1919 in science

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The year 1919 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Astronomy

• The International Astronomical Union is established in Paris.

Chemistry

• June 1 – The term covalence in relation to chemical bonding models is first used by Irving Langmuir.^[1]

History of science

• Leonard Eugene Dickson begins publication of History of the Theory of Numbers.

Medicine

• Dr George Newman is appointed as the first Chief Medical Officer to the Ministry of Health in England and Wales.

Physics

• May 29 – Einstein's theory of general relativity is tested by Arthur Eddington's observation of the "bending of light" during the total solar eclipse on this day observed in Principe, and by Andrew Crommelin in Sobral, Ceará, Brazil (confirmed November 19).^[2]
• Arnold Sommerfeld and Walther Kossel publish their displacement law.^[3]
• James Jeans discovers that the dynamical constants of motion determine the distribution function for a system of particles.

Psychology

• In Berlin Dr Magnus Hirschfeld and Arthur Kronfeld found the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft.^[4][5][6][7]

Technology

• First crossings of the Atlantic Ocean by air.
  • May 8–27 – United States Navy Curtiss flying boat NC-4 commanded by Albert Cushing Read makes the first transatlantic flight, from Naval Air Station Rockaway to Lisbon via Newfoundland and the Azores.
  • June 14–15 – A Vickers Vimy flown by John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown makes the first nonstop transatlantic flight, from St. John's, Newfoundland, to Clifden, Ireland.
  • July 2–6 – British airship R34 makes the first transatlantic flight by dirigible, and the first westbound flight, from RAF East Fortune, Scotland, to Mineola, New York.
• December 1 – XWA, in Montreal, Quebec, is the first public radio station in North America to broadcast.
• Lee De Forest files his first United States patent for the Phonofilm sound-on-film process.
• United States firearms designer John Browning finalizes the design of the M1919 Browning machine gun.
• United States firearms designer John T. Thompson finalizes the design of the Thompson submachine gun.

Awards

• Nobel Prize
  • Physics – Johannes Stark
  • Chemistry – not awarded
  • Medicine – Jules Bordet

Births

• January 23 – Hans Hass (died 2013), Austrian zoologist and oceanographer.
• June 22 – Henri Tajfel (died 1982), Polish-born social psychologist.
• July 26 – James Lovelock, English environmentalist and futurologist.
• September 6 – Wilson Greatbatch (died 2011), biomedical engineer.
• November 10 – Mikhail Kalashnikov (died 2013), Russian small arms designer.

Deaths

• February 19 – Frederick DuCane Godman (born 1834), lepidopterist, entomologist and ornithologist.
• April 4 – Sir William Crookes (born 1832), chemist and physicist.
• April 17 – Bernhard Sigmund Schultze (born 1827), obstetrician.
• June 30 – John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh (born 1842), Nobel Prize-winning physicist.
• July 15 – Emil Fischer (born 1852), Nobel Prize-winning chemist (suicide).
• July 21 – Gustaf Retzius (born 1842), anatomist.
• August 8 – Ernst Haeckel (born 1834), zoologist.
• November 23 – Henry Gantt (born 1861), project engineer.
• December 29 – Sir William Osler (born 1849), physician.

References

1. Langmuir, Irving (1919). "The Arrangement of Electrons in Atoms and Molecules". Journal of the American Chemical Society 41: 868–934. doi:10.1021/ja02227a002. Retrieved 2009-11-10.
2. Dyson, F.W.; Eddington, A.S.; Davidson, C.R. (1920). "A Determination of the Deflection of Light by the Sun's Gravitational Field, from Observations Made at the Solar eclipse of May 29, 1919". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Physical, Mathematical and Engineering Sciences 220 (571-581): 291–333. Bibcode:1920RSPTA.220..291D. doi:10.1098/rsta.1920.0009.
3. Verhandlungen der Deutschen Physikalischen Gesellschaft.; Mehra, Jagdish; Rechenberg, Helmut (1982). The Historical Development of Quantum Theory. Vol. 1, Part 1: The Quantum Theory of Planck, Einstein, Bohr and Sommerfeld 1900–1925: its Foundation and the Rise of Its Difficulties. Springer. p. 330. ISBN 0-387-95174-1.
4. hirschfeld.in-berlin.de, The first Institute for Sexual Science.
5. Famous GLBT & GLBTI People – Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld stonewallsociety.
6. Grossmann, Atina. Reforming Sex. Oxford University Press, 1995.
7. In Memory of Arthur Kronfeld.