1956 in science

The year 1956 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Biology

• March – Denham Harman proposes the free-radical theory of aging.^[1]
• Wesley K. Whitten reports developing eight-cell mouse ova to blastocyst stage in vitro.^[2]

Climatology

• May – Gilbert Plass publishes his seminal article "The Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climate Change".^[3]

Computer science

• September 13 – The hard disk drive is invented by an IBM team led by Reynold B. Johnson.

Mathematics

• December – Martin Gardner begins his Mathematical Games column in Scientific American.

Medicine

• May 1 – Minamata disease epidemic is identified in Japan.
• November – The classic definition of obesity hypoventilation syndrome is published.^[4]
• Asian flu pandemic originates in China.

Physics

• Existence of the antineutrino is experimentally confirmed by the Cowan–Reines neutrino experiment carried out by Clyde L. Cowan and Frederick Reines.^[5]
• Existence of the antineutron is experimentally confirmed by University of California, Berkeley physicist Bruce Cork.
• DIDO heavy water enriched uranium nuclear reactor begins operation at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment, Harwell, Oxfordshire.

Psychology

• January 1 – Leon Festinger, Henry W. Riecken and Stanley Schachter's book When Prophecy Fails provides a classic study of disconfirmed expectancy.

Technology

• April 14 – 2-inch quadruplex videotape, the first practical and commercially successful analog recording videotape format, is released for the broadcast television industry by Ampex of Redwood City, California.^[6][7]
• August 27 – Calder Hall nuclear power station in England is first connected to the National Grid. This Magnox plant is the world's first nuclear power plant to deliver electricity in commercial quantities.^[8] Official opening is on October 17.^[9]
• November 11 – First flight of Convair B-58, the first supersonic jet bomber capable of Mach 2 flight,^[10] designed by Robert H. Widmer.
• First Chamberlin electro-mechanical keyboard instrument, developed and patented by Wisconsin inventor Harry Chamberlin, is introduced.^[11]

Awards

• Nobel Prizes
  • Physics – William Bradford Shockley, John Bardeen, Walter Houser Brattain
  • Chemistry – Sir Cyril Norman Hinshelwood, Nikolay Nikolaevich Semenov
  • Medicine – André Frédéric Cournand, Werner Forssmann, Dickinson W. Richards

Births

• April 16 – David M. Brown (died 2003), American astronaut.
• April 19 – Anne Glover, Scottish biologist.
• May 20 – Marlene Zuk, American biologist.
• October 19 – Carlo Urbani (died 2003), Italian physician, discoverer of SARS.

Deaths

• February 3 – Émile Borel (born 1871), mathematician.
• March 17 – Irène Joliot-Curie (born 1897), scientist.
• March 22 – George Sarton (born 1884), historian of science.
• August 25 – Alfred Kinsey (born 1894), American biologist, professor of entomology and zoology, and sexologist who founded the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University.
• September 22 – Frederick Soddy (born 1877), physical chemist.
• November 10 – Henry Luke Bolley (born 1865), plant pathologist.

References