1978 in science

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The year 1978 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Astronomy and space science

• March 2 – Vladimír Remek becomes the first Czechoslovak in space and the first cosmonaut from a country other than the Soviet Union or the United States, onboard Soyuz 28.
• October – It is first proposed that Janus and Epimetheus are two separate moons of Saturn sharing the same orbit.^[1]

Computer science

• February 16 – The first computer bulletin board system is created (CBBS in Chicago, Illinois).
• The RSA algorithm for public-key cryptography, based on the factoring problem, is first publicly described by Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir and Leonard Adleman.^[2]

Geophysics

• James Byerlee determines Byerlee's law which gives the stress circumstances in the Earth's crust at which fracturing along a geological fault takes place.^[3]

History of science

• October 17 – James Burke's history of science series Connections first airs, on BBC Television in the United Kingdom (with accompanying book).^[4]

Medicine

• July 25 – Louise Brown becomes the world's first human born from in vitro fertilisation, in England.^[5]
• September 6 – Production of the first genetically engineered synthetic "human" insulin using E. coli by Arthur Riggs and Keiichi Itakura at the Beckman Research Institute of the City of Hope National Medical Center in collaboration with Herbert Boyer at Genentech is announced in California.^[6][7]
• The rare genetic disorder Pitt–Hopkins syndrome is first described.^[8]
• Russian scientist Victor Skumin^[9] first describes "cardioprosthetic psychopathological syndrome",^[10] later known as Skumin syndrome,^[11] a form of anxiety suffered by recipients of artificial heart valves.

Awards

• Fields Prize in Mathematics: Pierre Deligne, Charles Fefferman, Grigory Margulis and Daniel Quillen
• Nobel Prizes
  • Physics – Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa, Arno Allan Penzias, Robert Woodrow Wilson
  • Chemistry – Peter D. Mitchell
  • Medicine – Werner Arber, Daniel Nathans, Hamilton O. Smith
• Turing Award – Robert Floyd

Deaths

• January 14 – Kurt Gödel (b. 1906), American mathematician.
• February 25 – Edith Humphrey (b. 1875), English chemist.
• March 9 – Gaston Julia (b. 1893), French mathematician.
• March 23 – Haim Ernst Wertheimer (b. 1893), Jewish biochemist.
• March 30 – Bill Hamilton (b. 1899), New Zealand mechanical engineer.
• March 31 – Charles Best (b. 1899), Canadian medical scientist.
• April 21 – Thomas Wyatt Turner (b. 1877), American civil rights activist, biologist and educator; first black person ever to receive a doctorate from Cornell.
• July 22 – André Chapelon (b. 1892), French steam locomotive designer.
• September 15 – Willy Messerschmitt (b. 1898), German aircraft engineer.
• November 15 – Margaret Mead (b. 1901), American cultural anthropologist.

References

1. Fountain, J. W.; Larson, S. M. (1978). "Saturn's ring and nearby faint satellites". Icarus 36: 92–106. Bibcode:1978Icar...36...92F. doi:10.1016/0019-1035(78)90076-3.
2. Rivest, R.; Shamir, A.; Adleman, L. (1978). "A Method for Obtaining Digital Signatures and Public-Key Cryptosystems" (PDF). Communications of the ACM 21 (2): 120–126. doi:10.1145/359340.359342. Retrieved 2012-01-28.
3. Byerlee, J. D. (1978). "Friction of rocks". Pure and Applied Geophysics 116: 615–626. Bibcode:1978PApGe.116..615B. doi:10.1007/BF00876528.
4. ISBN 0-333-24827-9.
5. "1978: First 'test tube baby' born". On This Day (BBC News). 1978-07-25. Archived from the original on 2007-12-21. Retrieved 2013-12-18.
6. "First Successful Laboratory Production of Human Insulin Announced". News Release. Genentech. 1978-09-06. Retrieved 2014-01-06.
7. Tof, Ilanit (1994). "Recombinant DNA Technology in the Synthesis of Human Insulin". Little Tree. Retrieved 2014-01-06.
8. Pitt, D.; Hopkins, I. (1978). "A syndrome of mental retardation, wide mouth and intermittent overbreathing". Australian Paediatric Journal 14 (3): 182–184.
9. "Professor Victor A. Skumin, D.M.Sci." (in Russian). 2009. Archived from the original on 2012-03-07. Retrieved 2012-01-06.
10. Bendet, Ia. A.; Morozov, S. M.; Skumin, V. A. (1980). Психологические аспекты реабилитации больных после хирургического лечения пороков сердца [Psychological aspects of the rehabilitation of patients after the surgical treatment of heart defects]. Kardiologiia (in Russian) 20 (6): 45–51. PMID 7392405.
11. "Skumin syndrome". Genex (in Russian). Archived from the original on 2012-03-07. Retrieved 2012-01-06.