1937 in science

• June 8 – First total solar eclipse to exceed 7 minutes of totality in over 800 years; visible in the Pacific and Peru.

• September 27 – Last definite record of a Bali tiger shot.{{cite web|title=Death of a Bali Tiger|publisher=Save The Tiger Fund|url=http://www.savethetigerfund.org/Content/NavigationMenu2/Community/TigerSubspecies/Extinctsubspecies/Balitiger/default.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080511161329/http://www.savethetigerfund.org/Content/NavigationMenu2/Community/TigerSubspecies/Extinctsubspecies/Balitiger/default.htm|url-status=dead|archive-date=2008-05-11|accessdate=2020-03-10}}
• Meredith Crawford first publishes results of the cooperative pulling paradigm, with chimpanzees in the United States.{{cite book|last=Crawford|first=Meredith P.|title=The Coöperative Solving of Problems by Young Chimpanzees|year=1937|publisher=Johns Hopkins Press|location=Baltimore, MD}}
• Jay Laurence Lush publishes the influential textbook Animal Breeding Plans in the United States.{{cite journal|url=http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=1000&page=279|page=279|first=Arthur B.|last=Chapman|title=Jay Laurence Lush|journal=Biographical Memoirs|publisher=National Academy of Sciences|location=United States|volume=57|year=1987|accessdate=2012-01-04}}
• The citric acid cycle is finally identified by Hans Adolf Krebs.

• Carlo Perrier and Emilio Segrè at the University of Palermo confirm discovery of the chemical element which will become known as Technetium.{{cite book|last=Heiserman|first=D. L.|year=1992|title=Exploring Chemical Elements and their Compounds|location=New York|publisher=TAB Books|isbn=978-0-8306-3018-9|chapter=Element 43: Technetium|page=[https://archive.org/details/exploringchemica01heis/page/164 164]|url=https://archive.org/details/exploringchemica01heis|url-access=registration}}{{cite book|title=Nature's Building Blocks: an A-Z Guide to the Elements|last=Emsley|first=John|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2001|isbn=978-0-19-850340-8|page=[https://archive.org/details/naturesbuildingb0000emsl/page/424 424]|url=https://archive.org/details/naturesbuildingb0000emsl|url-access=registration}}{{cite journal|doi=10.1038/159024a0|pmid=20279068|title=Technetium: the Element of Atomic Number 43|year=1947|last1=Perrier|first1=C.|last2=Segrè|first2=E.|journal=Nature|volume=159|issue=4027|page=24|bibcode = 1947Natur.159...24P |s2cid=4136886 }}
• The opioid Methadone is synthesized in Germany by scientists working at Hoechst AG.{{cite journal|first=M.|last=Bockmuhl|title=Über eine neue Klasse von analgetisch wirkenden Verbindungen|journal=Ann. Chem.|page=561|volume=52|year=1948}}
• Otto Bayer and his coworkers at IG Farben in Leverkusen, Germany, first make polyurethanes.

• January – Alan Turing's 1936 paper "On Computable Numbers" first appears in print.{{cite journal|first=A. M.|last=Turing|title=On computable numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem|journal=Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society |series=Series 2|volume=42|pages=230–265|year=1937|doi=10.1112/plms/s2-42.1.230|s2cid=73712 |url=http://www.abelard.org/turpap2/tp2-ie.asp|accessdate=2017-12-24}} Alonzo Church's review of it in Journal of Symbolic Logic introduces the term Turing machine.
• Claude Shannon's Master's thesis at MIT demonstrates that electronic application of Boolean algebra could construct and resolve any logical numerical relationship.{{cite book|last=Poundstone|first=William|title=Fortune's Formula: the Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System That Beat the Casinos and Wall Street|location=New York|publisher=Hill & Wang|year=2005|isbn=978-0-8090-4637-9|url=https://archive.org/details/fortunesformulau00poun}}
• Konrad Zuse submits patents in Germany based on his Z1 computer design anticipating von Neumann architecture.

• British Graham Land Expedition (1934–1937) concludes its work, having determined that Graham Land is an integral part of the Antarctic Peninsula and not an independent archipelago.{{cite web|title=British Graham Land Expedition, 1934-37|url=http://www.spri.cam.ac.uk/resources/expeditions/bgl/#s6|publisher=Scott Polar Research Institute|location=Cambridge|date=2011-03-31|accessdate=2013-08-13}}

• Bruno de Finetti publishes "La Prévision: ses lois logiques, ses sources subjectives" in Annales de l'Institut Henri Poincaré, his most influential treatment of his theorem on exchangeable sequences of random variables.{{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=128}}
• Hans Freudenthal proves the Freudenthal suspension theorem in homotopy.{{cite journal|doi=10.2307/1969855|first=George W.|last=Whitehead|authorlink=George W. Whitehead|title=On the Freudenthal Theorems|journal=Annals of Mathematics|volume=57|issue=2|year=1953|pages=209–228|jstor=1969855|mr=0055683}}
• Goldberg polyhedron first described.{{cite journal|title=A class of multi-symmetric polyhedra|first=Michael|last=Goldberg|journal=Tohoku Mathematical Journal|year=1937|volume=43 |pages=104–108 |url=https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/tmj1911/43/0/43_0_104/_article}}

• November 2 – English chemist Montague Phillips at May & Baker synthesises sulphapyridine (M&B 693), an early antibiotic which immediately enters animal trials with Middlesex Hospital pathologist Lionel Whitby.{{cite book |last=Lesch |first=John |title=The First Miracle Drugs |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-19-518775-5 |edition=Illustrated |chapter=Chapter 7}}
• First typhus vaccine by Rudolf Weigl, Ludwik Fleck and Hans Zinsser; influenza vaccine by Anatol Smorodintsev.{{cite book|author=Plotkin, S. L.; S. A.|chapter=A short history of vaccination|title=Vaccines|editor=Plotkin, Stanley A.; Orenstein, Walter A.; Offit, Paul A.|publisher=Elsevier Health Sciences|year=2008|page=8}}
• Both respirator designed in Australia.
• Italian psychiatrist Amarro Fiamberti is the first to document a transorbital approach to the brain, which becomes the basis for the controversial medical procedure of transorbital lobotomy.
• Publication in the United Kingdom of Dr A. J. Cronin's novel The Citadel, promoting the cause of socialised medicine.{{cite web|url=http://www.60yearsofnhsscotland.co.uk/history/birth-of-nhs-scotland/an-expectant-public.html|title=An expectant public|work=60 years of NHS Scotland|year=2008|accessdate=2011-04-21|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080928015840/http://www.60yearsofnhsscotland.co.uk/history/birth-of-nhs-scotland/an-expectant-public.html|archive-date=2008-09-28|url-status=dead}}

• January – Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen publish a paper denying that gravitational waves can exist.{{cite journal|last1=Einstein|first1=Albert|last2=Rosen|first2=Nathan|date=January 1937|title=On gravitational waves|journal=Journal of the Franklin Institute|location=United States|volume=223|issue=1|pages=43–54|doi=10.1016/s0016-0032(37)90583-0|issn=0016-0032}}
• Eugene Wigner introduces the term isospin.{{cite journal|first=E.|last=Wigner|year=1937|title=On the Consequences of the Symmetry of the Nuclear Hamiltonian on the Spectroscopy of Nuclei|journal=Physical Review|volume=51|pages=106–119|doi=10.1103/PhysRev.51.106|bibcode=1937PhRv...51..106W|issue=2}}

• February – Hans von Ohain begins ground-testing a turbojet engine.
• April 12 – Frank Whittle ground-tests the first jet engine designed to power an aircraft, at Rugby, England.
• May 28 – Rocker Shovel Loader patent applied for in the United States.
• June 5 – Alan Blumlein is granted a patent for an ultra-linear amplifier.{{cite patent|GB|496883|title=Improvements in or relating to thermionic valve amplifying circuits}}
• December 13 – Tomlinson Moseley files the first patent for an electric toothbrush.{{cite web|title=Electric toothbrush|url=https://patents.google.com/patent/US2196667A/en|website=Google Patents|access-date=2024-08-26|date=1937-12-13}}
• Alec Reeves invents pulse-code modulation.

• Nobel Prizes
• Physics – Clinton Joseph Davisson, George Paget Thomson
• Chemistry – Walter Haworth, Paul Karrer
• Medicine – Albert von Szent-Györgyi Nagyrapolt
• Copley Medal – Henry Dale
• Wollaston Medal for geology – Waldemar Lindgren

• January 14 – Leo Kadanoff, American physicist (died 2015)
• January 26 – Igor Aleksander, Croatian computer scientist.
• February 18 – Chen Chuangtian (died 2018), Chinese materials scientist.
• March 16 – Amos Tversky (died 1996), Jewish American cognitive and mathematical psychologist, recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.
• April 17 – Don Buchla (died 2016), American electronic engineer, pioneer of sound synthesizers.
• May 9 – Alison Jolly (died 2014), American primatologist.
• May 13 – Trevor Baylis (died 2018), English inventor.
• June 8 – Bruce McCandless II (died 2017), American astronaut.
• June 9 – Harald Rosenthal, German biologist
• June 11 – David Mumford, American mathematician.
• June 21 – Averil Mansfield, English vascular surgeon.
• June 23 – Nicholas Shackleton (died 2006), English Quaternary geologist and paleoclimatologist, recipient of the Vetlesen Prize.
• June 26 – Robert Coleman Richardson (died 2013), American experimental physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics.
• July 1 – Lydia Makhubu, Swazi chemist.
• July 19 – Bibb Latané, American social psychologist.
• July 26 – Ernest Vinberg (died 2020), Russian mathematician.
• August 2 – Coenraad Bron, Dutch computer scientist (d. 2006)
• September 8 – Edna Adan Ismail, Somali pioneer of pediatrics.
• December 26 – John Horton Conway, English-born mathematician (d. 2020)

• January 28 – Arthur Pollen (born 1866), English inventor.
• January 29 – Aleen Cust (born 1868), Irish veterinary surgeon.
• February 5 – Lou Andreas-Salomé (born 1861), German psychoanalyst.
• May 28 – Alfred Adler (born 1870), Austrian psychotherapist.
• June 11 – R. J. Mitchell (born 1895), English aeronautical engineer.
• July 20 – Guglielmo Marconi (born 1874), Italian inventor.
• July 30 – Victor Despeignes (born 1866), French pioneer of radiation oncology.
• October 16 – William Sealy Gosset (born 1876), English statistician.
• October 19 – Ernest Rutherford (born 1871), New Zealand-born British physicist and laureate of the Nobel Prize in Physics.
• November 23 – Jagadish Chandra Bose (born 1858), Bengali physicist.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:1937 In Science}}

Category:20th century in science

Category:1930s in science