1974 in science

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The year 1974 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Astronomy and space exploration

February 8 – After 84 days in space, the last crew of the temporary American space station Skylab return to Earth.
February 13–15 – Sagittarius A*, thought to be the location of a supermassive black hole, is identified by Bruce Balick and Robert Brown using the baseline interferometer of the United States National Radio Astronomy Observatory.^[1]
November 16 – Arecibo message transmitted from Arecibo Observatory (Puerto Rico) to Messier 13.
Hawking radiation is predicted by Stephen Hawking.^[2]

Computer Science

The Mark-8 microcomputer based on the Intel 8008 microprocessor is designed by Jonathan Titus. It is announced on the cover of the July 1974 issue of Radio-Electronics as "Your Personal Minicomputer".

History of science

F. W. Winterbotham publishes The Ultra secret: the inside story of Operation Ultra, Bletchley Park and Enigma, the first popular account of cryptography carried out at Bletchley Park during World War II.

Mathematics

Yves Hellegouarch proposes a connection between Fermat's Last Theorem and the Frey curve.^[3]

Medicine

September 25 – 1974 – The first "Tommy John surgery" for replacement of ulnar collateral ligament of elbow joint is performed by Frank Jobe in the United States.
Identification of controlled trials in perinatal medicine, as advocated by Archie Cochrane, begins in Cardiff, Wales.^[4]
Henry Heimlich describes the "Heimlich Maneuver" as a treatment for choking.^[5]

Paleoanthropology and paleontology

November 24 – A group of paleoanthropologists discover remains of a 3.2-million-year-old skeleton of an Australopithecus afarensis in the Afar Depression of Ethiopia, nicknaming her "Lucy".

Physics

May 18 – "Smiling Buddha", India's first nuclear test explosion takes place underground at Pokhran.^[6]
"November Revolution": J/ψ meson, the first particle found to contain a charm quark, discovered by teams at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, led by Samuel Ting,^[7] and at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, led by Burton Richter.^[8]

Physiology

May – British neuroscientists John Hughes and Hans Kosterlitz announce their isolation of the peptides met- and leu-enkephalin.

Psychology

Civilized Man's Eight Deadly Sins is published by Konrad Lorenz.
Leon Kamin demonstrates that Sir Cyril Burt's influential research into heritability of IQ using twin studies shows evidence of statistical falsification.^[9]

Technology

June 26 – The Universal Product Code is scanned for the first time, to sell a package of Wrigley's chewing gum at the Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio, the first use of barcode technology in American retailing.^[10]
Stephen Salter invents the "Salter Duck", a wave energy converter.

Zoology

January 7 – Outbreak of 4-year Gombe Chimpanzee War in Tanzania, reported by Jane Goodall.
Digital dermatitis in cattle identified in Italy by Cheli and Mortellaro.

Other events

Rubik's Cube invented by Ernő Rubik.^[11]

Awards

Fields Prize in Mathematics: Enrico Bombieri and David Mumford
Nobel Prizes
- Physics – Martin Ryle, Antony Hewish^[12]
- Chemistry – Paul J. Flory
- Medicine – Albert Claude, Christian de Duve, George Emil Palade
Turing Award – Donald Knuth

Births

March 10 – Biz Stone, American computing entrepreneur
August 8 – Manjul Bhargava, Canadian-born mathematician
August 11 – Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, English cognitive neuroscientist
September 28 – Sunil Kumar Verma, Indian biologist

Deaths

February 4 – S. N. Bose, Indian physicist (b. 1894)
April 12 – Cornelis Simon Meijer, Dutch mathematician (b. 1904)
May 4 – Ludwig Koch, German-born British animal sound recordist (b. 1881)
May 18 – Harry Ricardo, English mechanical engineer (b. 1885)
May 22 – Irmgard Flügge-Lotz (b. 1903), German-American mathematician and aerospace engineer
June 28 – Vannevar Bush, American science administrator (b. 1890)
July 3 – Sergey Lebedev, Soviet Russian computer scientist (b. 1902)
August 22 – Jacob Bronowski, Polish-born British scientific polymath (b. 1908)

References

^ Melia, Fulvio (2007). The Galactic Supermassive Black Hole. Princeton University Press. p. 2. ISBN 978-0-691-13129-0.
^ Hawking, S. W. (1974-03-01). "Black hole explosions?". Nature. 248 (5443): 30. Bibcode:1974Natur.248...30H. doi:10.1038/248030a0. S2CID 4290107.
^ Hellegouarch, Yves (1974). "Points d'ordre 2p^h sur les courbes elliptiques" (PDF). Acta Arithmetica. 26 (3). Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Matematyczny: 253–263. doi:10.4064/aa-26-3-253-263. ISSN 0065-1036. MR 0379507.
^ "About the Cochrane Library". The Cochrane Library. Archived from the original on 2011-01-05. Retrieved 2011-01-25.
^ Heimlich, H. (June 1974). "Pop Goes the Cafe Coronary". Emergency Medicine.
^ "India's Nuclear Weapons Program – Smiling Buddha: 1974". Nuclear Weapon Archive. 2001. Archived from the original on 19 May 2011. Retrieved 2011-05-25.
^ Aubert, J. J.; et al. (2 December 1974). "Experimental Observation of a Heavy Particle J". Physical Review Letters. 33 (23): 1404–6. Bibcode:1974PhRvL..33.1404A. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.33.1404.
^ Augustin, J.-E.; et al. (2 December 1974). "Discovery of a Narrow Resonance in e⁺e⁻ Annihilation". Physical Review Letters. 33 (23): 1406–8. Bibcode:1974PhRvL..33.1406A. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.33.1406.
^ Gillie, O. (1976-10-24). "Crucial data was faked by eminent psychologist". The Sunday Times. London.
^ Kleinman, Zoe (2012-10-07). "Barcode birthday: 60 years since patent". BBC News. Retrieved 2013-06-29.
^ Fotheringham, William (2007). Fotheringham's Sporting Pastimes. Anova Books. p. 50. ISBN 978-1-86105-953-6.
^ "6 Women Scientists Who Were Snubbed Due to Sexism". National Geographic News. 19 May 2013. Archived from the original on September 3, 2019. Retrieved 19 January 2021.

[1] Melia, Fulvio (2007). The Galactic Supermassive Black Hole. Princeton University Press. p. 2. ISBN 978-0-691-13129-0.

[2] Hawking, S. W. (1974-03-01). "Black hole explosions?". Nature. 248 (5443): 30. Bibcode:1974Natur.248...30H. doi:10.1038/248030a0. S2CID 4290107.

[3] Hellegouarch, Yves (1974). "Points d'ordre 2p^h sur les courbes elliptiques" (PDF). Acta Arithmetica. 26 (3). Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Matematyczny: 253–263. doi:10.4064/aa-26-3-253-263. ISSN 0065-1036. MR 0379507.

[4] "About the Cochrane Library". The Cochrane Library. Archived from the original on 2011-01-05. Retrieved 2011-01-25.

[5] Heimlich, H. (June 1974). "Pop Goes the Cafe Coronary". Emergency Medicine.

[6] "India's Nuclear Weapons Program – Smiling Buddha: 1974". Nuclear Weapon Archive. 2001. Archived from the original on 19 May 2011. Retrieved 2011-05-25.

[7] Aubert, J. J.; et al. (2 December 1974). "Experimental Observation of a Heavy Particle J". Physical Review Letters. 33 (23): 1404–6. Bibcode:1974PhRvL..33.1404A. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.33.1404.

[8] Augustin, J.-E.; et al. (2 December 1974). "Discovery of a Narrow Resonance in e⁺e⁻ Annihilation". Physical Review Letters. 33 (23): 1406–8. Bibcode:1974PhRvL..33.1406A. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.33.1406.

[9] Gillie, O. (1976-10-24). "Crucial data was faked by eminent psychologist". The Sunday Times. London.

[10] Kleinman, Zoe (2012-10-07). "Barcode birthday: 60 years since patent". BBC News. Retrieved 2013-06-29.

[11] Fotheringham, William (2007). Fotheringham's Sporting Pastimes. Anova Books. p. 50. ISBN 978-1-86105-953-6.

[12] "6 Women Scientists Who Were Snubbed Due to Sexism". National Geographic News. 19 May 2013. Archived from the original on September 3, 2019. Retrieved 19 January 2021.

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