1937 in science

The year 1937 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Astronomy

• June 8 – First total solar eclipse to exceed 7 minutes of totality in over 800 years; visible in the Pacific and Peru.

Biology

• September 27 – Last Bali tiger dies.
• Jay Laurence Lush publishes the influential textbook Animal Breeding Plans in the United States.^[1]

Chemistry

• Carlo Perrier and Emilio Segrè at the University of Palermo confirm discovery of the chemical element which will become known as Technetium.^[2][3][4]
• The opioid Methadone is synthesized in Germany by scientists working at Hoechst AG.^[5]

Computer science

• Claude Shannon's Master's thesis at MIT demonstrates that electronic application of Boolean algebra could construct and resolve any logical numerical relationship.^[6]
• Konrad Zuse submits patents in Germany based on his Z1 computer design anticipating von Neumann architecture.

Exploration

• British Graham Land Expedition (1934–1937) concludes its work, having determined that Graham Land is an integral part of the Antarctic Peninsula and not an independent archipelago.^[7]

Mathematics

• Bruno de Finetti publishes "La Prévision: ses lois logiques, ses sources subjectives" in Annales de l'Institut Henri Poincaré, his most influential treatment of his theorem on exchangeable sequences of random variables.^[8]
• Hans Freudenthal proves the Freudenthal suspension theorem in homotopy.^[9]

Medicine

• November 2 – English clinical pathologist Lionel Whitby discovers sulphapyridine M&B 693, a first-generation sulphonamide antibiotic which in 1938 is first prescribed to treat pneumonia.^[10]
• Italian psychiatrist Amarro Fiamberti is the first to document a transorbital approach to the brain, which becomes the basis for the controversial medical procedure of transorbital lobotomy.
• Publication in the United Kingdom of Dr A. J. Cronin's novel The Citadel, promoting the cause of socialised medicine.^[11]

Physics

• Eugene Wigner introduces the term isospin.^[12]

Technology

• April 12 – Frank Whittle ground-tests the first jet engine designed to power an aircraft, at Rugby, England.
• June 5 – Alan Blumlein is granted a patent for an ultra-linear amplifier.^[13]
• Alec Reeves invents pulse-code modulation.

Awards

• Nobel Prizes
  • Physics – Clinton Joseph Davisson, George Paget Thomson
  • Chemistry – Walter Haworth, Paul Karrer
  • Medicine – Albert von Szent-Györgyi Nagyrapolt
• Copley Medal – Henry Dale
• Wollaston Medal for geology – Waldemar Lindgren

Births

• March 16 – Amos Tversky (died 1996), Jewish American cognitive and mathematical psychologist, recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.
• April 17 – Don Buchla (died 2016), American electronic engineer, pioneer of sound synthesizers.
• May 9 – Alison Jolly (died 2014), American primatologist.
• June 11 – David Mumford, American mathematician.
• June 23 – Nicholas Shackleton (died 2006), English Quaternary geologist and paleoclimatologist, recipient of the Vetlesen Prize
• June 26 – Robert Coleman Richardson (died 2013), American experimental physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics.
• July 19 – Bibb Latané, American social psychologist.

Deaths

• January 28 – Arthur Pollen (born 1866), English inventor.
• January 29 – Aleen Cust (born 1868), Irish veterinary surgeon.
• May 28 – Alfred Adler (born 1870), Austrian psychotherapist.
• June 11 – R. J. Mitchell (born 1895), English aeronautical engineer.
• July 20 – Guglielmo Marconi (born 1874), Italian inventor.
• July 30 – Victor Despeignes (born 1866), French pioneer of radiation oncology.
• October 16 – William Sealy Gosset (born 1876), English statistician.
• October 19 – Ernest Rutherford (born 1871), New Zealand-born British physicist and laureate of the Nobel Prize in Physics.
• November 23 – Jagadish Chandra Bose (born 1858), Bengali physicist.

References