1938 in science

• June 28 – A 450-ton meteorite strikes the Earth in an empty field near Chicora, Pennsylvania, United States.

• December 22 – Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer discovers a Coelacanth, formerly seen only in fossils millions of years old, in a fisherman's catch in South Africa.
• Last known (captive) specimen of Schomburgk's deer is killed.{{cite book|last=Ellis|first=Richard|authorlink=Richard Ellis (biologist)|title=No Turning Back: The Life and Death of Animal Species|publisher=Harper Perennial|date=2004|location=New York|pages=[https://archive.org/details/noturningbacklif00elli/page/311 311]–312|isbn=0-06-055804-0|url=https://archive.org/details/noturningbacklif00elli|url-access=registration}}
• Bawden and Pirie publish the first crystal of a spherical virus, Tomato bushy stunt virus.{{cite journal|last1=Bawden|first1=F. C.|last2=Pirie|first2=N. W.|year=1938|title=Crystalline Preparations of Tomato Bushy Stunt Virus|pmc=2065153|journal=British Journal of Experimental Pathology|volume=19|page=251}}

• April 6 – Roy J. Plunkett of DuPont accidentally discovers polytetrafluoroethylene (Teflon).
• September 20 – The first patents for nylon (first synthesized in 1935) are granted in the name of Wallace Carothers to DuPont.US Patent 2,130,523 Linear polyamides suitable for spinning into strong pliable fibers; US Patent 2,130,947 Diamine dicarboxylic acid salt and US Patent 2,130,948 Synthetic fibers. {{cite web|title=The history of nylon |url=http://www.caimateriali.org/index.php?id=32 |first=L. |last=Trossarelli |publisher=Club Alpino Italiano, Centro Studi Materiali e Tecniche |year=2010 |accessdate=2012-02-28 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120425044410/http://www.caimateriali.org/index.php?id=32 |archivedate=2012-04-25 |url-status=live }} The first items produced in the new material are toothbrush bristles.
• November 16 – Lysergic acid diethylamide is first synthesized by Albert Hofmann from ergotamine at the Sandoz Laboratories in Basel.{{cite book|last=Hofmann|first=Albert|url=http://www.psychedelic-library.org/child.htm|title=LSD — My Problem Child|publisher=McGraw–Hill|year=1980|isbn=978-0-07-029325-0}}
• Melamine thermosetting resin is developed by American Cyanamid.

• Konrad Zuse in Berlin completes his Z1 computer, a floating point binary mechanical calculator with limited programmability, using Boolean logic and reading instructions from perforated 35 mm film.Talk given by Horst Zuse to the Computer Conservation Society at the Science Museum (London) on 18 November 2010.

• Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld publish The Evolution of Physics.

• Frank Benford restates the law of distribution of first digits.{{cite journal|first=Frank|last=Benford|title=The Law of Anomalous Numbers|journal=Proc. Am. Philos. Soc.|volume=78|issue=4|year=1938|pages=551–572|jstor=984802}}
• Alan Turing completes his Ph.D. thesis, Systems of Logic Based on Ordinals, at Princeton University; it is presented to the London Mathematical Society on June 16.{{cite journal|first=A. M.|last=Turing|title=Systems of Logic Based on Ordinals|journal=Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society |series=Series 2|volume=45|issue=1|year=1939|pages=161–228|doi=10.1112/plms/s2-45.1.161|hdl=21.11116/0000-0001-91CE-3|hdl-access=free}}{{cite web|title=Turing's Princeton Dissertation|url=http://www.princeton.edu/turing/alan/dissertation/|work=Turing Centennial Celebration|year=2012|publisher=Princeton University|accessdate=2013-02-05}}

• June 4–6 – Sigmund Freud and his immediate family leave Vienna for exile in London.
• March 4 – American biogerontologist Raymond Pearl demonstrates the negative health effects of tobacco smoking.{{Cite journal|last=Pearl|first=R.|title=Tobacco Smoking and Longevity|doi=10.1126/science.87.2253.216|journal=Science|volume=87|issue=2253|pages=216–217|year=1938|pmid=17813231|bibcode=1938Sci....87..216P}}{{cite book|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-0874369670|last=Cordry|first= Harold V.|title=Tobacco: a reference handbook|url=https://archive.org/details/tobaccoreference0000cord|url-access=registration|location=Santa Barbara, California|series=Contemporary world issues|year=2001}}
• August – Dorothy Hansine Andersen describes the characteristic cystic fibrosis of the pancreas and correlates it with the celiac, respiratory and intestinal diseases prominent in the condition, also first hypothesizing that cystic fibrosis is a recessive disorder.{{cite journal|last=Andersen|first=Dorothy Hansine|title=Cystic fibrosis of the pancreas and its relation to celiac disease: a clinical and pathological study|journal=American Journal of Diseases of Children|year=1938|volume=56|issue=2|pages=344–399|doi=10.1001/archpedi.1938.01980140114013}}
• October – Robert Edward Gross becomes the first surgeon successfully to ligate an uninfected patent ductus arteriosus, in Boston.{{cite journal|last=Gross|first=Robert|last2=Hubbard|first2=John|date=1939|title=Surgical Ligation of a Patent Ductus Arteriosus|journal=Journal of the American Medical Association|volume=112|issue=8|pages=729|doi=10.1001/jama.1939.02800080049011|issn=0002-9955}}

• Hans Asperger first adopts the term autism in its modern sense in referring to autistic psychopaths in a lecture (in German) on child psychology.{{cite journal|journal=Wiener Klinische Wochenschrift|year=1938|volume=51|pages=1314–7|title=The psychically abnormal child|last=Asperger|first=H.|language=German}}
• Ugo Cerletti and Lucio Bini discover electroconvulsive therapy.
• Philip Wiles of Middlesex Hospital in London carries out a total hip replacement using a stainless-steel prosthesis.{{Cite book|author=Reynolds, L. A.|title=Early Development of Total Hip Replacement|publisher=Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine, University College London|year=2006|isbn=978-085484-111-0}}
• American endocrinologist Henry Turner describes Turner syndrome.{{cite journal|author=Turner, H. H.|year=1938|title=A syndrome of infantilism, congenital webbed neck and cubitus valgus|journal=Endocrinology|volume=23|issue=5|pages=566–74|doi=10.1210/endo-23-5-566}}

• December 17 – Discovery of nuclear fission by Otto Hahn, Lise Meitner and Fritz Strassmann with Otto Robert Frisch.
• Herbert E. Ives and G. R. Stilwell execute the Ives–Stilwell experiment, showing that ions radiate at frequencies affected by their motion.{{cite journal|last=Ives|first=Herbert E.|author2=Stilwell, G. R.|year=1938|title=An Experimental Study of the Rate of a Moving Atomic Clock|journal=Journal of the Optical Society of America|volume=28|issue=7|pages=215–19|bibcode=1938JOSA...28..215I|url=http://www.opticsinfobase.org/abstract.cfm?URI=josa-28-7-215|accessdate=2011-09-23|doi=10.1364/JOSA.28.000215}}
• Nuclear magnetic resonance is first described and measured in molecular beams by Isidor Rabi.{{cite journal|author1=Rabi, I.I. |author2=Zacharias, J.R. |author3=Millman, S. |author4=Kusch, P. |title=A New Method of Measuring Nuclear Magnetic Moment|journal =Physical Review|volume=53|year=1938|doi=10.1103/PhysRev.53.318|issue=4|bibcode=1938PhRv...53..318R|pages=318–327|doi-access=free}}
• The Vlasov equation is first proposed for description of plasma by Anatoly Vlasov.{{cite journal|first=A. A.|last=Vlasov|title=On Vibration Properties of an Electron Gas|journal=Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics|volume=8|pages=444–70|year=1938|url=http://ufn.ru/ru/articles/1967/11/f/|language=Russian|issue=3|accessdate=2011-09-23}}

• László Bíró obtains his first patent for a ballpoint pen, in France.

• Ștefan Odobleja begins publication of his Psychologie consonantiste in Paris, seen in Romania as originating the study of cybernetics.

• Nobel Prizes
• Physics – Enrico Fermi
• Chemistry – Richard Kuhn
• Medicine – Corneille Jean François Heymans
• Copley Medal: Niels Bohr
• Wollaston Medal for geology: Maurice Lugeon

• January 2
• Lynn Conway, American computer engineer
• Farouk El-Baz, Egyptian-American space scientist
• Dana Ulery, American computer scientist
• January 10 – Donald Knuth, American computer scientist and mathematician
• January 28 – Tomas Lindahl, Swedish biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
• March 5 – Lynn Margulis, American biologist (d. 2011)
• March 7 – David Baltimore, American biologist, university administrator and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
• March 31 – Dennis H. Klatt, American pioneer of speech synthesis (d. 1988)
• April 3 – John Darley, American social psychologist
• April 25 – Roger Boisjoly, American rocket engineer (d. 2012)
• May 11 – Fritz-Albert Popp, German biophysicist
• May 16 – Ivan Sutherland, American computer scientist and Turing Award winner
• June 29 – David Barker, English epidemiologist (d. 2013)
• July 2 – C. Kumar N. Patel, Indian electrical engineer
• July 19 – Jayant Narlikar, Indian astrophysicist
• September 3 – Ryōji Noyori, Japanese chemist, Nobel laureate
• September 17 – Alec Broers, Baron Broers, British electrical engineer
• September 26 – Alan Andrew Watson, Scottish astrophysicist
• September 30 – Alfred Cuschieri, Malta-born laparoscopic surgeon
• October 4 – Kurt Wüthrich, Swiss chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
• October 22 – Michael Berridge, Rhodesian-born British physiologist and biochemist (d. 2020)
• November 7 – Edgardo Gomez, Filipino biologist (d. 2019)
• December 7 – George Hockham, English electrical engineer (d. 2013)
• December 23 – Bob Kahn, American Internet pioneer

• January 31 – Sir James Crichton-Browne, Scottish psychiatrist (b. 1840)
• May 3 – Percy Furnivall, English surgeon (b. 1868)
• May 16
• Fred Baker, American physician and naturalist (b. 1854)
• Joseph Strauss, American bridge engineer (b. 1870)
• June 13 – Beverly Thomas Galloway, American plant pathologist (b. 1863)
• November 20 – Edwin Hall, American physicist, discoverer of the "Hall effect" (b. 1855)

{{reflist}}

Category:20th century in science

Category:1930s in science