1943 in science

Overview of the events of 1943 in science

List of years in science

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1943 in science

1942

1944

Fields

* Archaeology

Technology

* Sustainable energy research
* Transportation technology

Social sciences

* Psychology
* Governance and policy studies

Paleontology

* Dinosaurs' extinction

Extraterrestrial environment
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* Tornado research

Other/related

* Literature
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The year 1943 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

## Biology

[edit]

* July 21 – Living specimens of Metasequoia glyptostroboides, the Dawn Redwood, previously known only as a Mesozoic fossil, are located in China.[1]
* The University of Oxford acquires the nearby Wytham Woods which become an important centre for research into ecology in England.
* David Lack's study The Life of the Robin is published in England.

## Computer science

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* March–December – Construction of British prototype Mark I Colossus computer, the world's first totally electronic programmable computing device, at the Post Office Research Station, Dollis Hill, to assist in cryptanalysis at Bletchley Park.[2]
* May 17 – The United States Army contracts with the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School to develop the ENIAC.

## Earth sciences

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* February 20 – The cinder cone volcano Parícutin begins to appear in Mexico, giving volcanologists an unusual opportunity to observe its complete life cycle.[3][4][5]

## Nuclear physics

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* January 1 – Project Y, the Manhattan Project's secret laboratory at Los Alamos, New Mexico, for development and production of the first atomic bombs under the direction of J. Robert Oppenheimer, begins operations.

## Pharmacology

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* March 23 – The drugs Vicodin and Lortab are made in Germany.
* October 19 – The antibiotic streptomycin (the first antibiotic remedy for tuberculosis) is first isolated by Albert Schatz in the laboratory of Selman Abraham Waksman at Rutgers University in the United States.[6]
* December – Winston Churchill's recurring bacterial pneumonia is successfully treated with the sulphapyridine M&B 693, a first-generation sulphonamide antibiotic.[7]
* A golden mould, Penicillium chrysogenum, growing on an American cantaloupe in Peoria, Illinois, is found to be ideal for mass production of penicillin.[8]

## Psychology

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* Abraham Maslow proposes the Hierarchy of Needs theory of psychology in his paper "A Theory of Human Motivation".

## Physiology and medicine

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* April 16–19 – Albert Hofmann discovers the hallucinogenic properties of lysergic acid diethylamide.[9]
* Leo Kanner of the Johns Hopkins Hospital first publicly adopts the term autism in its modern sense in English in referring to early infantile autism.[10]
* Warren S. McCulloch and Walter Pitts publish "A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity" in Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics, considered seminal in neural network theory.[11]
* Dr. Willem J. Kolff builds the first dialysis machine, in the occupied Netherlands.[12]
* New Zealand-born British anaesthetist Robert Macintosh introduces his new curved laryngoscope blade for tracheal intubation.[13][14]

## Technology

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* March 5 – The Gloster Meteor, the first operational military jet aircraft for the Allies of World War II, has its first test flight, in England.
* May 16–17 – Operation Chastise: British Royal Air Force attacks German dams using 'bouncing bombs' designed by Barnes Wallis.[15]
* Lyle Goodhue and William Sullivan patent the refillable aerosol spray in the United States, for use with mosquito–repellant.[16]
* Krueger flaps for aircraft wings are invented by Werner Krüger and evaluated in the wind tunnels in Göttingen.

## Awards

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* Nobel Prizes
* Physics – Otto Stern
* Chemistry – George de Hevesy
* Medicine – Carl Peter Henrik Dam, Edward Adelbert Doisy

## Births

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* January 14 – Ralph Steinman (died 2011), Canadian-born cell biologist, awarded Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (2011).
* April 26 – Christiane Floyd, Austrian-born computer scientist.
* May 9 – Colin Pillinger (died 2014), English astrophysicist.
* May 14 – Richard Peto, English epidemiologist.
* June 6 – Richard Smalley (died 2005), American organic chemist, recipient of Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1996) for discovery of buckminsterfullerene.
* June 16 – Nancy Doe Hopkins, American molecular biologist and advocate for women in science.
* June 22 – J. Michael Kosterlitz, Scottish-born condensed matter physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics (2016).
* June 23 – Vint Cerf, American Internet pioneer.
* July 11 – Hilary Kahn (died 2007), South African-born English computer scientist.
* August 3 – Masato Sagawa, Japanese inventor.
* August 10 – Louis E. Brus, American chemist, recipient of Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2023).
* August 29 – Arthur B. McDonald, Canadian astrophysicist, recipient of Nobel Prize in Physics (2015).
* September 20 – Richard McGehee, American mathematician working on celestial mechanics.
* December 7 – Nick Katz, American mathematician.
* Mary Lake Polan, American obstetrician and gynecologist.
* Steen Willadsen, Danish-born embryologist.

## Deaths

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* January 5 – George Washington Carver (born c.1864), African American agricultural botanist.
* January 7 – Nikola Tesla (born 1856), Serbian American inventor.
* January 24 – Carl Brigham (born 1890), American pioneer of psychometrics.
* January 26 – Nikolai Vavilov (born 1887), Russian plant pathologist (in prison).
* February 14 – David Hilbert (born 1862), German mathematician.
* February 20 – Ernest Guglielminetti (born 1862), Swiss physician[17]
* February 23 – Abraham Buschke (born 1868), German Jewish dermatologist (in Theresienstadt concentration camp).
* March 2 – Gisela Januszewska (born 1867), Austrian public health physician (in Theresienstadt concentration camp).[18]
* March 28 – Robert W. Paul (born 1869), English pioneer of cinematography.
* April 8 – Kiyotsugu Hirayama (born 1874), Japanese astronomer.
* June 26 – Karl Landsteiner (born 1868), Austrian-born American Jewish physiologist.
* July 5 – Charles Gandy (born 1872), French physician.
* July 7 – Hugh Whistler (born 1889), English ornithologist of India.
* September 23 – John Bradfield (born 1867), Australian civil engineer.
* September 30 – Carl Edvard Johansson (born 1864), Swedish metrologist.
* October 1 – Albert Stewart Meek (born 1871), English-born Australian ornithologist.
* November 14 – Frank Leverett (born 1859), American glaciologist.
* November 20 – Bertha Lamme Feicht (born 1869), American electrical engineer.

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Ma, Jinshuang; Shao, Guofan (2003). "Rediscovery of the 'first collection' of the 'Living Fossil', Metasequoia glyptostroboides". Taxon. 52 (3): 585–8\. doi:10.2307/3647458. JSTOR 3647458.
2. ^ Copeland, B. Jack, ed. (2006). Colossus: the Secrets of Bletchley Park's Codebreaking Computers. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-284055-4.
3. ^ "The Eruption of Parícutin (1943-1952)". How Volcanoes Work. Archived from the original on 2007-06-04. Retrieved 2012-10-23.
4. ^ "Parícutin, Mexico". Volcano World. Archived from the original on 2012-02-06. Retrieved 2012-10-23.
5. ^ "Parícutin: The Birth of a Volcano". Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Archived from the original on 2013-01-03. Retrieved 2012-10-23.
6. ^ Comroe, J. H. Jr (1978). "Pay dirt: the story of streptomycin. Part I: from Waksman to Waksman". American Review of Respiratory Disease. 117 (4): 773–781\. doi:10.1164/arrd.1978.117.4.773 (inactive 11 July 2025). PMID 417651.`{{cite journal}}`: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of July 2025 (link)
7. ^ "Surviving War; Declining Health". Lincoln & Churchill. Lehrman Institute. 2013-11-07. Retrieved 2017-01-21.
8. ^ Neushul, P. (1993). "Science, government, and the mass production of penicillin". Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences. 48 (4): 371–395\. doi:10.1093/jhmas/48.4.371. PMID 8283024.
9. ^ "Hallucinogenic effects of LSD discovered". The History Channel. Archived from the original on 2014-03-11.
10. ^ Kanner, L. (1943). "Autistic disturbances of affective contact". Nervous Child. 2 (4): 217–50\. PMID 4880460. Reprinted in: Acta Paedopsychiatrica. 35 (4): 100–36\. 1968. PMID 4880460.`{{cite journal}}`: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
11. ^ Aizawa, Ken (2004). "McCulloch, Warren Sturgis". Dictionary of the Philosophy of Mind. Retrieved 2011-12-03.
12. ^ Moore, Carrie A. (2009-02-11). "Kolff, 'father of artificial organs,' dies at 97". Deseret News. Salt Lake City. Archived from the original on February 17, 2009. Retrieved 2012-06-13.
13. ^ Macintosh, R. R. (1943). "A new laryngoscope". The Lancet. 241 (6233): 205. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(00)89390-3.
14. ^ Scott, J.; Baker, P. A. (2009). "How did the Macintosh laryngoscope become so popular?". Pediatric Anesthesia. 19 (Supplement 1): 24–9\. doi:10.1111/j.1460-9592.2009.03026.x. PMID 19572841. S2CID 6345531.
15. ^ Flower, Stephen (2002). A Hell Of A Bomb. Tempus. ISBN 978-0-7524-2386-9.
16. ^ McGrath, Kimberley A.; Travers, Bridget E., eds. (1999). World of Invention. Detroit: Thomson Gale. ISBN 978-0-7876-2759-1. Archived from the original on 5 June 2011. Retrieved 27 June 2011.
17. ^ (in Italian, French, and German) Heldner, Paul (21 July 2005). "Guglielminetti, Ernest". Dictionnaire historique de la Suisse. Retrieved 13 February 2021.
18. ^ Arias, Ingrid (2006). Im Dienste der Volksgesundheit: Frauen – Gesundheitswesen – Nationalsozialismus [In the Service of Public Health: Women, Healthcare, Nazism] (in German). Vienna: Verlagshaus der Ärzte. p. 87\. ISBN 978-3-90148-886-3.

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