1953 in science Totally Explained

Everything about 1953 In Science totally explained

The year 1953 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Biochemistry

Francis Crick and James D. Watson published "Molecular structure of nucleic acids: a structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid" in the British journal Nature (April 25). Often ranked as one of the most dramatic results in Biology during the 20th century because of the structural beauty and functional logic of the DNA double helix. They shared a 1962 Nobel Prize in Medicine with Maurice Wilkins who published x-ray crystallography results for DNA in the same issue of Nature with Watson and Crick ("Molecular Structure of Deoxypentose Nucleic Acids")

Stanley L. Miller published (May 15 in Science) results from the "Miller-Urey experiment". These results surprised many chemists by showing that organic molecules present in living organisms can form easily from simple chemicals. Download the article

. (PDF file)

Chemistry

Pariser - Pople - Parr computational quantum chemistry theory for approximating molecular orbitals. (R. Pariser and R.G. Parr, J. Chem. Phys. 21, 466, 767) (J.A. Pople, Trans. Faraday Soc. 49, 1375)

Computer science

It has been estimated that there were only about 100 hand-built computers in the world in 1953. Researchers such as Tom Kilburn at the University of Manchester completed a device called MEG, which did floating-point calculations. This machine evolved into the first transistorized computer, the Metro-Vickers MV950, leading to mass production of computers.

Alan Turing published an article describing the first 1,104 zeroes of the Riemann zeta-function, culminating 15 years of work on how to use computers to tackle a fundamental problem in number theory.

Evolution

The Piltdown man fraud came to the attention of the world after publications such as "The Solution of the Piltdown Problem," by J. S. Weiner, K. P. Oakley and W. E. Le Gros Clark in Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History), Geological Series, Vol. 2, No. 3.

Geology

Maurice Ewing and Bruce Heezen discovered the deep canyon running along the center of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. This was an important contribution to plate tectonics.

Philosophy of science

Rudolf Carnap published an article called "Testability and Meaning" in Readings in the Philosophy of Science which moved away from the philosophical position of Logical positivism with respect to science (particularly the heavily mathematical sciences like physics). Carnap now emphasized the idea that progress in science depends on the gradual accumulation of many small results that support our understanding of the world, a view more in line with Wittgenstein's later philosophy and biological sciences.

As part of an extended series of publications on science, Pope Pius XII published "The Technician" which instructed scientists to restrict themselves to the study of physical matter and do nothing to undermine the idea of a non-material soul or a Superior Being. "The Technician" was delivered as a papal address on October 9, 1953.

Physics

In 1951 and 1952 physicists such as Frederick Reines, Enrico Fermi and Clyde Cowan discussed plans for detecting neutrinos. They built the first neutrino detector (cadmium-water target) and used the nuclear facility of Hanford, Washington as the neutrino source. The first neutrino detection experiments were performed in the Spring of 1953 and preliminary results were published that Summer (F. Reines and C. L. Cowan, "Detection of the Free Neutrino", Phys. Rev. 92, 830). Their work led to the 1995 Nobel Prize.

Psychology

B. F. Skinner published a book called Science and Human Behavior (ISBN 0-02-929040-6) which is still a controversial attempt to apply the results from behavioral studies of laboratory animals to human psychology.

Space technology

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory finished development of the SSM-A-17 Corporal I rocket. This was the first U.S. surface-to-surface ballistic missile and the motor was liquid fueled with red fuming nitric acid as the oxidizer.

Births

Deaths

April 22 - Jan Czochralski (b. 1885), discoverer of the Czochralski process for growing crystals.

August 15 - Ludwig Prandtl (b. 1875), physicist.

September 28 - Edwin Hubble (b. 1889), American astronomer.

Further Information

Get more info on '1953 In Science'.

External Link Exchanges

Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:

<a href="http://1953_in_science.totallyexplained.com">1953 in science Totally Explained</a>

Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned.