1917 in science

Biology

• September 3 – French-Canadian microbiologist Félix d'Hérelle, working at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, announces his discovery of a bacteriophage.
• D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson's On Growth and Form is published.

Mathematics

• Paul Ehrenfest gives a conditional principle for a three-dimensional space.

Medicine

• March 23 – Canadian physician Charles A. Hunter first describes the rare genetic disorder Hunter syndrome.
• Japanese ophthalmologisdt Shinobu Ishihara publishes his color perception test.
• Austrian physician Julius Wagner-Jauregg discovers malarial pyrotherapy for general paresis of the insane.

Physics

• Albert Einstein introduces the idea of stimulated radiation emission.
• Nuclear fission: Ernest Rutherford (at the Victoria University of Manchester) achieves nuclear transmutation of nitrogen into oxygen, using alpha particles directed at nitrogen 14N + α → 17O + p, the first observation of a nuclear reaction, in which he also discovers and names the proton.

Technology

• September 13 – Release in the United States of the first film made in Technicolor System 1, a two-color process, The Gulf Between.
• Alvin D. and Kelvin Keech introduce the "banjulele-banjo", an early form of the banjolele.
• Gilbert Vernam jointly reinvents the one-time pad encryption system.

Awards

• Nobel Prize
  • Physics – Charles Glover Barkla (announced 12 November 1918; presented 1 June 1920)
  • Chemistry – not awarded
  • Medicine – not awarded

Births

• January 19 – Graham Higman (died 2008), English mathematician.
• January 25 – Ilya Prigogine (died 2003), Russian-born winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
• February 14 – Herbert A. Hauptman (died 2011), American mathematical biophysicist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
• March 23 – Howard McKern (died 2009), Australian analytical and organic chemist.
• March 24 – John Kendrew (died 1997), English molecular biologist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
• April 10 – Robert Burns Woodward (died 1979), American organic chemist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
• April 18 – Brian Harold Mason (died 2009), New Zealand-born geochemist and mineralogist who was one of the pioneers in the study of meteorites.
• May 14 – W. T. Tutte (died 2002), English-born mathematician and cryptanalyst.
• June 1 – William S. Knowles (died 2012), American winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
• June 2 – Heinz Sielmann (died 2006), German zoological filmmaker.
• June 15 – John Fenn (died 2010), American analytical chemist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
• July 1 – Humphry Osmond (died 2004), English-born psychiatrist.
• July 15 – Walter S. Graf (died 2015), American cardiologist and pioneer of paramedic emergency medical services.
• July 22 – H. Boyd Woodruff (died 2017), American microbiologist.
• August 21 – Xu Shunshou (died 1968), Chinese aeronautical engineer.
• September 23 – Asima Chatterjee, née Mookerjee (died 2006), Indian organic chemist.
• October 2 – Christian de Duve (died 2013), English-born Belgian biologist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
• October 8 – Rodney Porter (died 1985), English biochemist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
• November 22 – Andrew Huxley (died 2012), English winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
• December 9 – James Rainwater (died 1986), American winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics.
• December 16 – Arthur C. Clarke (died 2008), English-born science fiction author and inventor.
• December 20 – David Bohm (died 1992), American-born theoretical physicist, philosopher and neuropsychologist.

Deaths

• February 11 – Laura Forster (born 1858), Australian physician, died on war service.
• March 8 – Ferdinand von Zeppelin (born 1838), German founder of the Zeppelin airship company.
• March 31 – Emil von Behring (born 1854), German physiologist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1901.
• July 27 – Emil Theodor Kocher (born 1841), Swiss surgeon, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1909.
• August 3 – Ferdinand Georg Frobenius (born 1849), German mathematician.
• December 17 – Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (born 1836), English physician.

References

References

1. d'Hérelle, F.. (1917). "Sur un microbe invisible antagoniste des bacilles dysentériques". Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences de Paris.
2. Hunter, Charles. (1917). "A Rare Disease in Two Brothers". [[Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.
3. Ishihara, S.. (1917). "Tests for Colour-Blindness". Hongo Harukicho.
4. Brewerton, Emma. (2016-12-12). "Ernest Rutherford". New Zealand History.