1961 in science

• January 31 – Ham, a 37-pound male chimpanzee, is rocketed into space in a test of the Project Mercury capsule designed to carry U.S. astronauts into space.
• April 12 – Yuri Gagarin is the first human in space, making a single Low Earth orbit in Vostok 1 before parachuting to the ground.
• April 15 – R. N. Schwartz and Charles Hard Townes publish "Interstellar and Interplanetary Communication by Optical Masers" in Nature, providing a basis for Optical SETI.
• May 19 – Venera program: Venera 1 becomes the first manmade object to fly-by another planet by passing Venus (however the probe had lost contact with Earth a month earlier and does not send back any data).
• May 25 – Apollo program: President Kennedy announces before a special joint session of Congress his goal to initiate a project to put a "man on the Moon" before the end of the decade.
• The Drake equation is written by Frank Drake. {{cite web | url=https://www.seti.org/drake-equation-index | title=Drake Equation | publisher=SETI Institute | date=July 2021 | accessdate=20 December 2021 | author=Shostak, Seth}}

• Cephalosporin C is first characterized, by Guy Newton and Edward Abraham of the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology in the University of Oxford.{{cite journal|last1=Abraham|first1=E. P.|last2=Newton|first2=G. G. F.|title=Structure of cephalosporin C|journal=Biochemical Journal|date=May 1961|volume=79|issue=2|pages=377–393|pmid=13681080|pmc=1205850|doi=10.1042/bj0790377}}

• February 24 – Brattleboro rat strain first born.
• May 15 – J. Heinrich Matthaei performs the Poly-U-Experiment in the United States, opening the way to solution of the genetic code, a key event in modern genetics.{{cite book|author-link1=Hans-Jörg Rheinberger|first=Hans-Jörg|last=Rheinberger|title=Experimentalsysteme – Eine Geschichte der Proteinsynthese im Reagenzglas|location=Wallstein|isbn=978-3-89244-454-1|year=2001}}
• Hayflick limit proposed by Leonard Hayflick.{{cite journal|author=Hayflick, L.|author2=Moorhead, P. S.|title=The serial cultivation of human diploid cell strains|journal=Experimental Cell Research|volume=25|pages=585–621|year=1961|pmid=13905658|doi=10.1016/0014-4827(61)90192-6|issue=3}}

• Leonard Ornstein first describes disc electrophoresis.{{cite web|title=Disc Electrophoresis|url=http://www.pipeline.com/~lenornst/DiscElectrophoresis.html|accessdate=2011-10-16|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110926213111/http://www.pipeline.com/~lenornst/DiscElectrophoresis.html|archivedate=2011-09-26}}{{cite journal|last=Ornstein|first=Leonard|title=Disc Electrophoresis|journal=Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences|volume=121|issue=2|pages=321–349|year=1964|doi=10.1111/j.1749-6632.1964.tb14207.x|pmid=14240533|bibcode=1964NYASA.121..321O|citeseerx=10.1.1.140.7598|s2cid=28591995 }}

• July – Rolf Landauer first formulates Landauer's principle.{{cite journal|first=R.|last=Landauer|url=http://worrydream.com/refs/Landauer%20-%20Irreversibility%20and%20Heat%20Generation%20in%20the%20Computing%20Process.pdf|title=Irreversibility and Heat Generation in the Computing Process|journal=IBM Journal of Research and Development|volume=5|issue=3|pages=183–191|year=1961|accessdate=2015-10-15|doi=10.1147/rd.53.0183}}

• April – Project Mohole begins.
• Francis Birch establishes Birch's law on compressional wave velocities.{{cite journal|last=Birch|first=Francis|year=1961|title=The velocity of compressional waves in rocks to 10 kilobars. Part 2|url=http://www.agu.org/journals/jz/v066/i007/JZ066i007p02199/JZ066i007p02199.pdf|journal=Journal of Geophysical Research|volume=66|issue=7|pages=2199–2224|doi=10.1029/JZ066i007p02199|bibcode=1961JGR....66.2199B}}{{cite journal|last=Birch|first=Francis|year=1961|title=Composition of the Earth's mantle|journal=Geophysical Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society|volume=4|pages=295–311|doi=10.1111/j.1365-246X.1961.tb06821.x|bibcode=1961GeoJ....4..295B|doi-access=free}}

• Stephen Smale proves the Poincaré conjecture in dimensions greater than 4.{{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=93}}

• March 9 – The United Kingdom Minister of Health, Enoch Powell, in his "water towers" speech to a Conservative Party conference, proposes closing down of large, traditional psychiatric hospitals in favour of more community-based care.{{cite web|title=1960s|work=NHS Timeline|url=http://nhstimeline.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/1960s.html|publisher=Nuffield Trust|accessdate=2018-08-14}}
• Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is first discovered, in the United Kingdom.
• New Zealand cardiologist J. C. P. Williams identifies Williams syndrome.{{cite journal|last1=Lenhoff|first1=Howard M.|last2=Teele|first2=Rita L.|last3=Clarkson|first3=Patricia M.|last4=Berdon|first4=Walter E.|title=John C. P. Williams of Williams-Beuren syndrome|journal=Pediatric Radiology|volume=41|issue=2|year=2010|pages=267–269|issn=0301-0449|doi=10.1007/s00247-010-1909-y|pmid=21107555|s2cid=206933052 }}

• The non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug Ibuprofen, derived from propanoic acid by the research arm of Boots UK (Andrew R. M. Dunlop with Stewart Adams, John Nicholson, Vonleigh Simmons, Jeff Wilson and Colin Burrows), is patented.{{cite journal|doi=10.1002/j.1552-4604.1992.tb03842.x|last=Adams|first=S. S.|title=The propionic acids: A personal perspective|journal=The Journal of Clinical Pharmacology|volume=32|issue=4|pages=317–323|year=1992|pmid=1569234|s2cid=22857259 }}{{cite web|title=The story of Ibuprofen|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/nottingham/content/articles/2006/03/17/one_less_headache_stewart_adams_feature.shtml|publisher=BBC|location=Nottingham|date=2009-07-22|accessdate=2012-08-13}}
• Thalidomide is withdrawn from sale.

• February 14 – Discovery of the chemical elements: Element 103, Lawrencium, is first synthesized at Berkeley, California.
• October 30 – The largest nuclear weapon by yield, Tsar Bomba, is detonated in Russia, having a 50-megaton yield.
• Bark scale by German acoustics scientist Eberhard Zwicker.
• Spain joins CERN; Yugoslavia leaves.

• July – First Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures.

• June – RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade launcher introduced in the Soviet Union.
• September 12 – V/STOL aircraft Hawker Siddeley P.1127 makes its first transitions from vertical to horizontal flight and back, using thrust vectoring.
• James L. Buie patents transistor-coupled transistor logic, later known as transistor-to-transistor logic circuitry (TTL), used in integrated circuits.{{cite web|url=http://history.computer.org/pioneers/buie.html|title=Computer Pioneers|last1=Lee|first1=J. A. N.|date=2013|website=James L. Buie|publisher=IEEE Computer Society|accessdate=2015-11-14|quote=While working for TRW, Inc., Los Angeles, in the early 1960s, Buie developed and patented TTL circuitry, which became the dominant IC technology in the 1970s and early 1980s.}}
• Philips publicly introduce the compact audio cassette tape system, developed by a team led by Lou Ottens.{{cite journal|last=Duk|first=Wierd|title=Hoe Lou Ottens de wereld veranderde|journal=The Twentsche Courant Tubantia|date=2013-08-24|language=Dutch|url=http://docs.mfbfreaks.com/div/Lou_Ottens_Spectrum_20130824.pdf|access-date=2021-03-10}}
• Butler matrix for beamforming first proposed.{{cite journal|author1=Butler, J. |author2=Lowe, R. |title=Beam forming matrix simplifiers design of electrically scanned antennas|journal=Electronic Design|year=1961}}

• April 3 – A Leadbeater's possum, a marsupial species thought to have been extinct for over 50 years, is discovered in New South Wales (Australia).
• April 29 – World Wildlife Fund established.
• November 9 – First edition of new International Code of Zoological Nomenclature published.

• Nobel Prizes
• Physics – Robert Hofstadter, Rudolf Ludwig Mössbauer
• Chemistry – Melvin Calvin
• Medicine – Georg von Békésy

• February 24 – Ellen Stofan, American planetary scientist.
• March 10 – Laurel Clark (died 2003), American astronaut.
• March 15 – Moungi Bawendi, French-born Tunisian American chemist, recipient of Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
• May 6 - Japi, British_born Musician, Soldier, Historian, Psychologist and Social Commentator. Leader in Application of Addiction Therapy.
• July 1 – Kalpana Chawla (died 2003), Indian astronaut.
• August – Zhang Xu, Chinese neuroscientist.
• Andreas Weigend, German data scientist.

• January 4 – Erwin Schrödinger (born 1887), Austrian physicist.
• April 17 – Elda Emma Anderson (born 1899), American nuclear and health physicist, of leukemia.
• May 29 – Arnold Gesell (born 1880), American developmental psychologist.
• June 4 – William Astbury (born 1898), English physicist and molecular biologist.
• June 6 – Carl Jung (born 1875), Swiss psychiatrist.
• July 17 – Abner Doble (born 1890), American steam engineer.
• September 4 – Emil von Dungern (born 1867), German serologist.
• November 15 – Johanna Westerdijk (born 1883), Dutch plant pathologist.
• November 30 – Ehrenfried Pfeiffer (born 1899), German soil scientist.
• December 2 – Sven Sømme (born 1904), Norwegian ichthyologist and resistance worker.

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Category:20th century in science

Category:1960s in science