1975 in science
Encyclopedia
The year 1975 in science
and technology
involved some significant events, listed below.
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
and technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
involved some significant events, listed below.
Astronomy and space exploration
- April 19 - AryabhataAryabhata (satellite)Aryabhatta was India's first satellite, named after the great Indian astronomer of the same name. It was launched by the Soviet Union on 19 April 1975 from Kapustin Yar using a Cosmos-3M launch vehicle. It was built by the Indian Space Research Organization to gain experience in building and...
, India'sIndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
first satellite, is launched using Soviet boosters. - July 17 - Apollo-Soyuz Test Project: An American Apollo and a Soviet Soyuz spacecraftSoyuz spacecraftSoyuz , Union) is a series of spacecraft initially designed for the Soviet space programme by the Korolyov Design Bureau in the 1960s, and still in service today...
dock with each other in orbitOrbitIn physics, an orbit is the gravitationally curved path of an object around a point in space, for example the orbit of a planet around the center of a star system, such as the Solar System...
marking the first such link-up between spacecraft from the two nations. - August 20 - Viking programViking programThe Viking program consisted of a pair of American space probes sent to Mars, Viking 1 and Viking 2. Each spacecraft was composed of two main parts, an orbiter designed to photograph the surface of Mars from orbit, and a lander designed to study the planet from the surface...
: NASANASAThe National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
launches the Viking 1Viking 1Viking 1 was the first of two spacecraft sent to Mars as part of NASA's Viking program. It was the first spacecraft to successfully land on Mars and perform its mission, and until May 19, 2010 held the record for the second longest Mars surface mission of 6 years and 116 days .- Mission :Following...
planetary probe toward MarsMarsMars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
.
Biology
- August 7 - César MilsteinCésar MilsteinCésar Milstein FRS was an Argentine biochemist in the field of antibody research. Milstein shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1984 with Niels K. Jerne and Georges Köhler.-Biography:...
and Georges Köhler report their discovery of how to use hybridoma cellsHybridomaHybridoma technology is a technology of forming hybrid cell lines by fusing a specific antibody-producing B cell with a myeloma cell that is selected for its ability to grow in tissue culture and for an absence of antibody chain synthesis...
to isolate monoclonal antibodies, effectively beginning the history of monoclonal antibody use in science. - Living specimens of the Chacoan PeccaryChacoan peccaryThe Chacoan peccary or Tagua is a species of peccary found in the Gran Chaco of Paraguay, Bolivia and Argentina. About 3000 exist in the world...
(Catagonus wagneri), previously known to scientists only from fossils, are identified in ParaguayParaguayParaguay , officially the Republic of Paraguay , is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the...
.
Computer science
- January - Altair 8800Altair 8800The MITS Altair 8800 was a microcomputer design from 1975 based on the Intel 8080 CPU and sold by mail order through advertisements in Popular Electronics, Radio-Electronics and other hobbyist magazines. The designers hoped to sell only a few hundred build-it-yourself kits to hobbyists, and were...
is released, sparking the era of the microcomputerMicrocomputerA microcomputer is a computer with a microprocessor as its central processing unit. They are physically small compared to mainframe and minicomputers...
. - Bill GatesBill GatesWilliam Henry "Bill" Gates III is an American business magnate, investor, philanthropist, and author. Gates is the former CEO and current chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen...
and Paul AllenPaul AllenPaul Gardner Allen is an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. Allen co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates...
develop a BASICBASICBASIC is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages whose design philosophy emphasizes ease of use - the name is an acronym from Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code....
program for the Altair 8800 and form a company at this time called Micro SoftMicrosoftMicrosoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
.
Mathematics
- Benoit MandelbrotBenoît MandelbrotBenoît B. Mandelbrot was a French American mathematician. Born in Poland, he moved to France with his family when he was a child...
coins the term fractalFractalA fractal has been defined as "a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is a reduced-size copy of the whole," a property called self-similarity...
. - Harada–Norton group discovered.
Medicine
- Mini–mental state examination (MMSE) or Folstein test introduced to screen for dementiaDementiaDementia is a serious loss of cognitive ability in a previously unimpaired person, beyond what might be expected from normal aging...
or other cognitive dysfunctionCognitive dysfunctionCognitive dysfunction is defined as unusually poor mental function, associated with confusion, forgetfulness and difficulty concentrating...
.
Awards
- Nobel PrizeNobel PrizeThe Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
s- PhysicsNobel Prize in PhysicsThe Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded once a year by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895 and awarded since 1901; the others are the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Peace Prize, and...
- Aage Bohr, Ben Roy MottelsonBen Roy MottelsonBenjamin Roy Mottelson is an American-born Danish nuclear physicist. He won the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the non-spherical geometry of atomic nuclei....
, James RainwaterJames RainwaterLeo James Rainwater was an American physicist who shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1975 for his part in determining the asymmetrical shapes of certain atomic nuclei.-Biography:... - ChemistryNobel Prize in ChemistryThe Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, physics, literature,...
- John Warcup Cornforth, Vladimir PrelogVladimir PrelogVladimir Prelog FRS was a Croatian chemist and Nobel Prize winner in chemistry. Prelog lived and worked in Prague, Zagreb and Zürich during his lifetime.-Biography:... - MedicineNobel Prize in Physiology or MedicineThe Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine administered by the Nobel Foundation, is awarded once a year for outstanding discoveries in the field of life science and medicine. It is one of five Nobel Prizes established in 1895 by Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, in his will...
- David BaltimoreDavid BaltimoreDavid Baltimore is an American biologist, university administrator, and Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine. He served as president of the California Institute of Technology from 1997 to 2006, and is currently the Robert A. Millikan Professor of Biology at Caltech...
, Renato DulbeccoRenato DulbeccoRenato Dulbecco is an Italian virologist who won a 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on reverse transcriptase. In 1973 he was awarded the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University together with Theodore Puck and Harry Eagle. Dulbecco was the recipient of the Selman A...
, Howard Martin TeminHoward Martin TeminHoward Martin Temin was a U.S. geneticist. Along with Renato Dulbecco and David Baltimore he discovered reverse transcriptase in the 1970s at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, for which he shared the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.-Scientific career:Temin's description of how tumor...
- Physics
- Turing AwardTuring AwardThe Turing Award, in full The ACM A.M. Turing Award, is an annual award given by the Association for Computing Machinery to "an individual selected for contributions of a technical nature made to the computing community. The contributions should be of lasting and major technical importance to the...
- Allen NewellAllen NewellAllen Newell was a researcher in computer science and cognitive psychology at the RAND corporation and at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science, Tepper School of Business, and Department of Psychology...
, Herbert SimonHerbert SimonHerbert Alexander Simon was an American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and psychologist, and professor—most notably at Carnegie Mellon University—whose research ranged across the fields of cognitive psychology, cognitive science, computer science, public administration, economics,...
Deaths
- February 14 - Julian HuxleyJulian HuxleySir Julian Sorell Huxley FRS was an English evolutionary biologist, humanist and internationalist. He was a proponent of natural selection, and a leading figure in the mid-twentieth century evolutionary synthesis...
(b. 18871887 in scienceThe year 1887 in science and technology involved many significant events, listed below.-Events:* March 7 - North Carolina State University is established as North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts....
), BritishUnited KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
biologistBiologistA biologist is a scientist devoted to and producing results in biology through the study of life. Typically biologists study organisms and their relationship to their environment. Biologists involved in basic research attempt to discover underlying mechanisms that govern how organisms work...
and authorAuthorAn author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
.