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 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
• * Chemistry – not awarded
• * Medicine – not awarded

Births

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

Deaths

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