1883 in science
Encyclopedia
The year 1883 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.
Geology
- August 26 - KrakatoaKrakatoaKrakatoa is a volcanic island made of a'a lava in the Sunda Strait between the islands of Java and Sumatra in Indonesia. The name is used for the island group, the main island , and the volcano as a whole. The island exploded in 1883, killing approximately 40,000 people, although some estimates...
begins its final phase of eruptions at 1:06pm local time. These produce a number of tsunamiTsunamiA tsunami is a series of water waves caused by the displacement of a large volume of a body of water, typically an ocean or a large lake...
, mainly in the early hours of the next day, which result in about 36,000 deaths on the islands of SumatraSumatraSumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...
and Java. The final explosion at 10:02am on August 27 destroys the island of Krakatoa itself and is heard up to 3000 miles away. - Vasily Dokuchaev publishes Russian Chernozem.
Medicine
- Thomas CloustonThomas CloustonSir Thomas Smith Clouston was a Scottish psychiatrist.Clouston was born in the Birsay parish of Orkney, and educated at Aberdeen Grammar School and the University of Edinburgh. Clouston qualified M.D. with a thesis on the nervous system of the lobster, supervised by John Goodsir...
publishes Clinical Lectures on Mental Diseases. - Emil KraepelinEmil KraepelinEmil Kraepelin was a German psychiatrist. H.J. Eysenck's Encyclopedia of Psychology identifies him as the founder of modern scientific psychiatry, as well as of psychopharmacology and psychiatric genetics. Kraepelin believed the chief origin of psychiatric disease to be biological and genetic...
publishes Compendium der Psychiatrie. - Journal of the American Medical AssociationJournal of the American Medical AssociationThe Journal of the American Medical Association is a weekly, peer-reviewed, medical journal, published by the American Medical Association. Beginning in July 2011, the editor in chief will be Howard C. Bauchner, vice chairman of pediatrics at Boston University’s School of Medicine, replacing ...
first published under this title.
Awards
- Copley MedalCopley MedalThe Copley Medal is an award given by the Royal Society of London for "outstanding achievements in research in any branch of science, and alternates between the physical sciences and the biological sciences"...
: William ThomsonWilliam Thomson, 1st Baron KelvinWilliam Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin OM, GCVO, PC, PRS, PRSE, was a mathematical physicist and engineer. At the University of Glasgow he did important work in the mathematical analysis of electricity and formulation of the first and second laws of thermodynamics, and did much to unify the emerging...
, Lord Kelvin - Wollaston MedalWollaston MedalThe Wollaston Medal is a scientific award for geology, the highest award granted by the Geological Society of London.The medal is named after William Hyde Wollaston, and was first awarded in 1831...
for Geology: William Thomas BlanfordWilliam Thomas BlanfordWilliam Thomas Blanford was an English geologist and naturalist. He is best remembered as the editor of a major series on The Fauna of British India, Including Ceylon and Burma.-Biography:Blanford was born in London...
Births
- May 13 - Georgios PapanikolaouGeorgios PapanikolaouGeorgios Nicholas Papanikolaou was a Greek pioneer in cytology and early cancer detection, and inventor of the "Pap smear".-Life:...
(d. 19621962 in scienceThe year 1962 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Astronomy and space exploration:* January 26 - Ranger 3 is launched to study the Moon...
), inventor of the Pap smearPap smearThe Papanicolaou test is a screening test used in to detect pre-cancerous and cancerous processes in the endocervical canal of the female reproductive system. Changes can be treated, thus preventing cervical cancer...
. - June 24 - Victor Francis HessVictor Francis HessVictor Francis Hess was an Austrian-American physicist, and Nobel laureate in physics, who discovered cosmic rays.-Early years:...
(d. 19641964 in scienceThe year 1964 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Astronomy and space exploration:* March 20 - The precursor of the European Space Agency, ESRO is established .* July 31 - Ranger program: Ranger 7 sends back the first close-up photographs of the Moon; images...
), AmericanUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
physicistPhysicistA physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
. - October 2 - Karl von TerzaghiKarl von TerzaghiKarl von Terzaghi was an Austrian civil engineer and geologist, called the father of soil mechanics.-Early life:...
(d. 19631963 in scienceThe year 1963 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Astronomy and space exploration:* May 15 - Mercury program: NASA launches the last mission of the program Mercury 9. -Biology:* Geneticist J. B. S...
), AustriaAustriaAustria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n "father of soil mechanicsSoil mechanicsSoil mechanics is a branch of engineering mechanics that describes the behavior of soils. It differs from fluid mechanics and solid mechanics in the sense that soils consist of a heterogeneous mixture of fluids and particles but soil may also contain organic solids, liquids, and gasses and other...
". - October 8 - Otto Heinrich WarburgOtto Heinrich WarburgOtto Heinrich Warburg , son of physicist Emil Warburg, was a German physiologist, medical doctor and Nobel laureate. He served as an officer in the elite Uhlan during the First World War and won the Iron Cross for bravery. Warburg was one of the twentieth century's leading biochemists...
(d. 19701970 in scienceThe year 1970 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Astronomy and space exploration:* February 11 - Japan becomes the fourth country to launch a satellite into orbit....
), GermanGermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
physiologist and winner of the 1931 Nobel Prize in Physiology or 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...
.
Deaths
- May 13 - James Young (b. 18111811 in scienceThe year 1811 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Biology:* Johann Karl Wilhelm Illiger publishes Prodromus systematis mammalium et avium, an updating of Linnean taxonomy and a major influence on the concept of the 'Family' in biology...
), ScottishScottish peopleThe Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...
chemistChemistA chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...
. - June 18 - John WaterstonJohn James WaterstonJohn James Waterston was a Scottish physicist, a neglected pioneer of the kinetic theory of gases.-Early life:Waterston's father, George, was an Edinburgh sealing wax manufacturer and stationer, a relative of the Sandeman family Robert and his brother, George...
(b. 1811), Scottish physicist and civil engineerCivil engineerA civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering; the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructures while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing infrastructures that have been neglected.Originally, a...
(drowned). - June 26 - General Sir Edward SabineEdward SabineGeneral Sir Edward Sabine KCB FRS was an Irish astronomer, geophysicist, ornithologist and explorer.Two branches of Sabine's work in particular deserve very high credit: Determination of the length of the seconds pendulum, a simple pendulum whose time period on the surface of the Earth is two...
(b. 17881788 in scienceThe year 1788 in science and technology involved some significant events.-Biology:* Thomas Walter publishes Flora Caroliniana, the first Flora of North America to follow Linnaean taxonomy....
), Anglo-IrishAnglo-IrishAnglo-Irish was a term used primarily in the 19th and early 20th centuries to identify a privileged social class in Ireland, whose members were the descendants and successors of the Protestant Ascendancy, mostly belonging to the Church of Ireland, which was the established church of Ireland until...
physicist, astronomerAstronomerAn astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as planets, stars and galaxies.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using...
and explorer. - December 8 - François LenormantFrançois LenormantFrançois Lenormant was a French assyriologist and archaeologist.-Early life:Lenormant's father, Charles Lenormant, distinguished as an archaeologist, numismatist and Egyptologist, was anxious that his son should follow in his steps...
(b. 18371837 in scienceThe year 1837 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Astronomy:* August 9 - Edward C. Herrick, in New Haven, Connecticut, identifies the Perseids as an annual phenomenon....
), FrenchFrench peopleThe French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
assyriologistAssyriologyAssyriology is the archaeological, historical, and linguistic study of ancient Mesopotamia and the related cultures that used cuneiform writing. The field covers the Akkadian sister-cultures of Assyria and Babylonia, together with their cultural predecessor; Sumer...
and numismatistNumismaticsNumismatics is the study or collection of currency, including coins, tokens, paper money, and related objects. While numismatists are often characterized as students or collectors of coins, the discipline also includes the broader study of money and other payment media used to resolve debts and the...
.