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1907 in science

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The year 1907 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Astronomy

Chemistry

  • June 6 – Persil laundry detergent is first marketed by Henkel of Düsseldorf, Germany, the first to combine a bleaching agent (sodium perborate) with a base washing agent (sodium silicate) commercially.{{cite web|url=http://www.henkel.com/about-henkel/2006-18539-100-years-of-persil-11029.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101214101029/http://www.henkel.com/about-henkel/2006-18539-100-years-of-persil-11029.htm|archive-date=2010-12-14|title=100 Years of Persil|publisher=Henkel AG|date=2006-12-22|access-date=2016-09-17}}
  • Emil Fischer artificially synthesizes peptide amino acid chains and thereby shows that amino acids in proteins are connected by amino group-acid group bonds.
  • Hermann Staudinger prepares the first synthetic β-lactam.
  • Georges Urbain discovers Lutetium (from Lutetia, the ancient name of Paris).

Geology

  • January 14 – 1907 Kingston earthquake: Earthquake in Kingston, Jamaica.
  • c. March 28 – Volcanic eruption of Ksudach in the Kamchatka Peninsula.
  • Bertram Boltwood proposes that the amount of lead in uranium and thorium ores might be used to determine the Earth's age and crudely dates some rocks to have ages between 410–2200 million years.
  • The Moine Thrust Belt in Scotland is identified by Ben Peach and John Horne, one of the first to be discovered.{{cite book|author=Peach, B. N.|title=The Geological Structure of the North-West Highlands of Scotland|series=Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, Scotland|location=Glasgow|publisher=H.M.S.O|display-authors=etal}}{{cite book|title=The Highlands Controversy: Constructing Geological Knowledge through Fieldwork in Nineteenth-Century Britain|last=Oldroyd|first=David R.|isbn=978-0-226-62634-5|publisher=University of Chicago Press|year=1990}}
  • The rare phosphate mineral tarbuttite is first discovered at Broken Hill, Barotziland-North-Western Rhodesia.{{cite web|title=Tarbuttite|url=http://www.handbookofmineralogy.com/pdfs/tarbuttite.pdf|work=Handbook of Mineralogy|publisher=Mineral Data Publishing|accessdate=2012-07-19}}{{cite journal|last=Spencer|first=L. J.|title=On Hopeite and other zinc phosphates and associated minerals from the Broken Hill mines, North-Western Rhodesia|journal=Mineralogical Magazine|date=April 1908|volume=15|issue=68|pages=1–38|url=http://www.minersoc.org/pages/Archive-MM/Volume_15/15-68-1.pdf|publisher=The Mineralogical Society|accessdate=2012-07-19|doi=10.1180/minmag.1908.015.68.02|bibcode=1908MinM...15....1S|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140106184049/http://www.minersoc.org/pages/Archive-MM/Volume_15/15-68-1.pdf|archive-date=2014-01-06|url-status=dead}}
  • Ludovic Mrazek describes and names diapirs.{{cite journal|doi=10.1016/S0021-9673(00)94556-4|title=Tswett's letters to Claparède|journal=Journal of Chromatography A|volume=440|page=509|year=1988|last=Hais|first=I. M.}}{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=A0QqRBrPs5YC&pg=PA11|pages=11–12|title=Continental Drift: Colliding Continents, Converging Cultures|isbn=9781420034523|author=Roman|first=Constantin|year=2000}}

Mathematics

Medicine

  • Paul Ehrlich develops a chemotherapeutic cure for sleeping sickness.
  • George Soper identifies "Typhoid Mary" Mallon as an asymptomatic carrier of typhoid in New York.{{cite journal|last=Soper|first=George A.|title=The work of a chronic typhoid germ distributor|journal=Journal of the American Medical Association|volume=48|issue=24|pages=2019–22|date=15 June 1907|doi=10.1001/jama.1907.25220500025002d|url=https://zenodo.org/record/1423366|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191221191415/https://zenodo.org/record/1423366|url-status=dead|archive-date=December 21, 2019}}
  • Dengue fever becomes the second disease shown to be caused by a virus.{{cite journal|last1=Henchal|first1=Erik A.|last2=Putnak|first2=J. Robert|title=The Dengue Viruses|journal=Clinical Microbiology Reviews|volume=3|issue=4|pages=376–96|date=October 1990|publisher=American Society for Microbiology|pmid=2224837|pmc=358169|url=|doi=10.1128/CMR.3.4.376}}
  • Foreign accent syndrome is first described by French neurologist Pierre Marie.{{cite journal|last=Marie|first=Pierre|year=1907|title=Presentation de malades atteints d'anarthrie par lesion de l'hemisphere gauche du cerveau|journal=Bulletins et Mémoires de la Société Médicale des Hôpitaux de Paris|volume=1|pages=158–160}}
  • Indiana, in the United States, becomes the world's first legislature to place laws permitting compulsory sterilization for eugenic purposes on the statute book.

Paleontology

  • October 21 – Jaw of Homo heidelbergensis (Mauer 1) found.{{cite book|authorlink=Otto Schoetensack|first=Otto|last=Schoetensack|title=Der Unterkiefer des Homo heidelbergensis aus den Sanden von Mauer bei Heidelberg|year=1908|location=Leipzig|publisher=Wilhelm Engelmann}}

Physics

Psychology

  • Ivan Pavlov demonstrates conditioned responses with salivating dogs.
  • Vladimir Bekhterev begins publication of Objective Psychology.{{cite web|title=Vladimir Bekhterev|url=http://www.russia-ic.com/people/education_science/b/348/|work=Russia-IC|accessdate=2011-04-15}}

Technology

  • August 10 – Peking to Paris motor race concludes after 2 months, won by Prince Scipione Borghese driving a 7-litre 35/45 hp Itala.
  • August 29 – The partially completed Quebec Bridge collapses.{{cite web|first=Bruce |last=Ricketts |title=The Collapse of the Quebec City Bridge |url=http://www.mysteriesofcanada.com/Quebec/quebec_bridge_collapse.htm |work=Mysteries of Canada |accessdate=2011-08-16 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110714144348/http://www.mysteriesofcanada.com/Quebec/quebec_bridge_collapse.htm |archivedate=2011-07-14 }}
  • October 17 – Guglielmo Marconi initiates commercial transatlantic radio communications between his high power longwave wireless telegraphy stations in Clifden, Ireland, and Glace Bay, Nova Scotia.
  • Lee de Forest invents the triode thermionic amplifier, starting the development of electronics as a practical technology.
  • Furuholmen Lighthouse in Sweden is the world's first to be equipped with AGA's Dalén light incorporating Gustaf Dalén's invention of the sun valve which turns the beacon's accumulator gas supply on and off using daylight,{{cite web|url=http://www.aga.com/web/web2000/com/WPPcom.nsf/pages/History_SunValve|title=History – The Sun Valve|publisher=AGA|accessdate=2012-03-02|first=Magnus|last=Lundahl|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120207023511/http://www.aga.com/web/web2000/com/WPPcom.nsf/pages/History_SunValve|archivedate=2012-02-07|url-status=dead}} and for which Dalén will be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1912.{{cite web|url=http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1912/dalen-bio.html|title=The Nobel Prize in Physics 1912: Gustaf Dalén – Biography|work=Nobelprize.org|year=1912|accessdate=2012-03-02}}
  • Ole Evinrude invents the first practical outboard motor, in the United States.
  • Rudge-Whitworth of Coventry (England) produce the first detachable wire wheel for automobiles.{{cite book|author=Georgano, G.N.|title=Cars: Early and Vintage, 1886–1930|location=London|publisher=Grange-Universal|year=1985|author-link=Georgano, G.N}}
  • The Autochrome Lumière is the first color photography process marketed.
  • James Murray Spangler invents the first Hoover vacuum cleaner in the United States.
  • Samuel Simon patents a screenprinting process in the United Kingdom.

Zoology

  • Carl Hagenbeck opens the Tierpark Hagenbeck in Stellingen, near Hamburg, Germany, the first zoo to use open moated enclosures, rather than barred cages, to better approximate animals' natural environments.{{cite web|url=http://www.zandavisitor.com/forumtopicdetail-411-Hagenbeck_Tierpark_und_Tropen-Aquarium-Zoos|title=Hagenbeck Tierpark und Tropen-Aquarium|accessdate=2008-07-22|quote=The founder and his idea Carl Hagenbeck built what no other dared dream of. In 1907, the Hamburg man opened the first barless zoo in the world. As early as the end of the 19th century, this son of a fishmonger had the idea of showing animals no longer caged up but in open viewing enclosures. In his zoo of the future, nothing more than unseen ditches were to separate wild animals from members of the public. Carl Hagenbeck patented this idea in 1896. Nine years later his dream was to come true in Hamburg-Stellingen. The revolutionary open viewing enclosures and panoramas were in fact ridiculed in professional circles but took the public's breath away. Hagenbeck's zoo is considered to have prepared the way for today's wildlife adventure parks.|publisher=Zoo and Aquarium Visitor|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091221104119/http://www.zandavisitor.com/forumtopicdetail-411-Hagenbeck_Tierpark_und_Tropen-Aquarium-Zoos|archive-date=2009-12-21|url-status=dead}}{{cite book|title=Savages and Beasts: The Birth of the Modern Zoo|last=Rothfels|first=Nigel|location=Baltimore|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|year=2002|isbn=0-8018-6910-2}}
  • December 28 – Last confirmed sighting of a Huia in New Zealand.

Awards

Births

Deaths

References

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Category:20th century in science

Category:1900s in science