1936 in science
The year 1936 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.
Chemistry
- February 4 – Radium E becomes the first radioactive element to be made synthetically.
- December 23 – The first nerve agent, Tabun, is discovered by a research team headed by Dr Gerhard Schrader of IG Farben in Germany.
Computer science
- May 28 – Alan Turing's paper "On Computable Numbers" is received by the London Mathematical Society for publication, introducing the concept of the theoretical "a-machine" or Turing machine. Its formal publication is on November 12.
- Rózsa Péter presents a paper entitled "Über rekursive Funktionen der zweite Stufe" to the International Congress of Mathematicians in Oslo, helping to found the modern field of recursive function theory.
Earth sciences
- Inge Lehmann argues that the Earth's molten interior has a solid inner core.
History of science and technology
- Economist John Maynard Keynes buys a trunk of Isaac Newton's papers at auction.
Mathematics
- March – Alonzo Church's "A Note on the Entscheidungsproblem" is published.
- Dutch mathematician Cornelis Simon Meijer introduces the Meijer G-function.
Paleontology
- First remains of the small Late Triassic South American dinosaur Staurikosaurus are found by Llewellyn Ivor Price in Brazil, the first dinosaur to be discovered there.
Physiology and medicine
- July 4 – First publication recognizing stress as a biological condition.
- December 7 – Streptococcous meningitis is successfully treated for the first time with a sulfonamide.
- American researcher Thomas Francis Jr. isolates influenza B virus. Also this year, Australian Macfarlane Burnet discovers that Orthomyxoviridae can be grown in embryonated hens’ eggs.
- António Egas Moniz publishes his first report of performing a prefrontal leukotomy on a human patient.
- Guido Fanconi describes a connection between celiac disease, cystic fibrosis of the pancreas and bronchiectasis.
- Harry Himsworth distinguishes the two principal types of diabetes.
Psychology
- Sherif's experiment on conformity.
Technology
- June 26 – Focke-Wulf Fw 61, the first fully controllable helicopter, makes its first flight.
- November 3 – The world's first regular daily high-definition television broadcast service is begun by the British Broadcasting Corporation from Alexandra Palace in London. The service initially alternates on a weekly basis between John Logie Baird's 240-line electromechanical system and the Marconi–EMI all-electronic 405-line television system.
Zoology
- September 7 – Death of the last recorded thylacine, in Hobart Zoo.
- November 9 – American explorer Ruth Harkness encounters and captures in China a live giant panda, a cub named Su Lin, the first to enter the United States.
Awards
- Fields Prize in Mathematics : Lars Ahlfors and Jesse Douglas
- Nobel Prizes
- * Physics – Victor Franz Hess, Carl David Anderson
- * Chemistry – Peter Debye
- * Medicine – Sir Henry Hallett Dale, Otto Loewi
Births
- January 8 – Robert May, Australian-born Government Chief Scientific Adviser (United Kingdom).
- January 10
- * Walter Bodmer, German-born British human geneticist.
- * Robert Wilson, American physicist and radio astronomer.
- January 27 – Barry Barish, American gravitational physicist, Nobel Prize winner.
- March 16 – Raymond Vahan Damadian, Armenian-American MRI practitioner.
- March 24 – David Suzuki, Canadian geneticist and populariser of science.
- April 1 – Abdul Qadeer Khan, Pakistani nuclear physicist.
- April 17 – Meemann Chang, Chinese paleontologist.
- June 29 – Leon O. Chua, American electrical engineer and computer scientist.
- August 1 – W. D. Hamilton, English evolutionary biologist, widely recognised as one of the greatest evolutionary theorists of the 20th century.
- August 17 – Margaret Hamilton, American computer scientist, Presidential Medal of Freedom laureate.
- September 17 – Gerald Guralnik, American physicist most famous for his co-discovery of the Higgs mechanism and Higgs boson.
- November 25 – John Taylor, English inventor.
- December 22 – James Burke, British historian and populariser of science.
- December 31 – Szilveszter E. Vizi, Hungarian physician, neuroscientist and pharmacologist.
Deaths
- February 9 – Sir Charles Ballance, English surgeon.
- February 27 – Ivan Pavlov, Russian physiologist.
- April 8 – Róbert Bárány, Austro-Hungarian-born otologist, Nobel Prize winner in medicine.
- April 9 – John Uri Lloyd, American pharmacist and science fiction author.
- April 27 – Karl Pearson, English mathematician.
- August 25 – Maria von Linden, German bacteriologist and zoologist.