1974 in science

The year 1974 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Astronomy and space exploration

February 8 – After 84 days in space, the last crew of the temporary American space station Skylab return to Earth.
February 13–15 – Sagittarius A*, thought to be the location of a supermassive black hole, is identified by Bruce Balick and Robert Brown using the baseline interferometer of the United States National Radio Astronomy Observatory.{{cite book|last=Melia|first=Fulvio|title=The Galactic Supermassive Black Hole|publisher=Princeton University Press|year=2007|isbn=978-0-691-13129-0|page=2}}
November 16 – Arecibo message transmitted from Arecibo Observatory (Puerto Rico) to Messier 13.
Hawking radiation is predicted by Stephen Hawking.{{cite journal|last=Hawking|first=S. W.|date=1974-03-01|title=Black hole explosions?|journal=Nature|volume=248|issue=5443|page=30|doi=10.1038/248030a0|bibcode=1974Natur.248...30H|s2cid=4290107 }}

The Mark-8 microcomputer based on the Intel 8008 microprocessor is designed by Jonathan Titus. It is announced on the cover of the July 1974 issue of Radio-Electronics as "Your Personal Minicomputer".

F. W. Winterbotham publishes The Ultra secret: the inside story of Operation Ultra, Bletchley Park and Enigma, the first popular account of cryptography carried out at Bletchley Park during World War II.

Yves Hellegouarch proposes a connection between Fermat's Last Theorem and the Frey curve.{{cite journal|last=Hellegouarch|first=Yves|title=Points d'ordre 2p^h sur les courbes elliptiques|mr=0379507|year=1974|publisher=Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Matematyczny|journal=Acta Arithmetica|issn=0065-1036|volume=26|issue=3|pages=253–263|doi=10.4064/aa-26-3-253-263|url=https://www.impan.pl/shop/publication/transaction/download/product/100601?download.pdf|doi-access=free}}

September 25 – 1974 – The first "Tommy John surgery" for replacement of ulnar collateral ligament of elbow joint is performed by Frank Jobe in the United States.
Identification of controlled trials in perinatal medicine, as advocated by Archie Cochrane, begins in Cardiff, Wales.{{cite web|title=About the Cochrane Library|url=http://www.thecochranelibrary.com/view/0/AboutTheCochraneLibrary.html#ABOUT|publisher=The Cochrane Library|accessdate=2011-01-25|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110105124021/http://www.thecochranelibrary.com/view/0/AboutTheCochraneLibrary.html#ABOUT|archivedate=2011-01-05|url-status=dead}}
Henry Heimlich describes the "Heimlich Maneuver" as a treatment for choking.{{cite journal|first=H.|last=Heimlich |title=Pop Goes the Cafe Coronary|journal=Emergency Medicine |date=June 1974}}

November 24 – A group of paleoanthropologists discover remains of a 3.2-million-year-old skeleton of an Australopithecus afarensis in the Afar Depression of Ethiopia, nicknaming her "Lucy".

May 18 – "Smiling Buddha", India's first nuclear test explosion takes place underground at Pokhran.{{cite web|url=http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/India/IndiaSmiling.html|title=India's Nuclear Weapons Program – Smiling Buddha: 1974|publisher=Nuclear Weapon Archive|year=2001|accessdate=2011-05-25| archiveurl= https://web.archive.org/web/20110519083726/http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/India/IndiaSmiling.html| archivedate=19 May 2011 | url-status=live}}
"November Revolution": J/ψ meson, the first particle found to contain a charm quark, discovered by teams at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, led by Samuel Ting,{{cite journal|author=Aubert, J. J.|date=2 December 1974|title=Experimental Observation of a Heavy Particle J|journal=Physical Review Letters|volume=33|pages=1404–6|doi=10.1103/PhysRevLett.33.1404|bibcode=1974PhRvL..33.1404A|issue=23|display-authors=etal|doi-access=free}} and at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, led by Burton Richter.{{cite journal|author=Augustin, J.-E.|date=2 December 1974|title=Discovery of a Narrow Resonance in e⁺e⁻ Annihilation|journal=Physical Review Letters|volume=33|pages=1406–8|doi=10.1103/PhysRevLett.33.1406|bibcode=1974PhRvL..33.1406A|issue=23|display-authors=etal|doi-access=free}}

May – British neuroscientists John Hughes and Hans Kosterlitz announce their isolation of the peptides met- and leu-enkephalin.

Civilized Man's Eight Deadly Sins is published by Konrad Lorenz.
Leon Kamin demonstrates that Sir Cyril Burt's influential research into heritability of IQ using twin studies shows evidence of statistical falsification.{{cite news|last=Gillie|first=O.|date=1976-10-24|title=Crucial data was faked by eminent psychologist|location=London|work=The Sunday Times}}

June 26 – The Universal Product Code is scanned for the first time, to sell a package of Wrigley's chewing gum at the Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio, the first use of barcode technology in American retailing.{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19849141|title=Barcode birthday: 60 years since patent|first=Zoe|last=Kleinman|publisher=BBC News|date=2012-10-07|accessdate=2013-06-29}}
Stephen Salter invents the "Salter Duck", a wave energy converter.

January 7 – Outbreak of 4-year Gombe Chimpanzee War in Tanzania, reported by Jane Goodall.
Digital dermatitis in cattle identified in Italy by Cheli and Mortellaro.

Rubik's Cube invented by Ernő Rubik.{{cite book|first=William|last=Fotheringham|title=Fotheringham's Sporting Pastimes|publisher=Anova Books|year=2007|page=[https://archive.org/details/fotheringhamsext0000foth/page/50 50]|isbn=978-1-86105-953-6|url=https://archive.org/details/fotheringhamsext0000foth/page/50}}

Fields Prize in Mathematics: Enrico Bombieri and David Mumford
Nobel Prizes
Physics – Martin Ryle, Antony Hewish{{cite web |title=6 Women Scientists Who Were Snubbed Due to Sexism |url=https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/5/130519-women-scientists-overlooked-dna-history-science/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190903184929/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/5/130519-women-scientists-overlooked-dna-history-science/ |url-status=dead |archive-date=September 3, 2019 |website=National Geographic News |access-date=19 January 2021 |language=en |date=19 May 2013}}
Chemistry – Paul J. Flory
Medicine – Albert Claude, Christian de Duve, George Emil Palade
Turing Award – Donald Knuth

February 4 – S. N. Bose, Indian physicist (b. 1894)
April 12 – Cornelis Simon Meijer, Dutch mathematician (b. 1904)
May 4 – Ludwig Koch, German-born British animal sound recordist (b. 1881)
May 18 – Harry Ricardo, English mechanical engineer (b. 1885)
May 22 – Irmgard Flügge-Lotz (b. 1903), German-American mathematician and aerospace engineer
June 28 – Vannevar Bush, American science administrator (b. 1890)
July 3 – Sergey Lebedev, Soviet Russian computer scientist (b. 1902)
August 22 – Jacob Bronowski, Polish-born British scientific polymath (b. 1908)