1974 in science

Overview of the events of 1974 in science

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1974 in science

1973

1975

Fields

* Archaeology

Technology

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* Transportation technology

Social sciences

* Psychology
* Governance and policy studies

Paleontology

* Dinosaurs' extinction

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

## Astronomy and space exploration

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* 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

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* 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

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* 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

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

## Medicine

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* 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

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* 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

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* 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

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

## Psychology

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* 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

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* 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

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* 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

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

## Awards

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* 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

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* 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

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* 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

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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 2ph 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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