1947 in science

• August 7 – Thor Heyerdahl's balsa-wood raft, the Kon-Tiki, smashes into the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands after a 101-day, 4300-mile (6900-km) journey across the Pacific Ocean, demonstrating that prehistoric peoples could have traveled from South America.{{cite web|url=http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/8/7|title=Wood Raft Makes 4,300-Mile Voyage|work=This Day in History|publisher=BBC| accessdate=4 July 2010 }}

• February 12 – Sikhote-Alin meteorite falls to Earth in Siberia, the largest iron meteorite known to have impacted.{{cite book|first=O. Richard|last=Orton|title=Rocks From Space|publisher=Mountain Press Publishing|location=Missoula, Montana|edition=2nd|year=1998|page=103|isbn=0-87842-373-7}}
• February 20 – The first living things sent into space (and returned) are fruit flies, accompanied by rye and cotton seeds, aboard a V-2 rocket launched by the U.S. Army Ordnance Corps which reaches an altitude of 68 miles (109 km).{{cite web|url=http://www.postwarv2.com/usa/ws/uars/uars20.html|title=Upper Air Rocket Summary V-2 No. 20| accessdate=11 May 2011 }}{{cite web|url=https://history.nasa.gov/afspbio/part1.htm|title=The Beginnings of Research in Space Biology at the Air Force Missile Development Center, 1946-1952|accessdate=2008-01-31|work=History of Research in Space Biology and Biodynamics|publisher=NASA|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080125044753/https://history.nasa.gov/afspbio/part1.htm|archivedate=25 January 2008|url-status=live}}{{cite web|url=http://www.wsmr.army.mil/pao/FactSheets/V2/v-2tab.htm|title=V-2 Firing Tables|accessdate=2008-01-31|publisher=White Sands Missile Range|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080125175018/http://www.wsmr.army.mil/pao/FactSheets/V2/v-2tab.htm|archivedate=2008-01-25}}
• Bok globules are reported.{{cite journal|last1=Bok|first1=Bart J.|authorlink=Bart Bok|last2=Reilly|first2=Edith F.|title=Small Dark Nebulae|journal=The Astrophysical Journal|volume=105|page=255|date=March 1947|bibcode = 1947ApJ...105..255B|doi=10.1086/144901}}

• The Oxford Swift Research Project, based on the colony at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, is started by David and Elizabeth Lack. It will still be running more than sixty years later.{{cite web|title=The swifts in the tower|url=http://www.oum.ox.ac.uk/visiting/swifts/index.htm|publisher=Oxford University Museum of Natural History|accessdate=2011-03-17|archive-date=2011-03-11|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110311033849/http://www.oum.ox.ac.uk/visiting/swifts/index.htm|url-status=dead}}{{cite book|title=The Museum Swifts: the story of the swifts in the tower of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History|first1=Andrew|last1=Lack|authorlink=Andrew Lack (author)|first2=Roy|last2=Overall|publisher=Oxford University Museum of Natural History|year=2002|isbn=0-9542726-0-9}}
• David Lack publishes Darwin's Finches.
• Zika virus first isolated from a rhesus macaque in the Zika Forest of Uganda.
• Influenza C virus first isolated.{{cite journal|last1=Asha|first1=Kumari|last2=Kumar|first2=Binod|date=2019-02-05|title=Emerging Influenza D Virus Threat: What We Know so Far!|journal=Journal of Clinical Medicine|volume=8|issue=2|pages=192–|doi=10.3390/jcm8020192|pmc=6406440|pmid=30764577|doi-access=free}}

• January 25 – Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann file a United States patent request for an invention described as a "cathode-ray tube amusement device",{{Cite patent|country=US|number=2455992|pubdate=1948-12-14|title=Cathode-ray tube amusement device|assign1=Allen B. Du Mont Laboratories Inc.|inventor1-last=Goldsmith Jr.|inventor1-first=Thomas T.|inventor2-last=Estle Ray|inventor2-first=Mann}} probably the first video game.
• July 29 – After being shut off on November 9, 1946, for a refurbishment and relocation, ENIAC, one of the world's first digital computers, is turned on after a memory upgrade at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. It will remain in continuous operation until October 2, 1955.{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://www.britannica.com/facts/10/40900528/July-29-1947-After-being-shut-off-on|title=July 29, 1947|encyclopedia=Britannica| accessdate=4 July 2010 }}
• August 18 – Official start of construction of Automatic Computing Engine in the United Kingdom.
• September 9 – A moth lodged in a relay is found to be the cause of a malfunction in the Harvard Mark II electromechanical computer, logged as "First actual case of bug being found."{{cite web|url=http://catb.org/jargon/html/B/bug.html|title=bug:n.|work=The Jargon File|accessdate=2012-01-20}}{{cite web|url=http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/main?edan_q=Log+book+with+computer+bug&op=Search|title=Log Book With Computer Bug|publisher=National Museum of American History|accessdate=2013-01-16|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140927135534/http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/main?edan_q=Log+book+with+computer+bug&op=Search|archive-date=2014-09-27|url-status=dead}}
• October – First recorded use of the word computer in its modern sense, referring to an electronic digital machine.{{cite web|title=computer, n.|work=Oxford English Dictionary online version|publisher=Oxford University Press |url=http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/37975?redirectedFrom=computer#eid|accessdate=2011-11-29 |date=September 2011}} {{OEDsub}}

• John Crank and Phyllis Nicolson describe the Crank–Nicolson method in numerical analysis.{{cite journal|title=A practical method for numerical evaluation of solutions of partial differential equations of the heat conduction type|journal=Mathematical Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society|volume=43|issue=1|year=1947|pages=50–67|doi=10.1017/S0305004100023197|last1=Crank|first1=J.|authorlink1=John Crank|last2=Nicolson|first2=P.|authorlink2=Phyllis Nicolson|s2cid=16676040}}
• George Dantzig publishes the simplex algorithm for linear programming.{{cite book|last=Murty|first=Katta G.|title=Linear programming|publisher=Wiley|location=New York|year=1983|isbn=0-471-09725-X|mr=720547}}{{cite book|editor=Cottle, Richard W|title=The Basic George B. Dantzig|publisher=Stanford University Press|year=2003|first=George B.|last=Dantzig}}{{cite book|first1=George B.|last1=Dantzig|first2=Mukund N.|last2=Thapa|year=1997|title=Linear programming 1: Introduction|publisher=Springer}}{{cite book|first1=George B.|last1=Dantzig|first2=Mukund N.|last2=Thapa|year=2003|title=Linear Programming 2: Theory and Extensions|publisher=Springer}}{{cite journal|first=Michael J.|last=Todd|date=February 2002|title=The many facets of linear programming|journal=Mathematical Programming|volume=91|issue=3|doi=10.1007/s101070100261|pages=417–436|s2cid=6464735}}Computing in Science and Engineering 2(1) (2000).

• January – Prosopagnosia is first named by German neurologist Joachim Bodamer.{{cite journal|first=Joachim|last=Bodamer|journal=Archiv für Psychiatrie und Nervenkrankheiten|title=Die Prosop-Agnosie: Die Agnosie des Physiognomieerkennens|year=1947|volume=179|pages=6–53}}
• August 20 – Doctors' Trial concludes, establishing the Nuremberg Code as a model of research ethics for human subject research.{{cite journal |doi=10.1353/bhm.2001.0049|title=The Origins of Informed Consent: The International Scientific Commission on Medical War Crimes, and the Nuremburg Code|year=2001|last1=Weindling|first1=Paul|journal=Bulletin of the History of Medicine|volume=75|issue=1|pages=37–71|pmid=11420451|s2cid=20239629}}
• November 29 – Mary Barber publishes her classic paper on antibiotic resistance in Staphylococcus bacteria.{{cite journal|title=Staphylococcal Infection due to Penicillin-Resistant Strains|first=Mary|last=Barber|journal=British Medical Journal|date=1947-11-29|volume=2|issue=4534|pages=863–865|doi=10.1136/bmj.2.4534.863|pmc=2056216|pmid=20272443}}{{cite web|authorlink=Hugh Pennington |last=Pennington |first=Hugh |url=http://www.publicservice.co.uk/feature_story.asp?id=13593 |title=Rooting out the villains |date=2010-02-09 |publisher=Public Service.co.uk |accessdate=2012-12-06 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110228090904/http://www.publicservice.co.uk/feature_story.asp?id=13593 |archivedate=2011-02-28 }}{{cite book|last=Haines|first=Catharine M. C.|year=2001|title=International Women in Science: A Biographical Dictionary to 1950|isbn=1-57607-090-5|publisher=ABC-CLIO|location=Santa Barbara|url=https://archive.org/details/internationalwom00hain}}
• The first antithyroid drug, propylthiouracil, is introduced in the United States.{{cite book|last1=Skugor|first1=Mario|last2=Wilder|first2=Jesse Bryant|title=The Cleveland Clinic Guide to Thyroid Disorders|year=2009|location=New York|publisher=Kaplan Publishing|isbn=978-1-4277-9969-2|page=[https://archive.org/details/clevelandclinicg00skug/page/71 71]|url= https://archive.org/details/clevelandclinicg00skug|url-access=registration|quote=propylthiouracil introduced 1947.| accessdate=13 September 2011 }}
• The first use of defibrillation on a human subject is performed by Claude Beck, professor of surgery at Case Western Reserve University.{{cite web|url=http://www.cwru.edu/artsci/dittrick/museum/artifacts1/defibrllator.html|title=Claude Beck, defibrillation and CPR|publisher=Case Western Reserve University|year=2010|accessdate=2012-06-13}}

• February 23 – The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is founded.

• April 18 – "Mrs. Ples" (STS 5), the most complete skull of an Australopithecus africanus specimen ever found in South Africa, is discovered at Sterkfontein (Transvaal) by Robert Broom and John T. Robinson.

• June – The Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is introduced.
• June 2 – The Shelter Island Conference on the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics convenes in New York State.{{cite web|url=http://www7.nationalacademies.org/archives/shelterisland.html|title=The Shelter Island Conference|publisher=The National Academies|accessdate=4 July 2010 |archive-date=1 April 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100401055459/http://www7.nationalacademies.org/archives/shelterisland.html|url-status=dead}}
• August 15 – 'GLEEP' (the Graphite Low Energy Experimental Pile) experimental nuclear reactor runs for the first time at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment, Harwell, Oxfordshire, the first reactor to operate in Western Europe.
• December 20 – The discovery of kaon is published in Nature (journal).
• Harold Urey, Jacob Bigeleisen, and Maria Mayer introduce the Urey–Bigeleisen–Mayer equation, a model for approximating isotope fractionation.{{cite journal | last1 = Richet | first1 = P. | last2 = Bottinga | first2 = Y. | last3 = Javoy | first3 = M. | title = A Review of Hydrogen, Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Sulphur, and Chlorine Stable Isotope Fractionation Among Gaseous Molecules | journal = Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences | year = 1977 | volume = 5 | pages = 65–110 | doi = 10.1146/annurev.ea.05.050177.000433 | bibcode = 1977AREPS...5...65R}}{{cite journal | last = Urey | first = H.C. | title = The Thermodynamic Properties of Isotopic Substances | journal = Journal of the Chemical Society | year = 1947 | pages = 562–581 | doi = 10.1039/JR9470000562 | pmid = 20249764}}{{cite journal | title = Calculation of Equilibrium Constants for Isotopic Exchange Reactions | last1 = Bigeleisen | first1 = J. | last2 = Mayer | first2 = M.G. | journal = The Journal of Chemical Physics | volume = 15 | issue = 5 | year = 1947 | pages = 261–267 | doi = 10.1063/1.1746492 | bibcode = 1947JChPh..15..261B| hdl = 2027/mdp.39015074123996 | hdl-access = free }}

• February 21 – Edwin H. Land demonstrates the first practical instant camera, the Land Camera, in New York City. It will first be on commercial sale in December 1948.
• November 13 – First AK-47 selective-fire, gas-operated assault rifle produced in the Soviet Union by Mikhail Kalashnikov.
• November 17–December 23 – John Bardeen and Walter Brattain working under William Shockley at AT&T's Bell Labs in the United States demonstrate the transistor effect.{{cite web|title=November 17 – December 23, 1947: Invention of the First Transistor|publisher=American Physical Society|url=http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200011/history.cfm|accessdate=2013-01-16}}
• December 11 – A hexagonal cellular telephone network is proposed by Douglas H. Ring and W. Rae Young of Bell Labs for mobile phones in vehicles.{{cite web|url=http://www.privateline.com/archive/Ringcellreport1947.pdf|date=1947-12-11|title=Mobile Telephony – Wide Area Coverage|first=D. H.|last=Ring|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120207062016/http://www.privateline.com/archive/Ringcellreport1947.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-date=2012-02-07|accessdate=2018-07-10}}
• The clavioline is invented by Constant Martin.
• The disposable nappy is invented by Valerie Hunter Gordon.
• Raytheon produces the first commercial microwave oven.

• Nobel Prizes[http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/lists/1947.html "Nobel Laureates 1947."] Nobelprize.
• Physics – Edward Victor Appleton
• Chemistry – Sir Robert Robinson
• Medicine – Carl Ferdinand Cori, Gerty Cori, Bernardo Houssay

• January 24 – Michio Kaku, American theoretical physicist and popularizer of science.
• January 29 – Linda B. Buck, American biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 2004.
• January 30 – Masaki Kashiwara, Japanese mathematician.{{Cite web|title=2025: Masaki Kashiwara|url=https://abelprize.no/abel-prize-laureates/2025|access-date=2025-03-28|website=The Abel Prize}}
• February 4 – John Campbell Brown (died 2019), Scottish astronomer.{{cite web |title=Obituary: Professor John Brown OBE, Astronomer Royal for Scotland who used magic tricks to share wonder of the cosmos |url=https://www.scotsman.com/news/obituaries/obituary-professor-john-brown-obe-astronomer-royal-scotland-who-used-magic-tricks-share-wonder-cosmos-1398717 |website=www.scotsman.com |access-date=27 May 2021 }}
• March 16 – Keith Devlin, English-born mathematician and popularizer of science.
• April 18 – Chris Rapley, British climate scientist.
• May 9 – Michael Levitt, South African-born computational biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 2013.
• June 8 – Eric F. Wieschaus, American biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1995.
• June 15 – Alain Aspect, French quantum physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics{{cite press release|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2022/press-release/|title=The Nobel Prize in Physics 2022|date=2022-10-04|work=Nobel Prize|publisher=The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences|access-date=2022-10-06}}
• June 25 – Will Steffen (died 2023), American-born Australian chemist.[https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jan/31/will-steffen-courageous-climate-scientist-dies-in-canberra-aged-75 Will Steffen, ‘courageous’ climate scientist, dies in Canberra aged 75]
• July 5 – Lalji Singh (died 2017), Indian biotechnologist and cytogeneticist, "father of Indian DNA fingerprinting".
• July 30 – Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, French virologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 2008.
• August 21 – Margaret Chan, Hong Kong-born physician.
• December 6 – Geoffrey Hinton, English-born cognitive psychologist and computer scientist, "godfather of AI", recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics 2024.
• December 16 – Martyn Poliakoff, British chemist and popularizer of science.
• Stuart W. Jamieson, Rhodesian-born cardiothoracic surgeon.

• February 12 – Moses Gomberg (born 1866), American chemist.
• February 25 – Friedrich Paschen (born 1865), German physicist.
• August 23 – Roy Chadwick (born 1893), English aircraft designer (aircraft accident).
• September 15 – Annie Maunder (born 1868), Anglo-Irish astronomer.
• October 2 – P. D. Ouspensky (born 1878), Russian-born philosopher.
• October 4 – Max Planck (born 1858), German quantum physicist.
• November 17 – Emil Racoviță (born 1868), Romanian biologist, speleologist and polar explorer.
• December 1
• John Fraser (born 1885), Scottish surgeon.
• G. H. Hardy (born 1877), English mathematician.GRO Register of Deaths: December 1947 4a 204 Cambridge – Godfrey H. Hardy, aged 70.
• December 17 – J. N. Brønsted (born 1879), Danish physical chemist.

{{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:1947 In Science}}

Category:20th century in science

Category:1940s in science