1963 in science

• January 1 – Long-period comet C/1963 A1 (Ikeya) is discovered by a Japanese amateur.
• January 4 – Soviet Luna reaches Earth orbit but fails to reach the Moon.
• May 15 – Mercury program: NASA launches the last mission of the program Mercury 9. (On June 12 NASA Administrator James E. Webb tells Congress the program is complete.)
• July 26 – Roy Kerr submits for publication his discovery of the Kerr metric, an exact solution to the Einstein field equation of general relativity, predicting a rotating black hole.{{cite journal|last=Kerr|first=R. P.|title=Gravitational field of a spinning mass as an example of algebraically special metrics|journal=Physical Review Letters|year=1963|volume=11|issue=5|pages=237–238|doi=10.1103/PhysRevLett.11.237|bibcode=1963PhRvL..11..237K}}
• October 18 – Aboard the French Véronique AGI 47 sounding rocket, a bicolor cat designated C 341, later known as Félicette, becomes the first cat in space.
• November 1 – The Arecibo Observatory, with the world's largest single-dish radio telescope, officially opens in Arecibo, Puerto Rico.
• First definite identification of a radio source, 3C 48, with an optical object, later identified as a quasar, is published by Allan Sandage and Thomas A. Matthews;{{cite journal|last1=Matthews|first1=Thomas A.|author-link=Thomas A. Matthews|last2=Sandage|first2=Allan R.|author2-link=Allan Sandage|title=Optical Identification of 3c 48, 3c 196, and 3c 286 with Stellar Objects|date=1963|journal=The Astrophysical Journal|volume=138|pages=30–56|bibcode=1963ApJ...138...30M|doi=10.1086/147615|doi-access=free}} also Maarten Schmidt publishes significant observations on 3C 273.{{cite journal|last=Schmidt|first=Maarten|title=3C 273: a star-like object with large red-shift|journal=Nature|year=1963|volume=197|issue=4872|page=1040|bibcode=1963Natur.197.1040S|doi=10.1038/1971040a0|doi-access=free}}

• Geneticist J. B. S. Haldane coins the word "clone".
• Molecular biologist Emile Zuckerkandl and physical chemist Linus Pauling introduce the term paleogenetics.{{cite journal|last1=Pauling|first1=L.|last2=Zuckerkandl|first2=E.|year=1963|title=Chemical paleogenetics: molecular restoration studies of extinct forms of life|journal=Acta Chemica Scandinavica|volume=17|page=89|doi=10.3891/acta.chem.scand.17s-0009 |doi-access=free}}
• Konrad Lorenz publishes On Aggression (Das sogenannte Böse: Zur Naturgeschichte der Aggression).
• Niko Tinbergen poses his four questions to be asked of any animal behavior.{{cite journal|last=Tinbergen|first=Niko|year=1963|title=On Aims and Methods in Ethology|journal=Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie|volume=20|issue=4|pages=410–433|url=http://www.esf.edu/EFB/faculty/documents/Tinbergen1963onethology.pdf|doi=10.1111/j.1439-0310.1963.tb01161.x|access-date=2011-03-17|archive-date=2011-06-09|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110609122714/http://www.esf.edu/EFB/faculty/documents/Tinbergen1963onethology.pdf|url-status=dead}}
• Sydney Brenner proposes the use of Caenorhabditis elegans as a model organism for the investigation primarily of neural development in animals.

• Robinson projection devised by Arthur H. Robinson.{{cite book|title=Flattening the Earth: Two Thousand Years of Map Projections|first=John P.|last=Snyder|year=1993|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-76747-5}}

• Ivan Sutherland writes the revolutionary Sketchpad program and runs it on the Lincoln TX-2 computer at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

• September 7 – British geophysicists Fred Vine and Drummond Matthews publish proof of seafloor spreading on the Atlantic Ocean floor.{{cite book|title=The Hutchinson Factfinder|publisher=Helicon|year=1999|isbn=978-1-85986-000-7}}{{cite journal|doi=10.1038/199947a0|last1=Vine|first1=F. J.|last2=Matthews|first2=D. H.|year=1963|title=Magnetic Anomalies Over Oceanic Ridges |journal=Nature|volume=199|pages=947–949|issue=4897|bibcode=1963Natur.199..947V|s2cid=4296143}}
• November 14 – The Icelandic volcanic island of Surtsey appears above sea level.

• April 1 – Industrial Monuments Survey for the Ministry of Public Building and Works (Great Britain) commenced by Rex Wailes.
• Kenneth Hudson's Industrial Archaeology: an introduction published in London.
• Derek J. de Solla Price's Little Science, Big Science published in New York.

• Paul Cohen uses forcing to prove that the continuum hypothesis and the axiom of choice are independent from Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory.
• Walter Feit and John G. Thompson state the Feit–Thompson theorem.{{cite journal|last1=Feit|first1=Walter|last2=Thompson|first2=John G.|title=Solvability of groups of odd order|url=http://projecteuclid.org/Dienst/UI/1.0/Journal?authority=euclid.pjm&issue=1103053941|mr=0166261|year=1963|journal=Pacific Journal of Mathematics|volume=13|issue=3|pages=775–1029|doi=10.2140/pjm.1963.13.775|doi-access=free}}
• Edward Lorenz publishes his discovery of the 'butterfly effect', significant in the development of chaos theory.{{cite journal|last=Lorenz|first=Edward N.|title=Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow|journal=Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences|date=March 1963|volume=20|issue=2|pages=130–141|doi=10.1175/1520-0469(1963)020<0130:DNF>2.0.CO;2|bibcode=1963JAtS...20..130L|doi-access=free}}
• Atiyah–Singer index theorem announced by Michael Atiyah and Isadore Singer.{{cite journal|last1=Atiyah|first1=Michael F.|last2=Singer|first2=Isadore M.|title=The Index of Elliptic Operators on Compact Manifolds|journal=Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society|volume= 69|pages=422–433|year=1963|doi=10.1090/S0002-9904-1963-10957-X|issue=3|doi-access=free}}

• June – Guy Alexandre performs the first kidney transplantation from a heart-beating, brain-dead donor, at Saint Pierre Hospital, Leuven, Belgium.
• Thomas Starzl performs the first liver transplantation, at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.{{cite journal|first=Calixto|last=Machado|title=The first organ transplant from a brain-dead donor|journal=Neurology|year=2005|volume=64|pages=1938–42|issue=11|doi=10.1212/01.wnl.0000163515.09793.cb|pmid=15955947|s2cid=219219246}}
• James D. Hardy performs the first lung transplantation.
• Measles vaccines are introduced commercially.{{cite web|last=Webb|first=Nicholas|title=HSL Research Guides: Ernst Ludwig Wynder Autograph Collection: John Enders, Ph.D.|url=https://guides.library.nymc.edu/c.php?g=117959&p=767676|website=guides.library.nymc.edu|publisher=New York Medical College Health Sciences Library|access-date=2021-02-13|quote=In 1963, Pfizer introduced a deactivated measles vaccine, and Merck & Co introduced an attenuated measles vaccine.}}

• American endocrinologist Grant Liddle identifies Liddle's syndrome.{{cite journal|title=Grant W. Liddle|journal=Transactions of the American Clinical and Climatological Association|year=1993|last=Christy|first=Nicholas P.|volume=104|pages=xliii–xlv|pmc=2376630|pmid=1343432}}
• French pediatrician Jérôme Lejeune first describes cri du chat syndrome.{{cite journal|author=Lejeune, J.|title=3 Cases of partial deletion of the short arm of chromosome 5|language=fr|journal=Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l'Académie des Sciences|volume=257|pages=3098–102|year=1963|pmid=14095841|display-authors=etal}}
• Pentasomy X is first diagnosed.

• The type species of the early dinosaur Herrerasaurus, Herrerasaurus ischigualastensis from the north of Argentina, is described by Osvaldo Reig.{{cite journal|last=Reig|first=O. A.|year=1963|title=La presencia de dinosaurios saurisquios en los "Estratos de Ischigualasto" (Mesotriásico Superior) de las provincias de San Juan y La Rioja (República Argentina)|journal=Ameghiniana|volume=3|issue=1|pages=3–20|language=Spanish}}

• David H. Frisch and J. H. Smith prove radioactive decay of mesons is slowed by their motion.American Journal of Physics 31: 342-355. (See Einstein's special relativity and general relativity.)

• Stanley Milgram publishes the results of his shock experiment on obedience to authority figures.{{cite journal|title=Behavioral Study of Obedience|journal=Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology|volume=67|pages=371–378|pmid=14049516|url=http://content.apa.org/journals/abn/67/4/371|doi=10.1037/h0040525|issue=4|date=October 1963|last1=Milgram|first1=S|citeseerx=10.1.1.599.92}}
• The term "contrafreeloading" was coined.

• Lava lamp invented by Edward Craven Walker.{{cite web |title=Edward Craven Walker {{!}} British inventor |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edward-Craven-Walker |website=Encyclopedia Britannica |accessdate=11 March 2019 |language=en}}
• Mellotron Mark I electro-mechanical, polyphonic tape replay keyboard, developed and built in Aston, Birmingham, England, is marketed.
• Don Buchla begins to design an electronic music synthesizer in Berkeley, California.

• November 23 – First episode of science fiction television series Doctor Who broadcast by the BBC in the United Kingdom.{{cite book|title=Penguin Pocket On This Day|publisher=Penguin Reference Library|isbn=978-0-14-102715-9|year=2006}}{{cite book|title=The Handbook: The First Doctor — The William Hartnell Years 1963–1966|first1=David J.|last1=Howe|first2=Mark|last2=Stammers|authorlink3=Stephen James Walker|first3=Stephen James|last3=Walker|publisher=Virgin Books|location=London|year=1994|isbn=978-0-426-20430-5|page=54}}{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/episodeguide/unearthlychild/detail.shtml|title=An Unearthly Child|work=Doctor Who: The Classic Series|publisher=BBC|date=1995–2003|accessdate=2012-06-08}}

• Nobel Prizes
• Physics – Eugene Paul Wigner, Maria Goeppert-Mayer, J. Hans D. Jensen
• Chemistry – Karl Ziegler, Giulio Natta
• Medicine – Sir John Carew Eccles, Alan Lloyd Hodgkin, Andrew Fielding Huxley

• January 4 – May-Britt Moser, Norwegian neuroscientist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.{{cite web |title=The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2014 |url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2014/may-britt-moser/facts/ |website=NobelPrize.org |accessdate=11 March 2019}}
• February 9 – Brian Greene, American theoretical physicist.
• February 10 – Vivian Wing-Wah Yam, Hong Kong chemist working on OLEDs
• March – Jin Li, Chinese geneticist.
• August 14 – Saiful Islam, Pakistani-born materials chemist.
• August 30 – Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, Polish-born developmental biologist.
• W. Tecumseh Fitch, American-born evolutionary biologist.
• Daniel Jackson, English-born American computer scientist.

• January 28 – Jean Piccard (born 1884), Swiss-born American chemist and explorer.
• February 5 – Barnum Brown (born 1873), American paleontologist.
• April 6 – Otto Struve (born 1897), Russian astronomer.
• May 11 – Herbert Spencer Gasser (born 1888), American physiologist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
• May 19 – Walter Russell (born 1871), American polymath.
• June 16 – Eleanor Williams (born 1884), Australian bacteriologist and serologist.
• August 30 – Marietta Pallis (born 1882), British ecologist.
• October 13 – Alan A. Griffith (born 1893), English stress engineer.
• October 2 – Olga Lepeshinskaya (born 1871), Soviet Lysenkoist biologist.
• October 25 – Karl von Terzaghi (born 1883), Austrian "father of soil mechanics".
• November 13 – Margaret Murray (born 1863), Indian-English anthropologist and author.{{cite book|first=Kathleen L.|last=Sheppard|title=The Life of Margaret Alice Murray: A Woman's Work in Archaeology|location=Lanham|publisher=Lexington|year=2013|isbn=978-0-73917-417-3|page=223}}

{{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:1963 In Science}}

Category:20th century in science

Category:1960s in science