worker against a safety bar in apparently the first robot-related death in the United States.

Awards

• Nobel Prizes
  • Physics – Carlo Rubbia, Simon van der Meer
  • Chemistry – Robert Bruce Merrifield
  • Medicine – Niels K. Jerne, Georges J. F. Köhler, César Milstein
• Turing Award – Niklaus Wirth

Births

Deaths

• May 13 – Stanisław Marcin Ulam (b. 1909), mathematician.
• October 20 – Paul Dirac (b. 1902), physicist.
• December 20 – Stanley Milgram (b. 1933), social psychologist.

References