The year 1937 in

science Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...

and

technology Technology is the application of Conceptual model, conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals, especially in a reproducible way. The word ''technology'' can also mean the products resulting from such efforts, including both tangible too ...

involved some significant events, listed below.

Astronomy

* June 8 – First total

solar eclipse A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby obscuring the view of the Sun from a small part of Earth, totally or partially. Such an alignment occurs approximately every six months, during the eclipse season i ...

to exceed 7 minutes of totality in over 800 years; visible in the Pacific and Peru.

Biology

* September 27 – Last definite record of a Bali tiger shot. * Meredith Crawford first publishes results of the

cooperative pulling paradigm The cooperative pulling paradigm is an Scientific control, experimental design in which two or more animals pull incentive salience, rewards toward themselves via an apparatus that they cannot successfully operate alone. Researchers (ethology, e ...

, with

chimpanzee The chimpanzee (; ''Pan troglodytes''), also simply known as the chimp, is a species of Hominidae, great ape native to the forests and savannahs of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed one. When its close rel ...

s in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. * Jay Laurence Lush publishes the influential textbook ''Animal Breeding Plans'' in the United States. * The

citric acid cycle The citric acid cycle—also known as the Krebs cycle, Szent–Györgyi–Krebs cycle, or TCA cycle (tricarboxylic acid cycle)—is a series of chemical reaction, biochemical reactions that release the energy stored in nutrients through acetyl-Co ...

is finally identified by Hans Adolf Krebs.

Chemistry

* Carlo Perrier and

Emilio Segrè Emilio Gino Segrè ( ; ; 1 February 1905 – 22 April 1989) was an Italian-American nuclear physicist and radiochemist who discovered the elements technetium and astatine, and the antiproton, a subatomic antiparticle, for which he was award ...

at the

University of Palermo The University of Palermo () is a public university, public research university in Palermo, Italy. It was founded in 1806, and is currently organized in 12 Faculties. History The University of Palermo was officially founded in 1806, although it ...

confirm discovery of the chemical element which will become known as

Technetium Technetium is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Tc and atomic number 43. It is the lightest element whose isotopes are all radioactive. Technetium and promethium are the only radioactive elements whose neighbours in the sense ...

. * The

opioid Opioids are a class of Drug, drugs that derive from, or mimic, natural substances found in the Papaver somniferum, opium poppy plant. Opioids work on opioid receptors in the brain and other organs to produce a variety of morphine-like effects, ...

Methadone Methadone, sold under the brand names Dolophine and Methadose among others, is a synthetic opioid used medically to treat chronic pain and opioid use disorder. Prescribed for daily use, the medicine relieves cravings and opioid withdrawal sym ...

is synthesized in Germany by scientists working at

Hoechst AG Hoechst AG () was a German chemicals, later life sciences, company that became Aventis Deutschland after its merger with France's Rhône-Poulenc S.A. in 1999. With the new company's 2004 merger with Sanofi-Synthélabo, it became a subsidiar ...

. *

Otto Bayer Otto Bayer (4 November 1902 – 1 August 1982) was a German industrial chemist at IG Farben who was head of the research group that in 1937 discovered the polyaddition for the synthesis of polyurethanes out of poly-isocyanate and polyol. Ba ...

and his coworkers at IG Farben in

Leverkusen Leverkusen () is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, on the eastern bank of the Rhine. To the south, Leverkusen borders the city of Cologne, and to the north the state capital, Düsseldorf. The city is part of the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan ...

, Germany, first make

polyurethane Polyurethane (; often abbreviated PUR and PU) is a class of polymers composed of organic chemistry, organic units joined by carbamate (urethane) links. In contrast to other common polymers such as polyethylene and polystyrene, polyurethane term ...

Computer science

* January –

Alan Turing Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher and theoretical biologist. He was highly influential in the development of theoretical computer ...

1936 Events January–February * January 20 – The Prince of Wales succeeds to the throne of the United Kingdom as King Edward VIII, following the death of his father, George V, at Sandringham House. * January 28 – Death and state funer ...

paper "On Computable Numbers" first appears in print.

Alonzo Church Alonzo Church (June 14, 1903 – August 11, 1995) was an American computer scientist, mathematician, logician, and philosopher who made major contributions to mathematical logic and the foundations of theoretical computer science. He is bes ...

's review of it in ''

Journal of Symbolic Logic The '' Journal of Symbolic Logic'' is a peer-reviewed mathematics journal published quarterly by Association for Symbolic Logic. It was established in 1936 and covers mathematical logic. The journal is indexed by '' Mathematical Reviews'', Zent ...

'' introduces the term

Turing machine A Turing machine is a mathematical model of computation describing an abstract machine that manipulates symbols on a strip of tape according to a table of rules. Despite the model's simplicity, it is capable of implementing any computer algori ...

. *

Claude Shannon Claude Elwood Shannon (April 30, 1916 – February 24, 2001) was an American mathematician, electrical engineer, computer scientist, cryptographer and inventor known as the "father of information theory" and the man who laid the foundations of th ...

's Master's

thesis A thesis (: theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144: D ...

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

demonstrates that electronic application of

Boolean algebra In mathematics and mathematical logic, Boolean algebra is a branch of algebra. It differs from elementary algebra in two ways. First, the values of the variable (mathematics), variables are the truth values ''true'' and ''false'', usually denot ...

could construct and resolve any logical numerical relationship. *

Konrad Zuse Konrad Ernst Otto Zuse (; ; 22 June 1910 – 18 December 1995) was a German civil engineer, List of pioneers in computer science, pioneering computer scientist, inventor and businessman. His greatest achievement was the world's first programm ...

submits

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...

s in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

based on his Z1 computer design anticipating

von Neumann architecture The von Neumann architecture—also known as the von Neumann model or Princeton architecture—is a computer architecture based on the '' First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC'', written by John von Neumann in 1945, describing designs discus ...

Exploration

* British Graham Land Expedition (1934–1937) concludes its work, having determined that

Graham Land Graham Land is the portion of the Antarctic Peninsula that lies north of a line joining Cape Jeremy and Cape Agassiz. This description of Graham Land is consistent with the 1964 agreement between the British Antarctic Place-names Committee ...

is an integral part of the

Antarctic Peninsula The Antarctic Peninsula, known as O'Higgins Land in Chile and Tierra de San Martin in Argentina, and originally as Graham Land in the United Kingdom and the Palmer Peninsula in the United States, is the northernmost part of mainland Antarctica. ...

and not an independent

archipelago An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands. An archipelago may be in an ocean, a sea, or a smaller body of water. Example archipelagos include the Aegean Islands (the o ...

Mathematics

Bruno de Finetti Bruno de Finetti (13 June 1906 – 20 July 1985) was an Italian probabilist statistician and actuary, noted for the "operational subjective" conception of probability. The classic exposition of his distinctive theory is the 1937 , which discuss ...

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 variable A random variable (also called random quantity, aleatory variable, or stochastic variable) is a Mathematics, mathematical formalization of a quantity or object which depends on randomness, random events. The term 'random variable' in its mathema ...

s. *

Hans Freudenthal Hans Freudenthal (17 September 1905 – 13 October 1990) was a Jewish-German, Jewish German-born Netherlands, Dutch mathematician. He made substantial contributions to algebraic topology and also took an interest in literature, philosophy, histor ...

proves the Freudenthal suspension theorem in

homotopy In topology, two continuous functions from one topological space to another are called homotopic (from and ) if one can be "continuously deformed" into the other, such a deformation being called a homotopy ( ; ) between the two functions. ...

. *

Goldberg polyhedron In mathematics, and more specifically in polyhedral combinatorics, a Goldberg polyhedron is a convex polyhedron made from hexagons and pentagons. They were first described in 1937 by Michael Goldberg (mathematician), Michael Goldberg (1902–1990 ...

first described.

Medicine

* November 2 – English chemist Montague Phillips at May & Baker synthesises sulphapyridine (M&B 693), an early

antibiotic An antibiotic is a type of antimicrobial substance active against bacteria. It is the most important type of antibacterial agent for fighting pathogenic bacteria, bacterial infections, and antibiotic medications are widely used in the therapy ...

which immediately enters animal trials with

Middlesex Hospital Middlesex Hospital was a teaching hospital located in the Fitzrovia area of London, England. First opened as the Middlesex Infirmary in 1745 on Windmill Street, it was moved in 1757 to Mortimer Street where it remained until it was finally clos ...

pathologist Lionel Whitby. * First typhus vaccine by Rudolf Weigl,

Ludwik Fleck Ludwik Fleck (, ; 11 July 1896 – 5 June 1961) was a Polish, Jewish, and Israeli physician and biologist who did important work in epidemic typhus in Lwów, Poland, with Rudolf Weigl and in the 1930s developed the concepts of "''Denkstil''" ("t ...

and Hans Zinsser;

influenza vaccine Influenza vaccines, colloquially known as flu shots or the flu jab, are vaccines that protect against infection by influenza viruses. New versions of the vaccines are developed twice a year, as the influenza virus rapidly changes. While their ...

by Anatol Smorodintsev. * Both respirator designed in Australia. * 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 The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

of Dr

A. J. Cronin Archibald Joseph Cronin (Cronogue) (19 July 1896 – 6 January 1981) was a Scottish physician and novelist. His best-known novel is ''The Citadel (novel), The Citadel'' (1937), about a Scottish physician who serves in a Welsh coal mining, minin ...

's novel ''

The Citadel The Citadel Military College of South Carolina (simply known as The Citadel) is a public senior military college in Charleston, South Carolina, United States. Established in 1842, it is the third oldest of the six senior military colleges ...

'', promoting the cause of socialised medicine.

Physics

* January –

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...

and

Nathan Rosen Nathan Rosen (; March 22, 1909 – December 18, 1995) was an American and Israeli physicist noted for his study on the structure of the hydrogen molecule and his collaboration with Albert Einstein and Boris Podolsky on entangled wave functions and ...

publish a paper denying that

gravitational wave Gravitational waves are oscillations of the gravitational field that Wave propagation, travel through space at the speed of light; they are generated by the relative motion of gravity, gravitating masses. They were proposed by Oliver Heaviside i ...

s can exist. *

Eugene Wigner Eugene Paul Wigner (, ; November 17, 1902 – January 1, 1995) was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist who also contributed to mathematical physics. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963 "for his contributions to the theory of th ...

introduces the term ''

isospin In nuclear physics and particle physics, isospin (''I'') is a quantum number related to the up- and down quark content of the particle. Isospin is also known as isobaric spin or isotopic spin. Isospin symmetry is a subset of the flavour symmetr ...

''.

Technology

* February –

Hans von Ohain Hans Joachim Pabst von Ohain (14 December 191113 March 1998) was a German physicist, engineer, and the designer of the first aircraft to use a turbojet engine. Together with Frank Whittle and Anselm Franz, he has been described as the co-invent ...

begins ground-testing a

turbojet The turbojet is an airbreathing jet engine which is typically used in aircraft. It consists of a gas turbine with a propelling nozzle. The gas turbine has an air inlet which includes inlet guide vanes, a compressor, a combustion chamber, and ...

engine. * April 12 –

Frank Whittle Air Commodore Sir Frank Whittle, (1 June 1907 – 8 August 1996) was an English engineer, inventor and Royal Air Force (RAF) air officer. He is credited with co-creating the turbojet engine. A patent was submitted by Maxime Guillaume in 1921 fo ...

ground-tests the first

jet engine A jet engine is a type of reaction engine, discharging a fast-moving jet (fluid), jet of heated gas (usually air) that generates thrust by jet propulsion. While this broad definition may include Rocket engine, rocket, Pump-jet, water jet, and ...

designed to power an aircraft, at Rugby, England. * May 28 – Rocker Shovel Loader patent applied for in the United States. * June 5 –

Alan Blumlein Alan Dower Blumlein (; 29 June 1903 – 7 June 1942) was an English electronics engineer, notable for his many inventions in telecommunications, sound recording, stereophonic sound, television and radar. He received 128 patents and was considere ...

is granted a

for an ultra-linear amplifier. * December 13 – Tomlinson Moseley files the first patent for an

electric toothbrush An electric toothbrush, motorized toothbrush, or battery-powered toothbrush is a toothbrush that makes rapid automatic bristle motions, either back-and-forth oscillating, oscillation or rotation-oscillation (where the brush head alternates clockwi ...

. * Alec Reeves invents

pulse-code modulation Pulse-code modulation (PCM) is a method used to digitally represent analog signals. It is the standard form of digital audio in computers, compact discs, digital telephony and other digital audio applications. In a PCM stream, the amplitud ...

Awards

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; ; ) are awards administered by the Nobel Foundation and granted in accordance with the principle of "for the greatest benefit to humankind". The prizes were first awarded in 1901, marking the fifth anniversary of Alfred N ...

s **

Physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

– Clinton Joseph Davisson,

George Paget Thomson Sir George Paget Thomson (; 3 May 1892 – 10 September 1975) was an English physicist who shared the 1937 Nobel Prize in Physics with Clinton Davisson “for their experimental discovery of the diffraction of electrons by crystals”. Educa ...

Chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...

– Walter Haworth,

Paul Karrer Paul Karrer (21 April 1889 – 18 June 1971) was a Swiss organic chemist best known for his research on vitamins. He and British chemist Norman Haworth won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1937. Biography Early years Karrer was born in Moscow, ...

Medicine Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for patients, managing the Medical diagnosis, diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, ...

– Albert von Szent-Györgyi Nagyrapolt *

Copley Medal The Copley Medal is the most prestigious award of the Royal Society of the United Kingdom, conferred "for sustained, outstanding achievements in any field of science". The award alternates between the physical sciences or mathematics and the bio ...

– Henry Dale * Wollaston Medal for geology – Waldemar Lindgren

Births

* January 14 –

Leo Kadanoff Leo Philip Kadanoff (January 14, 1937 – October 26, 2015) was an American physicist. He was a professor of physics (emeritus from 2004) at the University of Chicago and a former president of the American Physical Society (APS). He contributed t ...

, American physicist (died

2015 2015 was designated by the United Nations as: * International Year of Light * International Year of Soil __TOC__ Events January * January 1 – Lithuania officially adopts the euro as its currency, replacing the litas, and becomes ...

) * January 26 – Igor Aleksander, Croatian computer scientist. * February 18 – Chen Chuangtian (died

2018 Events January * January 1 – Bulgaria takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, after the Estonian presidency. * January 4 – SPLM-IO rebels loyal to Chan Garang Lual start a raid against Juba, capital of ...

), Chinese materials scientist. * March 16 –

Amos Tversky Amos Nathan Tversky (; March 16, 1937 – June 2, 1996) was an Israeli cognitive and mathematical psychologist and a key figure in the discovery of systematic human cognitive bias and handling of risk. Much of his early work concerned th ...

(died

1996 1996 was designated as: * International Year for the Eradication of Poverty Events January * January 8 – A Zairean cargo plane crashes into a crowded market in the center of the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo ...

Jewish American American Jews (; ) or Jewish Americans are American citizens who are Jewish, whether by culture, ethnicity, or religion. According to a 2020 poll conducted by Pew Research, approximately two thirds of American Jews identify as Ashkenazi, 3% id ...

cognitive Cognition is the "mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...

and mathematical psychologist, recipient of the

Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (), commonly referred to as the Nobel Prize in Economics(), is an award in the field of economic sciences adminis ...

. * April 17 – Don Buchla (died 2016 in science, 2016), Americans, American electronic engineer, pioneer of sound synthesizers. * May 9 – Alison Jolly (died 2014 in science, 2014), American primatologist. * May 13 – Trevor Baylis (died

), English people, English inventor. * June 8 – Bruce McCandless II (died 2017 in science, 2017), American astronaut. * June 9 – Harald Rosenthal, German biologist * June 11 – David Mumford, American mathematician. * June 21 – Averil Mansfield, English vascular surgeon. * June 23 – Nicholas Shackleton (died 2006 in science, 2006), English Quaternary geologist and paleoclimatologist, recipient of the Vetlesen Prize. * June 26 – Robert Coleman Richardson (died 2013 in science, 2013), American Experimental physics, experimental physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics. * July 1 – Lydia Makhubu, Swazi chemist. * July 19 – Bibb Latané, American social psychologist. * July 26 – Ernest Vinberg (died 2020 in science, 2020), Russian mathematician. * August 2 – Coenraad Bron, Dutch computer scientist (d. 2006) * September 8 – Edna Adan Ismail, Somalis, Somali pioneer of pediatrics. * December 26 – John Horton Conway, English-born mathematician (d. 2020 in science, 2020)

Deaths

* January 28 – Arthur Pollen (born 1866 in science, 1866), English people, English inventor. * January 29 – Aleen Cust (born 1868 in science, 1868), Irish people, Irish veterinary surgeon. * February 5 – Lou Andreas-Salomé (born 1861 in science, 1861), Germans, German psychoanalyst. * May 28 – Alfred Adler (born 1870 in science, 1870), Austrian psychotherapist. * June 11 – R. J. Mitchell (born 1895 in science, 1895), English aeronautical engineer. * July 20 – Guglielmo Marconi (born 1874 in science, 1874), Italians, Italian inventor. * July 30 – Victor Despeignes (born 1866), French people, French pioneer of radiation oncology. * October 16 – William Sealy Gosset (born 1876 in science, 1876), English statistician. * October 19 – Ernest Rutherford (born 1871 in science, 1871), New Zealand-born British physicist and laureate of the Nobel Prize in Physics. * November 23 – Jagadish Chandra Bose (born 1858 in science, 1858), Bengalis, Bengali physicist.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:1937 In Science 1937 in science, 20th century in science 1930s in science