1981 in science

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The year 1981 in science and technology involved many significant events, listed below.

Biology

• September – Pantanal Matogrossense National Park designated in Brazil.
• Publication of Stephen Jay Gould's critique of biological determinism, The Mismeasure of Man , in the United States.

Chemistry

• A German research team led by Peter Armbruster and Gottfried Münzenberg at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research (GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung) in Darmstadt bombard a target of bismuth-209 with accelerated nuclei of chromium-54 to produce 5 atoms of the isotope bohrium-262

IBM PC 5150

Computer science

• March 5 – The ZX81, a pioneering British home computer, is launched by Sinclair Research, going on to sell over 1.5 million units worldwide.
• April 3 – The Osborne 1, the first successful portable computer, is unveiled at the West Coast Computer Faire in San Francisco.
• July 9 – Nintendo releases the arcade game Donkey Kong featuring the debut of Mario.
• August 12 – The IBM Personal Computer is released. ^[1]
• September 12 – The Chaos Computer Club, a European association of hackers, is established in Berlin by Wau Holland and others.

Mathematics

• Alexander Merkurjev proves the norm residue isomorphism theorem for the case n = 2 and ℓ = 2.

Medicine

• April 26 – Dr. Michael R. Harrison of the University of California, San Francisco, performs the world's first human open fetal surgery.
• June 5 – AIDS pandemic begins when the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports an unusual cluster of Pneumocystis pneumonia in five homosexual men in Los Angeles. ^[2]
• Bruce Reitz leads the team that performs the first successful heart–lung transplant on Mary Gohlke at Stanford Hospital. ^[3]
• LeCompte maneuver first performed. ^[4]
• English psychiatrist Lorna Wing introduces the term "Asperger syndrome". ^[5]

Space exploration

• April 12 – The first launch of a Space Shuttle: Columbia launches on the STS-1 mission.
• October 6 – UoSAT-1, the first modern microsatellite, is launched into Low Earth orbit. ^[6]

Technology

• July 7 – Electric aircraft Solar Challenger, designed by an American team led by Paul MacCready and piloted by Stephen Ptacek, makes a 163-mile (262 km) crossing of the English Channel using only solar power from wing-mounted photovoltaic cells.
• July 17 – Hyatt Regency walkway collapse: Structural failure due to a late design change causes two internal suspended walkways at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri to collapse, killing 114.

Awards

• Nobel Prizes
  • Physics – Nicolaas Bloembergen, Arthur Leonard Schawlow, Kai M. Siegbahn
  • Chemistry – Kenichi Fukui, Roald Hoffmann
  • Medicine – Roger W. Sperry, David H. Hubel, Torsten N. Wiesel
• Turing Award – Edgar F. Codd

Deaths

• January 5
  • Frederick Osborn (b. 1889), American philanthropist and eugenicist.
  • Harold Urey (b. 1893), American winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. ^[7]
• February 26 – Jennie Smillie Robertson (b. 1878), Canadian gynecological surgeon.
• March 8 – Joseph Henry Woodger, British theoretical biologist (b. 1894) ^[8]
• March 9 – Max Delbrück (b. 1906), German biologist. ^[9]
• March 11 – Kazimierz Kordylewski (b. 1903), Polish astronomer.
• March 23 – Beatrice Tinsley (b. 1941), English astronomer.
• April 3 – Leo Kanner (b. 1894), Austrian American clinical child psychiatrist.
• May 11 – Odd Hassel, Norwegian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1897) ^[10]
• July 4 - Niels Erik Nørlund (b. 1885), Danish mathematician.
• July 27 – Elizabeth Rona (b. 1890), Hungarian American nuclear chemist.
• July 31 – Ernest Melville DuPorte (b. 1891), Black Canadian insect morphologist.
• September 8 – Hideki Yukawa, Japanese physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1907) ^[11]
• September 9 – Jacques Lacan (b. 1901), French psychoanalyst. ^[12]
• November 15 – Walter Heitler (b. 1904), German physicist
  Fellow of the Royal Society ^[13]
• November 17
  • Wilhelm Pelikan (b. 1893), Austrian chemist. ^[14]
  • Sibyl M. Rock (b. 1909), American mathematician.
• November 22 – Hans Krebs (b. 1900), German medical doctor and biochemist; discoverer of the citric acid cycle. ^[15]
• December 6 – Harry Harlow (b. 1905), American psychologist.

References

1. Bellis, Mary. "IBM History". About.com. Archived from the original on April 27, 2012. Retrieved 2011-11-30.
2. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) (June 1981). "Pneumocystis pneumonia — Los Angeles". Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report . 30 (21). Centers for Disease Control: 250–2. PMID   6265753.
3. "5 Questions: Bruce Reitz recalls first successful heart-lung transplant". News Center. Retrieved 2 February 2019.
4. LeCompte, Y.; Neveux, J. Y.; Leca, F.; Zannini, L.; Tu, T. V.; Duboys, Y.; Jarreau, M. M. (November 1982). "Reconstruction of the pulmonary outflow tract without prosthetic conduit". The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery . 84 (5): 727–33. doi: 10.1016/S0022-5223(19)38962-7 . ISSN   0022-5223. PMID   7132411.
5. Wing, L. (1981). "Asperger's syndrome: a clinical account" . Psychological Medicine . 11 (1): 115–29. doi:10.1017/S0033291700053332. PMID   7208735. S2CID   16046498 . Retrieved 2007-08-15.
6. Cook, Mike (June 1986). "Way into the world of satellite telemetry". The Micro User . 4 (4). Stockport, UK: Database Publications: 100–1. ISSN   0265-4040.
7. Cohen, K. P.; Runcorn, S. K.; Suess, H. E.; Thode, H. G. (1983). "Harold Clayton Urey 29 April 1893-5 January 1981". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society . 29: 622–659. doi: 10.1098/rsbm.1983.0022 . JSTOR   769815.
8. Popper, Karl (1981). "Obituary: Joseph Henry Woodger". British Journal for the Philosophy of Science . 32 (3): 328–330. doi:10.1093/bjps/32.3.328.
9. William Hayes (1982). "Max Ludwig Henning Delbruck. 4 September 1906-10 March 1981". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society . 28. London: Royal Society: 58–90. doi: 10.1098/rsbm.1982.0003 . JSTOR   769892.
10. Pedersen, Bjørn (2019-09-24), "Odd Hassel", Store norske leksikon (in Norwegian), retrieved October 23, 2019
11. Kemmer, N. (1983). "Hideki Yukawa. 23 January 1907 – 8 September 1981". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society . 29: 660–676. doi: 10.1098/rsbm.1983.0023 . JSTOR   769816.
12. Johnston, Adrian (2018). "Jacques Lacan". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University.
13. Mott, N. (1982). "Walter Heinrich Heitler. 2 January 1904 – 15 November 1981". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society . 28: 140–151. doi: 10.1098/rsbm.1982.0007 . JSTOR   769896.
14. Wilhelm Pelikan
15. Kornberg, H.; Williamson, D. H. (1984). "Hans Adolf Krebs. 25 August 1900 – 22 November 1981". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 30: 350–385. doi: 10.1098/rsbm.1984.0013 . PMID   11616005.