1964 in science

• January 30 – The Soviet Union launches the first Elektron satellites.
• Spring – First recognition of cosmic microwave background radiation as a detectable phenomenon.In a brief paper by Soviet astrophysicists A. G. Doroshkevich and Igor Novikov. {{cite web|last=Penzias|first=A. A.|year=2006|title=The origin of elements|url=http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1978/penzias-lecture.pdf|work=Nobel lecture|publisher=Nobel Foundation|accessdate=2006-10-04}} The discovery and confirmation of the Cosmic microwave background in 1964 secured the Big Bang as the best theory of the origin and evolution of the universe.
• March 20 – The precursor of the European Space Agency, ESRO (European Space Research Organization) is established (under an agreement of June 14, 1962).
• July 31 – Ranger program: Ranger 7 sends back the first close-up photographs of the Moon; images are 1,000 times clearer than anything ever seen from Earth-bound telescopes.
• October 12 – The Soviet Union launches the Voskhod 1 into Earth orbit as the first spacecraft with a multi-person crew and the first flight without space suits (the crew wouldn't fit in the space capsule otherwise).

• British molecular biologist Robin Holliday proposes existence of the Holliday junction in nucleic acid.

• April 7 – IBM announces the System/360, in six models with 32-bit architecture.
• May 1 – John George Kemeny and Thomas Eugene Kurtz run the first program created in BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code), an easy to learn high level programming language that will eventually be included on many computers and even some games consoles.
• PL/I (Programming Language I), a block-structured computer language, is created by George Radin, while at IBM.
• Programma 101 is announced at the World's Fair. Invented by the Italian engineer Pier Giorgio Perotto, It is one of the first commercial desktop programmable calculators.

• March 27 (Good Friday) – Great Alaskan earthquake, the second most powerful known, with a magnitude of 9.2.{{cite web|date=2012-07-18|title=Largest Earthquakes in the World Since 1900|url=https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/world/10_largest_world.php|publisher=U.S. Geological Survey|accessdate=2012-09-05|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20101107224716/http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/world/10_largest_world.php|archivedate=2010-11-07}}
• Swiss geologist Augusto Gansser publishes Geology of the Himalayas.

• January 23 – The Smithsonian Institution's Museum of History and Technology opens to the public in Washington, D.C.{{cite web|title=Mission & History|date=March 2012|url=http://americanhistory.si.edu/museum/mission-history|publisher=National Museum of American History|accessdate=2018-02-14}}

• Paul Cohen proves the independence of the continuum hypothesis.{{cite book|last=Crilly|first=T.|year=2007|title=50 Mathematical Ideas you really need to know|page=73|publisher=Quercus|isbn=978-1-84724-008-8}}
• Jacques Tits publishes significant work on group theory.{{cite journal|last=Tits|first=J.|year=1964|title=Algebraic and abstract simple groups|journal=Annals of Mathematics|series=Second Series|volume=80|pages=313–329|jstor=1970394|mr=0164968|doi=10.2307/1970394|issue=2}}

• August – John Ostrom identifies remains of the dinosaur Deinonychus in Montana, significant in being a small, agile species closely related to the birds.{{cite journal|last=Ostrom|first=J. H.|year=1969|title=Osteology of Deinonychus antirrhopus, an unusual theropod from the Lower Cretaceous of Montana|url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/10658785|journal=Peabody Museum of Natural History Bulletin|volume=30|pages=1–165}}

• Three papers are published by Robert Brout and François Englert,{{cite journal|last1=Englert|first1=F.|last2=Brout|first2=R.|year=1964|title=Broken Symmetry and the Mass of Gauge Vector Mesons|journal=Physical Review Letters|volume=13|pages=321–323|bibcode=1964PhRvL..13..321E|doi=10.1103/PhysRevLett.13.321|issue=9|doi-access=free}}{{cite arXiv|last1=Brout|first1=R.|last2=Englert|first2=F.|year=1998|title=Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking in Gauge Theories: A Historical Survey|eprint=hep-th/9802142}} Peter Higgs,{{cite journal|last=Higgs|first=P. W.|year=1964|title=Broken Symmetries and the Masses of Gauge Bosons|journal=Physical Review Letters|volume=13|pages=508–509|bibcode=1964PhRvL..13..508H|doi=10.1103/PhysRevLett.13.508|issue=16|doi-access=free}} and Gerald Guralnik, Dick Hagen, and Tom Kibble,{{cite journal|last1=Guralnik|first1=G. S.|last2=Hagen|first2=C. R.|last3=Kibble|first3=T. W. B.|year=1964|title=Global Conservation Laws and Massless Particles|journal=Physical Review Letters|volume=13|pages=585–587|bibcode=1964PhRvL..13..585G|doi=10.1103/PhysRevLett.13.585|issue=20|doi-access=free}}{{cite journal|last=Guralnik|first=G. S.|year=2009|title=The History of the Guralnik, Hagen and Kibble development of the Theory of Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking and Gauge Particles|journal=International Journal of Modern Physics A|volume=24|pages=2601–2627|arxiv=0907.3466|bibcode=2009IJMPA..24.2601G|doi=10.1142/S0217751X09045431|issue=14|s2cid=16298371}} predicting the Higgs boson and Higgs mechanism (or Englert–Brout–Higgs–Guralnik–Hagen–Kibble mechanism) which provides the means by which gauge bosons can acquire non-zero masses in the process of spontaneous symmetry breaking.{{cite journal

|last=Kibble|first=T. W. B.|year=2009|title=Englert–Brout–Higgs–Guralnik–Hagen–Kibble mechanism|journal=Scholarpedia|volume=4|issue=1|page=6441|doi=10.4249/scholarpedia.6441|bibcode = 2009SchpJ...4.6441K |doi-access=free}} As part of Physical Review Letters{{'}} 50th anniversary celebration, the journal will recognize each of these contributions as milestone papers in its history.[http://prl.aps.org/50years/milestones#1964 Physical Review Letters 50th Anniversary Milestone Papers].

• Existence of the charm quark is speculated by James Bjorken and Sheldon Glashow.{{cite journal|last1=Bjørken|first1=B. J.|last2=Glashow|first2=S. L.|year=1964|title=Elementary particles and SU(4)|journal=Physics Letters|volume=11 |issue=3|pages=255–257|bibcode=1964PhL....11..255B|doi=10.1016/0031-9163(64)90433-0}}
• John Stewart Bell publishes a paper on the EPR paradox originating Bell's theorem.{{cite journal|last=Bell|first=John S.|year=1964|title=On the Einstein Podolsky Rosen Paradox |journal=Physics Physique Физика |volume=1|issue=3|pages=195–200|doi=10.1103/PhysicsPhysiqueFizika.1.195|doi-access=free}}

• January 11 – U.S. Surgeon General Luther Terry reports that smoking may be hazardous to health in the first such statement from the Federal government of the United States.
• January 16 – First angioplasty carried out, on the superficial femoral artery by U.S. interventional radiologist Charles Dotter.{{cite journal|last1=Dotter|first1=C. T.|last2=Judkins|first2=M. P.|year=1964|title=Transluminal Treatment of Arteriosclerotic Obstruction: Description of a New Technic and a Preliminary Report of Its Application|url=http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/30/5/654.full.pdf+html|journal=Circulation|volume=30|issue=5|pages=654–670|doi=10.1161/01.CIR.30.5.654|pmid=14226164|doi-access=free}}{{cite journal|last1=Rösch|first1=J.|last2=Keller|first2=F. S.|last3=Kaufman|first3=J. A.|year=2003|title=The Birth, Early Years, and Future of Interventional Radiology|journal=Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology|volume=14|issue=7|pages=841–853|pmid=12847192|doi=10.1097/01.RVI.0000083840.97061.5b}}
• January 23 – First heart transplantation on a human, using a chimpanzee heart, carried out by U.S. surgeon James D. Hardy on Boyd Rush, but the organ is rejected after a few hours.
• March 28 – The Epstein-Barr virus is first described, by Anthony Epstein, Bert Achong and Yvonne Barr in London.{{cite journal|author1=Epstein, M. A. |author2=Achong, B. G. |author3=Barr, Y. M. |date=1964-03-28|title=Virus particles in cultured lymphoblasts from Burkitt's lymphoma|journal=The Lancet|volume=1|issue=7335|pages=702–703|pmid=14107961|doi=10.1016/S0140-6736(64)91524-7}}
• June 27 – Iain Macintyre's group reports it has isolated and sequenced the newly discovered hormone calcitonin and demonstrates its origin in the parafollicular cells of the thyroid gland.{{cite journal|last1=Foster|first1=G. V.|last2=Baghdiantz|first2=A.|last3=Kumar|first3=M. A.|last4=Slack|first4=E.|last5=Soliman|first5=H. A.|last6=MacIntyre|first6=I.|date=1964|title=Thyroid origin of Calcitonin|url=http://www.nature.com/articles/2021303a0|journal=Nature|language=en|volume=202|issue=4939|pages=1303–1305|doi=10.1038/2021303a0|pmid=14210962|bibcode=1964Natur.202.1303F|s2cid=2443410|url-access=subscription}}
• Jerome Horwitz synthesizes zidovudine (AZT), an antiviral drug that will come to be used in treating HIV.
• Temazepam first synthesized.
• Lesch–Nyhan syndrome is first described, by Drs Michael Lesch and William Nyhan.
• Fernando Alves Martins of Portugal applies optical fiber technology to a gastrocamera to produce the first such device with a flexible fiberscope, for use in esophagogastroduodenoscopy.{{cite web|last=Martins|first=F. A.|date=30 June 2009|title=O Endoscópio|url=http://inventonices.blogspot.com/2009/06/o-endoscopio.html|language=Portuguese|work=Fernando Alves Martins' Blog|accessdate=2012-02-07}}

• Publication of Eric Berne's book Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships in the United States.

• October – Dr. Robert Moog demonstrates his prototype synthesizers.{{cite journal|last=Moog|first=R. A.|year=1965|title=Voltage-Controlled Electronic Music Modules|journal=Journal of the Audio Engineering Society|volume=13|issue=3|pages=200–206}}
• Farrington Daniels' book Direct Use of the Sun's Energy is published.Yale University Press.

• Science Citation Index begins publication.

• Nobel Prizes
• Physics – Charles Hard Townes, Nicolay Gennadiyevich Basov, Aleksandr Prokhorov
• Chemistry – Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin
• Medicine – Konrad Bloch, Feodor Lynen

• January 2 – Michael J. Horowitz, American electrical engineer.
• March 5 – Yoshua Bengio, French-born Canadian computer scientist.
• June 5 – Dukagjin Pupovci, Kosovo Albanian professor{{cite web | url=http://www.see-educoop.net/experts/data/dukagjin_pupovci.htm | title=See ECN Expert | publisher=South East European University | accessdate=18 July 2014 | url-status=dead | archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20101018094022/http://www.see-educoop.net/experts/data/dukagjin_pupovci.htm | archivedate=18 October 2010 | df=dmy-all }}
• February 19 – Jennifer Doudna, American biochemist.{{cite web |title=Jennifer Doudna {{!}} American biochemist |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jennifer-Doudna |website=Encyclopedia Britannica |accessdate=7 October 2020 |language=en}}
• August 25 – Maxim Kontsevich, Russian mathematician.
• Gillian Reid, Scottish-born inorganic chemist

• February 5 – Matilde E. Moisant (born 1878), American pioneer aviator.
• February 20 – Verena Holmes (born 1889), English mechanical engineer and inventor.
• April 14 – Tatiana Ehrenfest-Afanaseva (born 1876), Russian-born Dutch mathematician.
• April 24 – Gerhard Domagk (born 1895), German pathologist and bacteriologist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
• May 30 – Leó Szilárd (born 1898), Hungarian-American physicist.
• June 7 – Arthur O. Austin (born 1879), American electrical engineer.
• October – Guy Stewart Callendar (born 1898), English thermodynamic engineer and climatologist.
• December 1 – J. B. S. Haldane (born 1892), British geneticist.
• December 17 – Victor Franz Hess (born 1883), American physicist.
• December 30 – Hans Gerhard Creutzfeldt (born 1885), German neuropathologist.

{{reflist}}

Category:20th century in science

Category:1960s in science