1933 in science

• October 13 – The British Interplanetary Society is founded.
• Walter Baade and Fritz Zwicky invent the concept of the neutron star, a new type of celestial object, suggesting that supernovae might be created by the collapse of a normal star to form a neutron star.
• Sir Arthur Eddington publishes The Expanding Universe: Astronomy's 'Great Debate', 1900–1931 in Cambridge.
• Comedian Will Hay observes the periodic Great White Spot on Saturn from his private observatory in London.{{cite journal|url=http://cdsads.u-strasbg.fr//full/seri/MNRAS/0094//0000085.000.html|title=The spot on Saturn|journal=Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society|location=London|volume=94|year=1933|page=85|last=Hay|first=W. T.|accessdate=2017-05-11|bibcode=1933MNRAS..94...85H|doi=10.1093/mnras/94.1.85|doi-access=free}}
• Fritz Zwicky postulates the existence of dark matter.{{cite journal|last=Zwicky|first=F.|bibcode=1933AcHPh...6..110Z|title=Die Rotverschiebung von extragalaktischen Nebeln|year=1933|journal=Helvetica Physica Acta|volume=6|pages=110–127}}

• Gilbert N. Lewis isolates the first sample of pure heavy water by electrolysis.{{cite journal|last=Lewis|first=G. N.|title=The Isotopes of Hydrogen|journal=Journal of the American Chemical Society|year=1933|volume=55|page=1297|doi=10.1021/ja01330a511|issue=3}}
• Morris S. Kharasch and Frank R. Mayo propose that free radicals are responsible for anti-Markovnikov addition of hydrogen bromide to allyl bromide.{{cite journal|title=The Peroxide Effect in the Addition of Reagents to Unsaturated Compounds. I. The Addition of Hydrogen Bromide to Allyl Bromide|author1=Kharasch, M. S.|author2=Mayo, Frank R.|journal=Journal of the American Chemical Society|year=1933|volume=55|issue=6|pages=2468–2496|doi=10.1021/ja01333a041}}{{cite journal|title=Radicals: Reactive Intermediates with Translational Potential|author1=Yan, Ming|author2=Lo, Julian C.|author3=Edwards, Jacob T.|author4=Baran, Phil S.|journal=Journal of the American Chemical Society|year=2016|volume=138|issue=39|pages=12692–12714|doi=10.1021/jacs.6b08856|pmc=5054485|pmid=27631602}}

• March 10 – Long Beach earthquake in Southern California: First recording of earthquake strong ground motions by an accelerograph network, installed in 1932 by the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey.

• Andrey Kolmogorov publishes Foundations of the Theory of Probability, laying the modern axiomatic foundations of probability theory.{{cite book|first=Tony|last=Crilly|title=50 Mathematical Ideas you really need to know|location=London|publisher=Quercus|year=2007|isbn=978-1-84724-008-8|page=125}}
• David Champernowne, while still a Cambridge undergraduate, publishes his work on the Champernowne constant in real numbers.{{cite journal|first=D. G.|last=Champernowne|title=The construction of decimals normal in the scale of ten|journal=Journal of the London Mathematical Society|volume=8|issue=4|year=1933|pages=254–260|doi=10.1112/jlms/s1-8.4.254}}{{cite news|title=Professor David Champernowne|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/1353993/Professor-David-Champernowne.html|work=The Daily Telegraph|location=London|date=4 September 2000|accessdate=2011-12-02}}.
• Alfréd Haar introduces Haar measure.{{cite journal|first=Alfred|last=Haar|title=Der Massbegriff in der Theorie der kontinuierlichen Gruppen|journal=Annals of Mathematics|volume=34|series=2|issue=1|date=January 1933|pages=147–169|jstor=1968346|doi=10.2307/1968346}}
• Jerzy Neyman and Egon Pearson publish the Neyman–Pearson lemma.{{cite journal|last1=Neyman|first1=Jerzy|last2=Pearson|first2=Egon S.|doi=10.1098/rsta.1933.0009|title=On the Problem of the Most Efficient Tests of Statistical Hypotheses|journal=Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences|volume=231|issue=694–706|pages=289–337|year=1933|jstor=91247|bibcode=1933RSPTA.231..289N|doi-access=free}}
• Stanley Skewes discovers Skewes' number.{{cite journal|first=S.|last=Skewes|title=On the difference π(x) − Li(x)|journal=Journal of the London Mathematical Society|volume=8|year=1933|pages=277–283|url=http://www.ift.uni.wroc.pl/~mwolf/Skewes1933.pdf|accessdate=2011-12-02|doi=10.1112/jlms/s1-8.4.277|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111001130128/http://www.ift.uni.wroc.pl/~mwolf/Skewes1933.pdf|archive-date=2011-10-01|url-status=dead}}

• Late – Amphetamine is first presented as a pharmaceutical product when Smith, Kline and French in the United States begin selling it as an inhaler under the brand name Benzedrine as a decongestant.{{cite journal|last=Rasmussen|first=N.|title=Making the first anti-depressant: amphetamine in American medicine, 1929–1950|journal=Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences|volume=61|issue=3|pages=288–323|date=July 2006|pmid=16492800|doi=10.1093/jhmas/jrj039|s2cid=24974454}}

• September 12 – Leó Szilárd, waiting for a red light on Southampton Row in Bloomsbury (London), conceives the idea of the nuclear chain reaction.

• April 3 – First attempted human kidney transplant, by Dr Yuri Voronoy in the Soviet city of Kherson; the recipient dies 2 days later due to incompatibility of blood type with the (cadaveric) donor.{{cite journal|title=History of nephrology: Ukrainian aspects|doi=10.1038/ki.2011.363 | volume=81|year=2012|journal=Kidney International|page=118 | last1 = Khadzhynov | first1 = Dmytro | last2 = Peters | first2 = Harm|doi-access=free}}{{cite journal|title=Surgeon Yurii Voronoy (1895–1961) – a pioneer in the history of clinical transplantation: in Memoriam at the 75th Anniversary of the First Human Kidney Transplantation|author=Matevossian, Edouard|display-authors=etal|journal=Transplant International|issn=0934-0874|publisher=European Society for Organ Transplantation|year=2009|pages=1132–1139|doi=10.1111/j.1432-2277.2009.00986.x|volume=22|issue = 12|pmid=19874569|s2cid=12087935 }}{{cite book|author=Klein, Andrew|display-authors=etal|title=Organ Transplantation: A Clinical Guide|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2011|page=2}}{{cite book|author=Humar, Abhinav|display-authors=etal|title=Atlas of Organ Transplantation|publisher=Springer|year=2009|page=1}}
• July 8 – English researchers Wilson Smith, Christopher Andrewes and Patrick Laidlaw report isolating a human influenza A virus and its transferability to ferrets.{{cite journal|author=Smith, Wilson; Andrewes, C. H.; Laidlaw, P. P.|year=1933|title=A virus obtained from influenza patients|journal=The Lancet|volume=2|issue=5732|pages=66–68|doi=10.1016/S0140-6736(00)78541-2|doi-access=free}}
• July 14 – Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring enacted in Nazi GermanyComing into force January 1934. {{cite book|title=IBM and the Holocaust|first=Edwin|last=Black|authorlink=Edwin Black|year=2001|publisher=Crown / Random House|page=93|title-link=IBM and the Holocaust}} allowing compulsory sterilization of citizens suffering from a list of alleged genetic disorders.
• Manfred Sakel begins to practice insulin shock therapy on psychiatric patients in Vienna.{{cite journal|last=Wortis|first=J.|title=In Memoriam Manfred Sakel|journal=American Journal of Psychiatry|volume=115|year=1958|pages=287–8|doi=10.1176/ajp.115.3.287}}

• March 7 – The hydraulic torque converter is patented by Alf Lysholm.{{cite web|url=https://worldwide.espacenet.com/patent/search/family/020423918/publication/US1900118A?q=pn%3DUS1900118A|title=US1900118A Hydraulic variable speed power transmission|work=Espacenet|date=1933-03-07|accessdate=2023-10-13}}
• June – A research group at RCA headed by Vladimir K. Zworykin publicly launches the iconoscope, the first practical cathode-ray tube television camera.{{cite news|last=Lawrence|first=Williams L.|title=Human-like eye made by engineers to televise images. 'Iconoscope' converts scenes into electrical energy for radio transmission. Fast as a movie camera. Three million tiny photo cells 'memorize', then pass out pictures. Step to home television. Developed in ten years' work by Dr. V.K. Zworykin, who describes it at Chicago|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OlXsZdT8HUQC|newspaper=The New York Times|date=27 June 1933|isbn=9780824077822 }}{{cite journal|title=The Iconoscope, America's latest television favourite|last=Zworykin|first=V. K.|journal=Wireless World|issue=33 |page=197|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OlXsZdT8HUQC|date=September 1933|isbn=9780824077822}}

{{cite journal|title=Television with cathode ray tubes|last=Zworykin|first=V. K.|journal=Journal of the IEE|issue=73 |pages=437–451|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OlXsZdT8HUQC|publisher=Institution of Electrical Engineers|date=October 1933|isbn=9780824077822}}{{cite book|title=The History of Television, 1942 to 2000|last=Abramson|first=Albert|publisher=McFarland|year=2003|isbn=978-0-7864-1220-4|page=18|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JMTnTBmt7F0C}}

• June 26 – American Totalisator unveils its first tote board, the electronic pari-mutuel betting machine, at the Arlington Park race track near Chicago.

• Museum of Science and Industry (Chicago) first opens to the public, as part of the Century of Progress Exposition.
• The Institute for Advanced Study opens at Princeton, New Jersey, attracting Albert Einstein, John von Neumann and Kurt Gödel.
• Sheffield Trades Historical Society (later South Yorkshire Industrial History Society) established in England.

• Nobel Prizes
• Physics – Erwin Schrödinger and Paul Dirac
• Chemistry – not awarded
• Physiology or Medicine – Thomas Hunt Morgan

• January 6 – Oleg Makarov (died 2003), Soviet cosmonaut.
• January 18 – David Bellamy (died 2019), English botanist.
• March 9 – Sir David Weatherall (died 2018), English molecular geneticist.
• March 10 – Patricia Bergquist (died 2009), New Zealand scientist specializing in anatomy and taxonomy.
• March 23 – Philip Zimbardo, American social psychologist.
• April 1 – Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, French physicist and Nobel laureate
• April 14 – Yuri Oganessian, Russian nuclear physicist.
• April 26 – Arno Allan Penzias (died 2024), German-born American physicist and radio astronomer.
• May 22 – Chen Jingrun (died 1996), Chinese mathematician.
• July 9 – Oliver Sacks (died 2015), English-born neurologist.
• July 12 – Max Birnstiel (died 2014), Swiss molecular biologist.
• July 15 – John Hopfield, American neuroscientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics.
• August 10 – Ed Posner (died 1993), American mathematician.
• August 15
• Stanley Milgram (died 1984), American social psychologist.
• Michael Rutter (died 2021) English child psychiatrist.
• September 6 – Juliet Clutton-Brock (died 2015), English zooarchaeologist.
• September 10 – Yevgeny Khrunov (died 2000), Soviet cosmonaut.
• September 26 – Charles C. Conley (died 1984), American mathematician specializing in dynamical systems.
• October 2 – Sir John Gurdon, English developmental biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
• October 9 – Sir Peter Mansfield (died 2017), English physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
• November 1 – Dijen K. Ray-Chaudhuri, Bengali-born mathematician.
• November 4 – Sir Charles K. Kao (died 2018), Chinese electrical engineer and physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics.
• November 14 – Akira Endo (died 2024), Japanese biochemist.[https://www.akita-abs.co.jp/nnn//news936r22ziz9q0fio89n.html 【訃報】由利本荘市出身 遠藤章さん５日に死去]
• December 22 – Thomas Stockham (died 2004), American electrical engineer and inventor
• December 23 – Akihito, ichthyologist and Emperor of Japan.

• January 14 – Sir Robert Jones, 1st Baronet (born 1857), Welsh orthopaedic surgeon.
• May 22 – Sándor Ferenczi (born 1873), Hungarian psychoanalyst.
• June 14 – Ernest William Moir (born 1862), British civil engineer.
• September 25 – Paul Ehrenfest (born 1880), Austrian physicist and mathematician.
• October 29
• Albert Calmette (born 1863), French physician, bacteriologist and immunologist.
• Paul Painlevé (born 1863), mathematician and statesman, 62nd Prime Minister of France.
• November 3 – Pierre Paul Émile Roux (born 1853), French physician, bacteriologist and immunologist.
• December 8 – John Joly (born 1857), Irish physicist.

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Category:20th century in science

Category:1930s in science