1901 in science

The year 1901 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Biology

• Okapi, a relative of the Giraffe found in the rainforests around the Congo River in north east Zaire, is discovered (previously known only to local natives).

Chemistry

• May 27 - The Edison Storage Battery Company is founded in New Jersey.
• Europium is discovered by Eugène-Anatole Demarçay.
• Emil Fischer, in collaboration with Ernest Fourneau, synthesizes the dipeptide, glycylglycine, and also publishes his work on the hydrolysis of casein.

Computing

• December 13 (20:45:52) - Retrospectively, this becomes the earliest date representable with a signed 32-bit integer on digital computer systems that reference time in seconds since the Unix epoch.

Exploration

• August 6 - Discovery Expedition: Robert Falcon Scott sets sail on the RRS Discovery to explore the Ross Sea in Antarctica.

History of Science

• September 25 - Establishment of Deutsche Gesellschaft für Geschichte der Medizin und der Naturwissenschaften, the world's first history of science society.^[1]

Mathematics

• May/June - Russell's paradox: Bertrand Russell shows that Georg Cantor's naive set theory leads to a contradiction.^[2]
• Élie Cartan develops the exterior derivative.
• Leonard Eugene Dickson publishes Linear groups with an exposition of the Galois field theory in Leipzig, advancing the classification of finite simple groups and listing almost all non-abelian simple groups having order less than one billion.^[3]
• Aleksandr Lyapunov proves the central limit theorem rigorously using characteristic functions.^[4]

Paleontology

• Publication begins of A Monograph of British Graptolites by Gertrude L. Elles and Dr Ethel M. R. Wood, edited by Charles Lapworth.

Photography

• Eastman Kodak introduce the 120 film.

Physics

• Albert Einstein publishes his conclusions on capillarity.^[5]
• Owen Richardson describes the phenomenon in thermionic emission which gives rise to Richardson's Law.^[6]
• Ivan Yarkovsky describes the Yarkovsky effect, a thermal force acting on rotating bodies in space, in a pamphlet on "The density of light ether and the resistance it offers to motion" published in Bryansk.^[7]
• December 12 - Guglielmo Marconi receives the first trans-Atlantic radio signal, sent from Poldhu in Cornwall, England, to Newfoundland, the letter "S" in Morse.^[8]

Physiology and medicine

• November 25 - Auguste Deter is first examined by Dr Alois Alzheimer in Frankfort leading to a diagnosis of the condition that will carry Alzheimer's name.^[9]
• Jokichi Takamine isolates and names adrenaline from mammalian organs.^[10]
• Ivan Pavlov develops the theory of the "conditional reflex".^[11]
• Georg Kelling of Dresden performs the first "coelioscopy" (laparoscopic surgery), on a dog.^[12]
• William C. Gorgas controls the spread of yellow fever in Cuba by a mosquito eradication program.^[13]
• Scottish military doctor William Boog Leishman identifies organisms from the spleen of a patient who had died from "Dum Dum fever" (later known as leishmaniasis) and proposes them to be trypanosomes, found for the first time in India.^[14]
• An improved sphygmomanometer, for the measurement of blood pressure, is invented and popularized by Harvey Cushing.
• Karl Landsteiner discovers the existence of different human blood types

Technology

• August 30 - Hubert Cecil Booth patents the electrically powered vacuum cleaner in the U.K.^[15]
• November 30 - Frank Hornby of Liverpool is granted a U.K. patent for the construction toy that will become Meccano.^[16]
• December 3 - King C. Gillette files a U.S. patent application for his design of safety razor utilizing thin, disposable blades of stamped steel.^[17]
• Ernest Godward invents the spiral hairpin in New Zealand.
• Theodor Rall patents his design of rolling lift bridge.^[18][19]

Publications

• H. G. Wells' "scientific romance" The First Men in the Moon and his collected articles on futurology Anticipations of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress Upon Human Life and Thought.

Awards

• First Nobel Prizes awarded
  • Physics - Wilhelm Röntgen
  • Chemistry - Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff
  • Medicine - Emil Adolf von Behring
• Wollaston Medal for Geology - Charles Barrois

Births

• January 14 - Alfred Tarski (died 1983), Polish Jewish logician and mathematician.
• February 28 - Linus Pauling (died 1994), American chemist, Nobel Prize winner for chemistry and peace.
• March 6 - Rex Wailes (died 1986), English engineer and historian of technology.
• August 10 - Franco Rasetti (died 2001), Italian physicist.
• September 29 - Enrico Fermi (died 1954), Italian physicist.
• December 5 - Werner Heisenberg (died 1976), German theoretical physicist.
• December 16 - Margaret Mead (died 1978), American cultural anthropologist.
• December 20 - Robert J. Van de Graaff (died 1967), American physicist.

Deaths

• January 21 - Elisha Gray (born 1835), American electrical engineer.
• February 11 - Henry Willis (born 1821), English organ builder.
• February 22 - George FitzGerald (born 1851), Irish mathematician.
• April 16 - Henry Augustus Rowland (born 1848), American physicist.

References