1973 in science explained

The year 1973 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Astronomy and space exploration

• March 7 – Comet Kohoutek is discovered
• April 6 – Launch of Pioneer 11 spacecraft
• May 14 – Skylab, the United States' first space station, is launched.
• Solar eclipse of June 30, 1973 – Very long total solar eclipse visible in NE South America, the Atlantic, and central Africa. During the entire Second Millennium, only seven total solar eclipses exceed seven minutes of totality; this is the last. Observers aboard a Concorde jet are able to stretch totality to about 74 minutes by flying along the path of the moon's umbra.
• July 25 – Soviet Mars 5 space probe launched.
• November 3 – Mariner program: NASA launches the Mariner 10 toward Mercury (on March 29, 1974, it becomes the first space probe to reach that planet); it will be the first space flight to use gravity assist.
• December 3 – Pioneer program: Pioneer 10 sends back the first close-up images of Jupiter.
• December 7 – The "Big Ear" at the Ohio State University Radio Observatory begins a full-time search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) radio survey, running continuously until 1995.

Biology

• December 28 – Endangered Species Act signed into law in the United States.

Cartography

• Waldo R. Tobler introduces the Tobler hyperelliptical projection.

Chemistry

• A successful method of Vitamin B₁₂ total synthesis is reported by the groups of Robert Burns Woodward and Albert Eschenmoser.^{[1] [2]}
• Akira Endo identifies the first statin, mevastatin.^[3]

Computer science

• March 1 – Xerox PARC releases the Xerox Alto, the first computer designed to support an operating system based on a graphical user interface.
• September – The TV Typewriter appears on the cover of Radio-Electronics. Designed by Don Lancaster, it is a video terminal that can display two pages of 16 lines of 32 upper case characters on a standard television set.
• October – A form of the suffix automaton is introduced by Peter Weiner.^[4]
• November 21 – The sci-fi movie Westworld is the first feature film to use digital image processing.

Cryptography

• October – Asymmetric key algorithms for public-key cryptography developed by James H. Ellis, Clifford Cocks and Malcolm J. Williamson at the United Kingdom Government Communications Headquarters.^[5]

Earth sciences

• Derek Ager publishes The Nature of the Stratigraphical Record.

History of science

• May 5–July 28 – BBC Television series The Ascent of Man, written and presented by Jacob Bronowski, first airs; there is also an accompanying bestselling book.

Mathematics

• Fischer Black and Myron Scholes first articulate the Black–Scholes mathematical model used in the financial field containing certain derivative investment instruments.^[6]
• Jürgen Stückrad and Wolfgang Vogel introduce the Buchsbaum ring.^{[7] [8]}

Physiology and medicine

• August – Production of monoclonal antibodies involving human–mouse hybrid cells is first described by Jerrold Schwaber.^[9]
• The term "dendritic cell" is coined by Ralph M. Steinman working with Zanvil A. Cohn.^[10]
• The term "Norrmalmstorgssyndromet", translated as Stockholm syndrome, is coined by Nils Bejerot.

Psychiatry

• David Rosenhan publishes the results of his experiment into the validity of psychiatric diagnosis.^[11]
• The American Psychiatric Association publishes the 1st edition of its Principles of Medical Ethics, incorporating the 'Goldwater rule' (that it is unethical for a psychiatrist to offer a professional opinion on an individual in the public eye without an examination and consent).^[12]
• December 15 – The American Psychiatric Association removes the definition of homosexuality as a mental disorder from the 2nd edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-II).

Technology

• April 2 – The LexisNexis computerized legal research service begins.
• April 3 – The first handheld mobile phone call is made by Martin Cooper of Motorola in New York City.^[13]
• June 4 – A United States patent for the Docutel automated teller machine is granted to Donald Wetzel, Tom Barnes and George Chastain.
• Ichiro Kato, Waseda University, develops the world's first full-scale humanoid robot, Wabot-1.^[14]

Institutions

• March 6 – The Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts, founded as the Montenegrin Society for Science and Arts (Crnogorsko društvo za nauku i umjetnost), elects its first members.^[15]

Awards

• Nobel Prizes
  • Physics – Leo Esaki, Ivar Giaever, Brian David Josephson
  • Chemistry – Ernst Otto Fischer, Geoffrey Wilkinson
  • Medicine – Karl Von Frisch, Konrad Lorenz, Nikolaas Tinbergen
• Turing Award – Charles W. Bachman

Births

• May 19 – Alice Roberts, English evolutionary biologist, biological anthropologist and science and archaeology popularizer
• October 5 – Cédric Villani, French mathematician and politician
• November 19 – Nim Chimpsky (d. 2000), chimpanzee
• December 5 – Luboš Motl, Czech theoretical physicist

Deaths

• February 11 – J. Hans D. Jensen (b. 1907), German nuclear physicist
• February 20 – Alf Lysholm (b. 1893), Swedish mechanical engineer.
• March 12 – David Lack (b. 1910), English ornithologist
• March 14 – Howard H. Aiken (b. 1900), American computing pioneer
• March 28 – C. Doris Hellman (b. 1910), American historian of science
• March 30 – William Justin Kroll (b. 1889), Luxembourgish metallurgist
• May 21 – Grigore Moisil (b. 1906), Romanian mathematician, died in Canada
• July 1 – Laurens Hammond (b. 1895), American inventor
• August 9 – Preben von Magnus (b. 1912), Danish virologist
• August 12 – Walter Rudolf Hess (b. 1881), Swiss physiologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
• August 16 – Selman Waksman (b. 1888), Ukrainian-born Jewish-American biochemist and microbiologist
• November 25 – Elisa Leonida Zamfirescu (b. 1887), Romanian engineer
• December 10 – Wolf V. Vishniac (b. 1922), American microbiologist
• December 17 – Charles Greeley Abbot (b. 1872), American astrophysicist

Notes and References

1. The Total Synthesis of Vitamin B₁₂. R. B.. Woodward. Pure and Applied Chemistry. 1973. 33. 1. 145–178. 10.1351/pac197333010145. 2012-01-13. 4684454. 30641959 . free.
2. Book: Nicolaou, K. C. . Sorensen, E. J. . 1996. Classics in Total Synthesis: Targets, Strategies, Methods. Wiley. 978-3-527-29231-8.
3. Akira. Endo. Kuroda M.. Tsujita Y.. ML-236A, ML-236B, and ML-236C, new inhibitors of cholesterogenesis produced by Penicillium citrinium. Journal of Antibiotics. December 1976. 29. 12. 1346–8. 1010803. 10.7164/antibiotics.29.1346. free.
4. .
5. Disclosed 1997. https://web.archive.org/web/20100519084635/http://www.gchq.gov.uk/history/pke.html
6. The Pricing of Options and Corporate Liabilities. Black. Fischer. Myron. Scholes. Journal of Political Economy. University of Chicago Press. May–June 1973. 81. 3. 637–654. 10.1086/260062. 1831029. 154552078 .
7. Stückrad. Jürgen. Vogel. Wolfgang. Eine Verallgemeinerung der Cohen-Macaulay Ringe und Anwendungen auf ein Problem der Multiplizitätstheorie. 0335504. 1973. Journal of Mathematics of Kyoto University. 0023-608X. 13. 513–528.
8. Book: Stückrad. Jürgen. Vogel. Wolfgang. Buchsbaum rings and applications. Springer-Verlag. Berlin; New York. 978-3-540-16844-7. 881220. 1986.
9. Schwaber, J.. Cohen, E. P.. Human x mouse somatic cell hybrid clone secreting immunoglobulins of both parental types. Nature. 244. 5416. 444–7. 1973. 4200460. 10.1038/244444a0. 4171375.
10. Steinman. R. M.. Cohn. Z. A.. Identification of a Novel Cell Type in Peripheral Lymphoid Organs of Mice: I. Morphology, Quantitation, Tissue Distribution. Journal of Experimental Medicine. 137. 5. 1142–62. 1973. 4573839. 10.1084/jem.137.5.1142. 2139237.
11. Rosenhan. D. L.. On being sane in insane places. Science. New York. 179. 4070. 250–8. January 1973. 4683124. 10.1126/science.179.4070.250. https://web.archive.org/web/20041117175255/http://web.cocc.edu/lminorevans/on_being_sane_in_insane_places.htm. 2004-11-17. 1973Sci...179..250R . 15089027 .
12. The Ethics of APA's Goldwater Rule. Kroll. Jerome. Pouncey. Claire. Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law. 2016. 44. 2. 226–235. 27236179. 1093-6793.
13. Web site: First Mobile Phone Call Was Placed Exactly 40 Years Ago. Mashable. 2013. 2013-04-03.
14. Web site: History of Industrial Robots. International Federation of Robotics. 2012. 2013-04-03. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20121224213437/http://www.ifr.org/uploads/media/History_of_Industrial_Robots_online_brochure_by_IFR_2012.pdf. 2012-12-24.
15. Web site: Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts (MASA). IAP. 2013. 2015-01-09. 2015-01-09. https://web.archive.org/web/20150109162532/http://www.interacademies.net/Academies/ByRegion/SouthEasternEurope/Montenegro/13024.aspx. dead.