1996 in science
Encyclopedia
The year 1996 in science and technology involved many significant events, listed below.
Astronomy and space exploration
- January 30 – Comet HyakutakeComet HyakutakeComet Hyakutake is a comet, discovered on January 31, 1996, which passed very close to Earth in March of that year. It was dubbed The Great Comet of 1996; its passage near the Earth was one of the closest cometary approaches of the previous 200 years. Hyakutake appeared very bright in the night...
is discovered. - February 17 – NEAR ShoemakerNEAR ShoemakerThe Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous - Shoemaker , renamed after its 1996 launch in honor of planetary scientist Eugene M. Shoemaker, was a robotic space probe designed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory for NASA to study the near-Earth asteroid Eros from close orbit over a...
spacecraftSpacecraftA spacecraft or spaceship is a craft or machine designed for spaceflight. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, earth observation, meteorology, navigation, planetary exploration and transportation of humans and cargo....
launched. The craft will land on asteroidAsteroidAsteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...
433 Eros433 Eros433 Eros is a near-Earth asteroid discovered in 1898, and the first asteroid to be orbited by a probe . It is an S-type asteroid approximately 34.4×11.2×11.2 km in size, the second-largest NEA after 1036 Ganymed, and belongs to the Amor group.Eros is a Mars-crosser asteroid, the first known...
in 20012001 in scienceThe year 2001 in science and technology involved many events, some of which are included below.-Astronomy and space exploration:* The NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft lands in the "saddle" region of 433 Eros, becoming the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid....
. - May 20 – First naked-eye observation of Comet Hale-BoppComet Hale-BoppComet Hale–Bopp was perhaps the most widely observed comet of the 20th century, and one of the brightest seen for many decades...
. - November 7 – 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 Mars Global SurveyorMars Global SurveyorThe Mars Global Surveyor was a US spacecraft developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and launched November 1996. It began the United States's return to Mars after a 10-year absence. It completed its primary mission in January 2001 and was in its third extended mission phase when, on 2...
. - The second 9.8 m reflecting telescopeReflecting telescopeA reflecting telescope is an optical telescope which uses a single or combination of curved mirrors that reflect light and form an image. The reflecting telescope was invented in the 17th century as an alternative to the refracting telescope which, at that time, was a design that suffered from...
opens at Keck Observatory, Mauna KeaMauna KeaMauna Kea is a volcano on the island of Hawaii. Standing above sea level, its peak is the highest point in the state of Hawaii. However, much of the mountain is under water; when measured from its oceanic base, Mauna Kea is over tall—significantly taller than Mount Everest...
, Hawaii.
Biology
- July 5 – Dolly the sheepDolly the SheepDolly was a female domestic sheep, and the first mammal to be cloned from an adult somatic cell, using the process of nuclear transfer. She was cloned by Ian Wilmut, Keith Campbell and colleagues at the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh in Scotland...
, the first mammalMammalMammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young...
to be successfully cloneCloningCloning in biology is the process of producing similar populations of genetically identical individuals that occurs in nature when organisms such as bacteria, insects or plants reproduce asexually. Cloning in biotechnology refers to processes used to create copies of DNA fragments , cells , or...
d from an adult cell, is born. - August 6 – 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...
announces that the ALH 84001 meteoriteMeteoriteA meteorite is a natural object originating in outer space that survives impact with the Earth's surface. Meteorites can be big or small. Most meteorites derive from small astronomical objects called meteoroids, but they are also sometimes produced by impacts of asteroids...
thought to originate from 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...
, contains evidence of primitive life-forms. - The yeastYeastYeasts are eukaryotic micro-organisms classified in the kingdom Fungi, with 1,500 species currently described estimated to be only 1% of all fungal species. Most reproduce asexually by mitosis, and many do so by an asymmetric division process called budding...
Saccharomyces cerevisiaeSaccharomyces cerevisiaeSaccharomyces cerevisiae is a species of yeast. It is perhaps the most useful yeast, having been instrumental to baking and brewing since ancient times. It is believed that it was originally isolated from the skin of grapes...
's genomeGenomeIn modern molecular biology and genetics, the genome is the entirety of an organism's hereditary information. It is encoded either in DNA or, for many types of virus, in RNA. The genome includes both the genes and the non-coding sequences of the DNA/RNA....
is sequenced, the first eukaryotic genome to be fully sequenced.
Chemistry
- February 9 – Copernicium first created at the Gesellschaft für SchwerionenforschungGesellschaft für SchwerionenforschungThe GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research GmbH in the Wixhausen suburb of Darmstadt, Germany is a federally and state co-funded heavy ion research center. The current director of GSI is Horst Stöcker who succeeded Walter F...
in DarmstadtDarmstadtDarmstadt is a city in the Bundesland of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine Main Area.The sandy soils in the Darmstadt area, ill-suited for agriculture in times before industrial fertilisation, prevented any larger settlement from developing, until the city became the seat...
, Germany, by Sigurd Hofmann, Victor NinovVictor NinovVictor Ninov is a former researcher in the nuclear chemistry group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who was alleged to have fabricated the evidence used to claim the creation of ununoctium and ununhexium....
and others.
Computer science
- January 23 – The first version of the Java programming languageJava (programming language)Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...
is released. - February 10 – Deep Blue defeats chessChessChess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
grand-master Garry KasparovGarry KasparovGarry Kimovich Kasparov is a Russian chess grandmaster, a former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist, and one of the greatest chess players of all time....
for the first time. - Lov GroverLov GroverLov Kumar Grover is an Indian-American computer scientist. He is the originator of the Grover database search algorithm used in quantum computing. He obtained his undergraduate degree at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi...
, at Bell LabsBell LabsBell Laboratories is the research and development subsidiary of the French-owned Alcatel-Lucent and previously of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company , half-owned through its Western Electric manufacturing subsidiary.Bell Laboratories operates its...
, publishes the quantum database search algorithmGrover's algorithmGrover's algorithm is a quantum algorithm for searching an unsorted database with N entries in O time and using O storage space . It was invented by Lov Grover in 1996....
. - IRCnetIRCnetIRCnet is one of the largest IRC networks with more than 60,000 users using it daily. An early 2005 record had approximately 123,110 users simultaneously connected to the network.-History:...
is founded.
Exploration
- May 23 – Swede Göran KroppGöran KroppGöran Kropp was a Swedish adventurer and mountaineer, born in Eskilstuna in south Sweden. He is most famous for his May 23, 1996 solo ascent of Mount Everest without bottled oxygen or Sherpa support, travelling only by bicycle from Sweden.-Early life:In 1972, at the age of 6, Kropp's father took...
reaches Mount EverestMount EverestMount Everest is the world's highest mountain, with a peak at above sea level. It is located in the Mahalangur section of the Himalayas. The international boundary runs across the precise summit point...
summit alone without oxygenOxygenOxygen is the element with atomic number 8 and represented by the symbol O. Its name derives from the Greek roots ὀξύς and -γενής , because at the time of naming, it was mistakenly thought that all acids required oxygen in their composition...
after having bicycled there from Sweden.
Medicine
- March – The Cochrane LibraryCochrane LibraryThe Cochrane Library is a collection of databases in medicine and other healthcare specialties provided by the Cochrane Collaboration and other organisations. At its core is the collection of Cochrane Reviews, a database of systematic reviews and meta-analyses which summarize and interpret the...
launched. - New variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease first identified in humans, in the United Kingdom.
- SildenafilSildenafilSildenafil citrate, sold as Viagra, Revatio and under various other trade names, is a drug used to treat erectile dysfunction and pulmonary arterial hypertension . It was originally developed by British scientists and then brought to market by the US-based pharmaceutical company Pfizer...
(Viagra), a treatment for erectile disfunction, is patentPatentA patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
ed by PfizerPfizerPfizer, Inc. is an American multinational pharmaceutical corporation. The company is based in New York City, New York with its research headquarters in Groton, Connecticut, United States...
.
Meteorology
- January 7 – A large blizzard hits the Eastern United States, killing more than 100.
- May 13 – Severe thunderstorms and a tornadoTornadoA tornado is a violent, dangerous, rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. They are often referred to as a twister or a cyclone, although the word cyclone is used in meteorology in a wider...
in Bangladesh kills 600. - July 18–21 – Storms provoke severe flooding on the Saguenay RiverSaguenay RiverThe Saguenay River is a major river of Quebec, Canada.It drains Lac Saint-Jean in the Laurentian Highlands, leaving at Alma and running east, and passes the city of Saguenay. It drains into the Saint Lawrence River at Tadoussac....
in Quebec, in one of Canada's most costly natural disasterNatural disasterA natural disaster is the effect of a natural hazard . It leads to financial, environmental or human losses...
s.
Technology
- Zenith introduces the first HDTVHigh-definition televisionHigh-definition television is video that has resolution substantially higher than that of traditional television systems . HDTV has one or two million pixels per frame, roughly five times that of SD...
-compatible front projection television in the United States. Broadcasters, TV & PC manufacturers set industry standards for digital HDTV. - APSAdvanced Photo SystemAdvanced Photo System is a film format for still photography first produced in 1996. It was marketed by Eastman Kodak under the brand name Advantix, by FujiFilm under the name Nexia, by AgfaPhoto under the name Futura and by Konica as Centuria.- Design :The film is 24 mm wide, and has three...
film formatFilm formatA film format is a technical definition of a set of standard characteristics regarding image capture on photographic film, for either stills or movies. It can also apply to projected film, either slides or movies. The primary characteristic of a film format is its size and shape.In the case of...
is introduced. - Successful demonstration of magnetic refrigerationMagnetic refrigerationMagnetic refrigeration is a cooling technology based on the magnetocaloric effect. This technique can be used to attain extremely low temperatures , as well as the ranges used in common refrigerators, depending on the design of the system.The effect was first observed by the German physicist Emil...
.
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...
- 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...
: David M. Lee, Douglas D. OsheroffDouglas D. OsheroffDouglas Dean Osheroff is an American physicist known for his work in experimental condensed matter physics, in particular for his co-discovery of superfluidity in Helium-3. For his contributions he shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Physics along with David Lee and Robert C...
, Robert C. RichardsonRobert Coleman RichardsonRobert Coleman Richardson is an American experimental physicist whose area of research includes sub-millikelvin temperature studies of helium-3... - 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,...
: Robert CurlRobert CurlRobert Floyd Curl, Jr. the son of a Methodist Minister is a graduate of Thomas Jefferson High School in San Antonio, Texas and is an emeritus professor of chemistry at Rice University....
, Sir Harold KrotoHarold KrotoSir Harold Walter Kroto, FRS , born Harold Walter Krotoschiner, is a British chemist and one of the three recipients to share the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Robert Curl and Richard Smalley....
, Richard SmalleyRichard SmalleyRichard Errett Smalley was the Gene and Norman Hackerman Professor of Chemistry and a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Rice University, in Houston, Texas... - 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...
: Peter C. Doherty, Rolf M. ZinkernagelRolf M. ZinkernagelRolf Martin Zinkernagel AC is Professor of Experimental Immunology at the University of Zurich.-Career:...
- Physics
- Turing Award for ComputingTuring 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...
: Amir Pnueli - Wollaston Medal for GeologyWollaston 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...
: Nicholas John Shackleton
Births
- July 5 – Dolly the sheepDolly the SheepDolly was a female domestic sheep, and the first mammal to be cloned from an adult somatic cell, using the process of nuclear transfer. She was cloned by Ian Wilmut, Keith Campbell and colleagues at the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh in Scotland...
(d. 20032003 in scienceThe year 2003 in science and technology involved some significant events.-Anthropology:*March 13 – The journal Nature reports that 350,000-year-old upright-walking human footprints have been found in Italy.-Astronomy:...
), the world's first cloneCloningCloning in biology is the process of producing similar populations of genetically identical individuals that occurs in nature when organisms such as bacteria, insects or plants reproduce asexually. Cloning in biotechnology refers to processes used to create copies of DNA fragments , cells , or...
d mammalMammalMammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young...
.
Deaths
- January 12 – Bartel Leendert van der WaerdenBartel Leendert van der WaerdenBartel Leendert van der Waerden was a Dutch mathematician and historian of mathematics....
(b. 19031903 in scienceThe year 1903 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Aeronautics:* December 17 - First documented, successful, controlled, powered flight of an aircraft with a petrol engine by Orville Wright in the Wright Flyer at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina.* Konstantin...
), mathematicianMathematicianA mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
. - February 20 – Solomon AschSolomon AschSolomon Eliot Asch , also known as Shlaym, was an American Gestalt psychologist and pioneer in social psychology.-Early life and education:...
(b. 19071907 in scienceThe year 1907 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Chemistry:* Emil Fischer artificially synthesizes peptide amino acid chains and thereby shows that amino acids in proteins are connected by amino group-acid group bonds....
), social psychologist. - March 26 – David PackardDavid PackardDavid Packard was a co-founder of Hewlett-Packard , serving as president , CEO , and Chairman of the Board . He served as U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense from 1969–1971 during the Nixon administration...
(b. 19121912 in scienceThe year 1912 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Biology:* July 23 - Horace Donisthorpe first discovers Anergates atratulus in the New Forest, England.-Chemistry:...
), engineer. - June 17 – Thomas KuhnThomas KuhnThomas Samuel Kuhn was an American historian and philosopher of science whose controversial 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was deeply influential in both academic and popular circles, introducing the term "paradigm shift," which has since become an English-language staple.Kuhn...
(b. 19221922 in scienceThe year 1922 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Archaeology:* November 4 - British archaeologist Howard Carter and his men find the entrance to King Tutankhamen's tomb in the Valley of the Kings of Egypt.-Biology:...
), philosopher of science. - August 1 – Tadeus ReichsteinTadeus ReichsteinTadeusz Reichstein was a Polish-born Swiss chemist and Nobel laureate.Reichstein was born into a Jewish family at Włocławek, Congress Poland, and spent his early childhood at Kiev, where his father was an engineer...
(b. 18971897 in scienceThe year 1897 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Mathematics:* David Hilbert unifies the field of algebraic number theory with his treatise Zahlbericht.-Medicine:...
), winner of the Nobel Prize in 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,...
. - August 9 – Sir Frank WhittleFrank WhittleAir Commodore Sir Frank Whittle, OM, KBE, CB, FRS, Hon FRAeS was a British Royal Air Force engineer officer. He is credited with independently inventing the turbojet engine Air Commodore Sir Frank Whittle, OM, KBE, CB, FRS, Hon FRAeS (1 June 1907 – 9 August 1996) was a British Royal Air...
(b. 1907), aeronautical engineer. - September 20 – Paul ErdősPaul ErdosPaul Erdős was a Hungarian mathematician. Erdős published more papers than any other mathematician in history, working with hundreds of collaborators. He worked on problems in combinatorics, graph theory, number theory, classical analysis, approximation theory, set theory, and probability theory...
(b. 19131913 in scienceThe year 1913 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Chemistry:* Protactinium is first identified by Kasimir Fajans and O. H...
), mathematician. - December 20 – Carl SaganCarl SaganCarl Edward Sagan was an American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, science popularizer and science communicator in astronomy and natural sciences. He published more than 600 scientific papers and articles and was author, co-author or editor of more than 20 books...
(b. 19341934 in scienceThe year 1934 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Astronomy:* Richard Tolman shows that black-body radiation in an expanding universe cools but remains thermal....
), 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...
.