1901 in science

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{{Science year nav|1901}}

The year 1901 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Biology

  • Okapi, a relative of the Giraffe found in the rainforests around the Congo River in north east Zaire, is discovered (previously known only to local natives).{{Cite news |date=1901 |title=The Okapi |url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/185052 |access-date=2024-02-15 |work=Forest and stream |publisher=[Forest and Stream Publishing Co.] |volume=v.57 (1901)}}
  • Publication of Robert Ridgway's The Birds of North and Middle America by the Smithsonian Institution begins.
  • Edmund Selous publishes the book Bird Watching in the U.K., giving rise to the term birdwatching.

Chemistry

Computing

  • December 13 (20:45:52) – Retrospectively, this becomes the earliest date representable with a signed 32-bit integer on digital computer systems that reference time in seconds since the Unix epoch.

Exploration

History of Science

  • September 25 – Establishment of Deutsche Gesellschaft für Geschichte der Medizin und der Naturwissenschaften, the world's first history of science society.{{cite web|title=DGGMNT|url=http://www.dggmnt.de/cms/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=110&Itemid=215|accessdate=2011-10-10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120302032105/http://www.dggmnt.de/cms/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=110&Itemid=215|archive-date=2012-03-02|url-status=dead}}

Mathematics

Paleontology

Photography

Physics

  • January 23 – Guglielmo Marconi sends a radio signal 299 km (186 mi) 'over the horizon' in the British Isles from Niton on the Isle of Wight to The Lizard in Cornwall.{{cite book|first=Peter|last=Stanier|title=Cornwall's Industrial Heritage|location=Chacewater|publisher=Twelveheads|year=2010|isbn=978-0-906294-57-4|page=14}}
  • December 12 – Marconi receives the first trans-Atlantic radio signal, sent from Poldhu in Cornwall, England, to Newfoundland, the letter "S" in Morse.{{cite book|first=Gordon|last=Bussey|title=Marconi's Atlantic Leap|location=Coventry|publisher=Marconi|year=2000|isbn=0-9538967-0-6}}
  • Albert Einstein publishes his conclusions on capillarity.{{cite journal|first=A.|last=Einstein|title=Folgerungen aus den Capillaritätserscheinungen|url=http://www.physik.uni-augsburg.de/annalen/history/einstein-papers/1901_4_513-523.pdf|journal=Annalen der Physik|volume=309|issue=3|pages=513–523|year=1901|doi=10.1002/andp.19013090306|bibcode=1901AnP...309..513E}}
  • Owen Richardson describes the phenomenon in thermionic emission which gives rise to Richardson's Law.{{cite web|author=Nobel Foundation|title=The Nobel Prize in Physics 1928: Owen Willans Richardson|url=http://www.nobel.se/physics/laureates/1928/richardson-bio.html|work=Nobelprize.org|year=1928|accessdate=2012-01-17}}
  • Ivan Yarkovsky describes the Yarkovsky effect, a thermal force acting on rotating bodies in space, in a pamphlet on "The density of light ether and the resistance it offers to motion" published in Bryansk.{{cite journal|title=The nearly forgotten scientist Ivan Osipovich Yarkovsky|last=Beekman|first=George|journal=Journal of the British Astronomical Association|volume=115|issue=4|pages=207–212|bibcode=2005JBAA..115..207B}}

Physiology and medicine

  • November 25 – Auguste Deter is first examined by Dr Alois Alzheimer in Frankfort leading to a diagnosis of the condition that will carry Alzheimer's name.{{cite web|url=http://www.whonamedit.com/doctor.cfm/177.html|title=Alois Alzheimer|work=Whonamedit?|accessdate=2011-10-21}}
  • Jōkichi Takamine isolates and names adrenaline from mammalian organs.{{cite journal|last=Takamine|first=J.|title=The isolation of the active principle of the suprarenal gland|work=The Journal of Physiology|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1901|pages=xxix-xxx|volume=27|doi=10.1113/jphysiol.1902.sp000893|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xVEq06Ym6qcC&pg=RA1-PR29#PRA1-PR29,M1|pmc=1403136}} See also American Journal of Pharmacy 73 (1901):525.
  • Ivan Pavlov develops the theory of the "conditional reflex".{{cite book|last=Todes|first=Daniel Philip|title=Pavlov's Physiology Factory|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|year=2002|location=Baltimore|pages=232 et seq|isbn=0-8018-6690-1}}
  • Georg Kelling of Dresden performs the first "coelioscopy" (laparoscopic surgery), on a dog.{{cite journal|title=Georg Kelling (1866-1945): the root of modern day minimal invasive surgery. A forgotten legend?|author=Schollmeyer, Thoralf|journal=Archives of Gynecology and Obstetrics|date=November 2007|volume=276|issue=5|pages=505–9|doi=10.1007/s00404-007-0372-y|pmid=17458553|display-authors=etal}}
  • William C. Gorgas controls the spread of yellow fever in Cuba by a mosquito eradication program.{{cite book|page=474|first=Roy|last=Porter|authorlink=Roy Porter|title=The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: a medical history of humanity from antiquity to the present|location=London|publisher=HarperCollins|year=1997|isbn=0-00-215173-1}}
  • Scottish military doctor William Boog Leishman identifies organisms from the spleen of a patient who had died from "Dum Dum fever" (later known as leishmaniasis) and proposes them to be trypanosomes, found for the first time in India.{{cite journal|last=Leishman|first=W. B.|year=1903|title=On the possibility of the occurrence of trypanomiasis in India|journal=The British Medical Journal}}
  • An improved sphygmomanometer, for the measurement of blood pressure, is invented and popularized by Harvey Cushing.
  • Karl Landsteiner discovers the existence of different human blood types
  • German Oscar Troplowitz invents for Beiersdorf the medical plaster patch 'Leukoplast'.

Psychology

Technology

Publications

Awards

Births

Deaths

References