1917 in science

• September 3 – French-Canadian microbiologist Félix d'Hérelle, working at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, announces his discovery of a bacteriophage.{{cite journal |author = d'Hérelle, F.|year=1917 |title= Sur un microbe invisible antagoniste des bacilles dysentériques |journal= Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences de Paris |volume= 165 |pages=373–5 |url= http://202.114.65.51/fzjx/wsw/wswfzjs/pdf/1917p157.pdf |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110511183504/http://202.114.65.51/fzjx/wsw/wswfzjs/pdf/1917p157.pdf |archive-date=2011-05-11|access-date=2010-09-05|url-status = live}}
• D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson's On Growth and Form is published.

• Paul Ehrenfest gives a conditional principle for a three-dimensional space.

• Shinobu Ishihara publishes his color perception test.{{cite book|first=S.|last=Ishihara|title=Tests for Colour-Blindness|location=Handaya, Tokyo|publisher=Hongo Harukicho|year=1917}}
• Julius Wagner-Jauregg discovers malarial pyrotherapy for general paresis of the insane.

• Albert Einstein introduces the idea of stimulated radiation emission.
• Nuclear fission: Ernest Rutherford (at the Victoria University of Manchester) achieves nuclear transmutation of nitrogen into oxygen, using alpha particles directed at nitrogen ¹⁴N + α → ¹⁷O + p, the first observation of a nuclear reaction, in which he also discovers and names the proton.{{cite web|url=http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/people/ernest-rutherford|title=Ernest Rutherford|work=New Zealand History|first=Emma|last=Brewerton|date=2016-12-12|accessdate=2017-06-16}}

• September 13 – Release in the United States of the first film made in Technicolor System 1, a two-color process, The Gulf Between.
• Alvin D. and Kelvin Keech introduce the "banjulele-banjo", an early form of the banjolele.
• Gilbert Vernam jointly reinvents the one-time pad encryption system.

• Nobel Prize
• Physics – Charles Glover Barkla (announced 12 November 1918; presented 1 June 1920)
• Chemistry – not awarded
• Medicine – not awarded

• January 19 – Graham Higman (died 2008), English mathematician.
• January 25 – Ilya Prigogine (died 2003), Russian-born winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
• February 14 – Herbert A. Hauptman (died 2011), American mathematical biophysicist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
• March 23 – Howard McKern (died 2009), Australian analytical and organic chemist.
• March 24 – John Kendrew (died 1997), English molecular biologist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
• April 10 – Robert Burns Woodward (died 1979), American organic chemist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
• April 18 – Brian Harold Mason (died 2009), New Zealand-born geochemist and mineralogist who was one of the pioneers in the study of meteorites.
• May 14 – W. T. Tutte (died 2002), English-born mathematician and cryptanalyst.
• June 1 – William S. Knowles (died 2012), American winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
• June 2 – Heinz Sielmann (died 2006), German zoological filmmaker.
• June 15 – John Fenn (died 2010), American analytical chemist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
• July 1 – Humphry Osmond (died 2004), English-born psychiatrist.
• July 15 – Walter S. Graf (died 2015), American cardiologist and pioneer of paramedic emergency medical services.
• July 22 – H. Boyd Woodruff (died 2017), American microbiologist.
• August 21 – Xu Shunshou (died 1968), Chinese aeronautical engineer.
• September 23 – Asima Chatterjee, née Mookerjee (died 2006), Indian organic chemist.
• October 2 – Christian de Duve (died 2013), English-born Belgian biologist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
• October 8 – Rodney Porter (died 1985), English biochemist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
• November 22 – Andrew Huxley (died 2012), English winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
• December 9 – James Rainwater (died 1986), American winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics.
• December 16 – Arthur C. Clarke (died 2008), English-born science fiction author and inventor.
• December 20 – David Bohm (died 1992), American-born theoretical physicist, philosopher and neuropsychologist.

• February 11 – Laura Forster (born 1858), Australian physician, died on war service.
• March 8 – Ferdinand von Zeppelin (born 1838), German founder of the Zeppelin airship company.
• March 31 – Emil von Behring (born 1854), German physiologist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1901.
• July 27 – Emil Theodor Kocher (born 1841), Swiss surgeon, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1909.
• August 3 – Ferdinand Georg Frobenius (born 1849), German mathematician.
• December 17 – Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (born 1836), English physician.

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Category:20th century in science

Category:1910s in science