The 1950s: Science and Technology: People in the News

THE 1950s: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY: PEOPLE IN THE NEWS

Jim Backus and his team at IBM introduced the computer language FORTRAN in 1956.

In 1955 C. J. Balentine and Earl B. Reitz described the first 330,000-volt circuit breaker for use in the new Muskingum River Plant of the Ohio Power Company, which operated at the highest transmission voltage in the United States.

John Bardeen, Leon N. Cooper, and John R. Schrieffer explained superconductivity by supposing the existence of coupled electrons that cannot be split in 1957.

William and Lyle Boyd identified thirteen separate human races in 1956 after studying blood groups.

Owen Chamberlain, working in 1955 with Emilio Segre, succeeded in producing antiprotons.

In 1959 Dr. William M. Chardack, a physician, and Wilson Greatbatch, an electronics engineer, developed the first heart pacemaker, which could be implanted in a human's chest for up to five years.

In 1957 Scovil G. Feher and H. Seidel introduced the first solid-state maser, which was used in radio astronomy and timekeeping. It could emit a signal whose frequency was constant within a variation of one second every 300,000 years.

Kenneth Lynn Franklin, using a radio telescope, detected radio waves from Jupiter in 1955.

J. Willard Gibbs, a thermodynamicist, in 1950 became the first chemist named to the New York University Hall of Fame.

Using his bubble chamber, a glass bulb filled with ether, Donald Glaser observed cosmic-ray tracks in 1952.

Gordon Gould conceived of the laser in 1957, but failed to patent the idea.

Bruce Charles Hazeen and Maurice Ewing discovered the Mid-Oceanic Ridge in 1956.

Mahlon Bush Hoagland in 1955 showed the workings of transfer and messenger RNA in the manufacture of DNA.

Arthur Kornberg synthesized DNA in 1956.

In 1954 Paul Kotin of the University of Southern California reported that Los Angeles smog contained carcinogens.

In 1950 William Lear won the Collier Trophy, the highest award in aviation, for developing the automatic pilot, a thirty-six-pound device adopted for use in jet fighter planes by the U.S. military.

Joshua Lederberg in 1952 discovered that viruses that attack bacteria can transmit genetic material in the process.

In 1954 Willard F. Libby became the first chemist to be named to the Atomic Energy Commission.

John McCarthy introduces LISP, a computer language designed to aid in development of artificial intelligence.

John William Mauchly and John Prosper Eckert, computer engineers at Remington Rand, built the UNIVAC I in 1950, the first commercially available computer.

Ben Roy Mottleson, working with Niels Bohr in 1950, showed that the nucleus of an atom is not necessarily spherical.

In 1959 Dr. Erwin Mueller of Pennsylvania State University invented the ion microscope, which magnifies objects up to two million times, allowing scientists to view individual atoms.

Eugene Norman Parker proved the existence of solar winds in 1958.

In 1954 Paul Rapaport of the RCA Research Center developed a usable, tiny, low-power atomic battery.

In 1955 William Spindel and T. Ivan Taylor produced a 95 percent concentration of a nitrogen isotope significant in the development of nuclear reactors which sold for $500 a pound. Previously only a 65 percent concentration was available at $175,000 a pound.

Belso Sterrenberg and Stanley A. Talyor discovered fossils in Canada that were 1.5 billion years old in 1954.

In 1954 M. A. Tuve of the Carnegie Institute was appointed chairman of the first National Science Foundation advisory panel on radio astronomy.

James Alfred Van Allen in 1952 invented a balloon that could launch a rocket to gather data for study of the upper atmosphere; and in 1958, when electronic equipment aboard the Explorer I and III satellites failed during ascent, he discovered that the disturbance was caused by a band of high radiation six hundred miles above the Earth. This band is called the Van Allen Radiation Belt.

Dr. John A. Van Horn of the Hamilton Watch Company introduced the world's first electric wristwatch, which retailed for $175, in January 1957.

John Von Neumann, using ENIAC, and a team of meteorologists made the first twenty-four-hour weather predictions in 1950.

Robert Burns Woodward synthesized cortisone and cholesterol in 1951.