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Chemistry

• February 4 – Radium E (bismuth-210) becomes the first radioactive element to be made synthetically.
• December 23 – The first nerve agent, Tabun, is discovered (accidentally) by a research team headed by Dr Gerhard Schrader of IG Farben in Germany.¹²

Computer science

• May 28 – Alan Turing's paper "On Computable Numbers" is received by the London Mathematical Society for publication, introducing the concept of the theoretical "a[utomatic]-machine" or Turing machine. Its formal publication is on November 12.³
• Rózsa Péter presents a paper entitled "Über rekursive Funktionen der zweite Stufe" to the International Congress of Mathematicians in Oslo,⁴ helping to found the modern field of recursive function theory.⁵⁶

Earth sciences

• Inge Lehmann argues that the Earth's molten interior has a solid inner core.⁷⁸

History of science and technology

• Economist John Maynard Keynes buys a trunk of Isaac Newton's papers at auction.⁹

Mathematics

• March – Alonzo Church's "A Note on the Entscheidungsproblem" is published.¹⁰
• Dutch mathematician Cornelis Simon Meijer introduces the Meijer G-function.¹¹

Paleontology

• First remains of the small Late Triassic South American dinosaur Staurikosaurus are found by Llewellyn Ivor Price in Brazil, the first dinosaur to be discovered there.¹²

Physiology and medicine

• July 4 – First publication recognizing stress as a biological condition.¹³¹⁴
• December 7 – Streptococcous meningitis (a condition previously 99% fatal) is successfully treated for the first time with a sulfonamide.¹⁵
• American researcher Thomas Francis Jr. isolates influenza B virus. Also this year, Australian Macfarlane Burnet discovers that Orthomyxoviridae can be grown in embryonated hens’ eggs.¹⁶
• António Egas Moniz publishes his first report of performing a prefrontal leukotomy on a human patient.¹⁷
• Guido Fanconi describes a connection between celiac disease, cystic fibrosis of the pancreas and bronchiectasis.¹⁸
• Harry Himsworth distinguishes the two principal types of diabetes.¹⁹

Psychology

• Sherif's experiment on conformity.²⁰

Technology

• June 26 – Focke-Wulf Fw 61, the first fully controllable helicopter, makes its first flight.
• November 3 – The world's first regular daily high-definition (at this time defined as at least 200 lines) television broadcast service is begun by the British Broadcasting Corporation from Alexandra Palace in London (following test transmissions since August). The service initially alternates on a weekly basis between John Logie Baird's 240-line electromechanical system and the Marconi–EMI all-electronic 405-line television system.

Zoology

• September 7 – Death of the last recorded thylacine, in Hobart Zoo.²¹
• November 9 – American explorer Ruth Harkness encounters and captures in China a live giant panda, a cub named Su Lin, the first to enter the United States.²²

Awards

• Fields Prize in Mathematics (first award): Lars Ahlfors and Jesse Douglas
• Nobel Prizes
  • Physics – Victor Franz Hess, Carl David Anderson
  • Chemistry – Peter Debye
  • Medicine – Sir Henry Hallett Dale, Otto Loewi

Births

• January 8 – Robert May, Australian-born Government Chief Scientific Adviser (United Kingdom) (died 2020).
• January 10
  • Walter Bodmer, German-born British human geneticist.
  • Robert Wilson, American physicist and radio astronomer.
• January 27 – Barry Barish, American gravitational physicist, Nobel Prize winner.
• March 16 – Raymond Vahan Damadian, Armenian-American MRI practitioner.
• March 24 – David Suzuki, Canadian geneticist and populariser of science.
• April 1 – Abdul Qadeer Khan (died 2021), Pakistani nuclear physicist.²³
• April 17 – Meemann Chang, Chinese paleontologist.
• June 29 – Leon O. Chua, American electrical engineer and computer scientist.
• August 1 – W. D. Hamilton (died 2000), English evolutionary biologist, widely recognised as one of the greatest evolutionary theorists of the 20th century.²⁴
• August 17 – Margaret Hamilton, American computer scientist, Presidential Medal of Freedom laureate.
• September 17 – Gerald Guralnik (died 2014), American physicist most famous for his co-discovery of the Higgs mechanism and Higgs boson.
• November 25 – John Taylor, English inventor.
• December 22 – James Burke, British historian and populariser of science.
• December 31 – Szilveszter E. Vizi, Hungarian physician, neuroscientist and pharmacologist.

Deaths

• February 9 – Sir Charles Ballance (born 1856), English surgeon.
• February 27 – Ivan Pavlov (born 1849), Russian physiologist.
• April 8 – Róbert Bárány (born 1876), Austro-Hungarian-born otologist, Nobel Prize winner in medicine.
• April 9 – John Uri Lloyd (born 1849), American pharmacist and science fiction author.
• April 27 – Karl Pearson (born 1857), English mathematician.
• August 25 – Maria von Linden (born 1869), German bacteriologist and zoologist.

References

1. "A Short History of the Development of Nerve Gases". Noblis.org. Archived from the original on 2009-02-03. Retrieved 2011-10-07. https://web.archive.org/web/20090203065700/http://www.noblis.org/AShortHistoryOfTheDevelopmentOfNerveGases.htm ↩

2. "Nerve Agent: GA". Cbwinfo.com. Archived from the original on 2011-09-27. Retrieved 2011-10-07. https://web.archive.org/web/20110927051929/https://www.cbwinfo.com/Chemical/Nerve/GA.shtml ↩

3. Turing, A. M. (January 1937). "On computable numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem". Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society. Series 2. 42: 230–265. doi:10.1112/plms/s2-42.1.230. Retrieved 2017-12-24. http://www.abelard.org/turpap2/tp2-ie.asp ↩

4. "Rózsa Péter". MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive. School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews, Scotland. Retrieved 14 April 2014. http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Peter.html ↩

5. Albers, Donald J.; Alexanderson, Gerald L.; Reid, Constance, eds. (1990), "Rozsa Peter 1905–1977", More Mathematical People, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, p. 149 /wiki/Gerald_L._Alexanderson ↩

6. Andrásfai, Béla (1986), "Rózsa (Rosa) Péter", Periodica Polytechnica Electrical Engineering, 30 (2–3): 139–145 http://www.pp.bme.hu/ee/article/view/4651 ↩

7. Lehmann, Inge (1936). "P'". Publications du Bureau Central Séismologique International. A14 (3): S.87–115. ↩

8. Bolt, Bruce A. (1987). "50 years of studies on the inner core". Eos. 68 (6): 73, 80–81. Bibcode:1987EOSTr..68Q..73B. doi:10.1029/eo068i006p00073-01. /wiki/Eos_(journal) ↩

9. Bryson, Bill (2004). A Short History of Nearly Everything. Broadway Books. p. 71. ISBN 978-0767908184. 978-0767908184 ↩

10. Church, Alonzo (1936). "A Note on the Entscheidungsproblem". Journal of Symbolic Logic. 1 (1): 40–41. doi:10.2307/2269326. JSTOR 2269326. S2CID 42323521. Submitted April 15 [sic.] /wiki/Journal_of_Symbolic_Logic ↩

11. Meijer, C. S. (1936). "Über Whittakersche bzw. Besselsche Funktionen und deren Produkte". Nieuw Archief voor Wiskunde (2) (in German). 18 (4): 10–39. JFM 62.0421.02. /wiki/JFM_(identifier) ↩

12. Dodson, Peter; et al. "Staurikosaurus". The Age of Dinosaurs. Publications International. p. 45. ISBN 0-7853-0443-6. 0-7853-0443-6 ↩

13. Selye, Hans (1936). "A Syndrome Produced by Diverse Nocuous Agents". Nature. 138 (3479): 32. Bibcode:1936Natur.138...32S. doi:10.1038/138032a0. Archived from the original on 2008-01-07. Retrieved 2020-02-16. /wiki/Hans_Selye ↩

14. Szabo, S.; Yoshida, M.; Filakovszky, J.; Juhasz, G. (2017). ""Stress" is 80 Years Old: From Hans Selye Original Paper in 1936 to Recent Advances in GI Ulceration" (PDF). Current Pharmaceutical Design. 23 (27): 4029–4041. doi:10.2174/1381612823666170622110046. PMID 28641541. https://escholarship.org/content/qt441957nq/qt441957nq.pdf?t=pewjsu ↩

15. "1936". MusicAndHistory. Archived from the original on 2013-06-10. Retrieved 2015-08-16. https://web.archive.org/web/20130610051422/http://musicandhistory.com/music-and-history-by-the-year/197-1936.html ↩

16. "Influenza Historic Timeline". CDC. 2019-01-30. Retrieved 2022-03-19. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/pandemic-timeline-1930-and-beyond.htm ↩

17. "Egas Moniz – Biography". Nobelprize.org. 9 Jun 2010. Archived from the original on 2010-06-09. Retrieved 11 July 2010. https://web.archive.org/web/20100609040416/http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1949/moniz.html ↩

18. Fanconi, G.; Uehlinger, E.; Knauer, C. (1936). "Das coeliakiesyndrom bei angeborener zysticher pankreasfibromatose und bronchiektasien". Wiener medizinische Wochenschrift. 86: 753–756. ↩

19. Himsworth, H. P. (1936). "Diabetes mellitus: its differentiation into insulin-sensitive and insulin-insensitive types". The Lancet. 227 (5864). London: 127–30. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(01)36134-2. /wiki/The_Lancet ↩

20. Hogg, Michael A.; Vaughan, Graham M. (2005). Social Psychology (4th ed.). Harlow: Prentice Hall. ISBN 0273686992. 0273686992 ↩

21. Paddle, Robert (2000). The Last Tasmanian Tiger: the History and Extinction of the Thylacine. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-53154-3. 0-521-53154-3 ↩

22. Watson, D. A. "The Panda Lady: Ruth Harkness (Part 1)". Female explorers. Archived from the original on 15 December 2006. Retrieved 2007-02-01. https://web.archive.org/web/20061215055814/http://femexplorers.com/full_article.php?article_id=17 ↩

23. Corera, Gordon (2021-10-10). "AQ Khan: The most dangerous man in the world?". BBC News. Retrieved 2021-10-10. /wiki/Gordon_Corera ↩

24. Dawkins, Richard (2000-03-10). "Obituary". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2021-10-10. /wiki/Richard_Dawkins ↩