Наука и технологии 1955 года: основные открытия и события

The year 1955 in science and technology included many events, some of which are listed below.

February 26 – Rosalind Franklin publishes her observation that tobacco mosaic virus rods are all of identical length. December 22 – Cytogeneticist Joe Hin Tjio working with Albert Levan at Lund University demonstrates that there are forty six human chromosomes. Edmond H. Fischer and Edwin G. Krebs discover reversible protein phosphorylation. Severo Ochoa develops enzymes that cause nucleic acid bases to form RNA. February 19 – Mendelevium (atomic number 101) is first synthesized by Albert Ghiorso, Glenn T. Seaborg, Gregory R. Choppin, Bernard G. Harvey, and Stanley G. Thompson (team leader) at the University of California, Berkeley. August 20 – Dorothy Hodgkin and colleagues publish the structure of vitamin B12. Diquat's properties as a contact herbicide are recognized at the Imperial Chemical Industries laboratories at Jealott's Hill in England. Renewable ion exchange resin cartridges for water softening and purification are used in a device by Walter F. Lorch.

October 2 (11:45 p. m.) – The ENIAC computer is deactivated at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, having been in continuous operation since 1947. Former Luftwaffe flying ace Ulrich Steinhilper, a German IBM typewriter salesman, coins and popularizes the term "Textverarbeitung" ("word processing"). Maurice Wilkes publishes a description of microprogramming in Electrical Engineering. RAND publishes A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates.

American geophysicist Clair Cameron Patterson presents his result for the age of the Earth using lead isotopic data from the Canyon Diablo meteorite – 4.55 billion years (± 70 million).

October – The term "Industrial archaeology" is popularised.

July – Statistician David Cox publishes the Cox process. In the classification of finite simple groups, the Brauer–Fowler theorem is published and Claude Chevalley introduces Chevalley groups. Gilbert–Shannon–Reeds model for probability distribution of riffle shuffle permutations in shuffling playing cards reported. Peter Hilton starts work with Beno Eckmann and Karol Borsuk on what becomes known as Eckmann Hilton duality for the homotopy category, a key driver in homological algebra. Klaus Roth publishes Roth's theorem on the Diophantine approximation of algebraic numbers. The Taniyama–Shimura conjecture is first stated by Yutaka Taniyama at an international symposium in Japan.

February – Harold Hopkins and Narinder Singh Kapany publish a key paper in the development of optical fiber technology. March – Joseph Rotblat publishes his conclusions that contamination caused by nuclear fallout after the U. S. Castle Bravo hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll is greater than officially stated. October – Ultra high frequency AN/FPS 31 early warning radar developed by Lincoln Laboratory begins operation on Jug Handle Hill at West Bath, Maine. October 11 – Erwin Müller and Kanwar Bahadur are the first people to observe individual atoms, using Müller's field ion microscope. November 29 – The nuclear reactor core of Experimental Breeder Reactor I near Arco, Idaho, suffers a partial meltdown during a coolant flow test. Emmett Leith's work on synthetic aperture radar leads to the development of holography. University of Liverpool cyclotron and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory synchrotron begin operation.

April 12 – The Salk polio vaccine, having passed large scale trials earlier in the United States, receives full approval by the Food and Drug Administration. December 24 – Henry K. Beecher publishes a paper indicating the powerful effect of placebos on patient outcomes. Outbreak of "Royal Free disease" or "benign myalgic encephalomyelitis", strongly resembling what will later be known as chronic fatigue syndrome, among staff at the Royal Free Hospital in London. G. I. M. Swyer first describes XY gonadal dysgenesis. First reported mitral valve replacement, by Judson Chesterman of Sheffield (England).

January 5 – Strömsund Bridge in Sweden completed, the first significant cable stayed bridge of the modern era. July 17 – The first atomic generated electrical power is sold commercially, partially powering Arco, Idaho, from the U. S. National Reactor Testing Station; on July 18, Schenectady, New York, receives power from a prototype nuclear submarine reactor at Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory. December 12 – Christopher Cockerell is granted a United Kingdom patent for his design of hovercraft. Swiss electrical engineer George de Mestral is granted a patent for the Velcro fabric hook and loop fastener. Tappan introduce the first domestic microwave oven, in the United States.

French zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans publishes On the Track of Unknown Animals (Sur la piste des bêtes ignorées), pioneering the pseudoscientific field of cryptozoology.

July 9 – Russell–Einstein Manifesto issued in London by Bertrand Russell with the signatures of the late Albert Einstein, Max Born and other prominent scientists drawing the attention of world political leaders to the dangers posed by nuclear weapons.

Eugene Garfield proposes the concept of citation indexing for scientific literature.

January 1 – Simon Schaffer, English historian of science. January 6 – Susan B. Horwitz (died 2014), American computer scientist and academic. January 17 – Katalin Karikó, Hungarian born biochemist, winner of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. January 24 – Alan Sokal, American mathematical physicist and proponent of scientific objectivity. February 3 – Sue Ion, born Susan Burrows, English nuclear scientist. February 24 – Steve Jobs (died 2011), American computing entrepreneur. April 11 – Piers Sellers (died 2016), English born astronaut and climate scientist. April 20 – Svante Pääbo, Swedish evolutionary geneticist, winner of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. April 30 – Francis Muguet (died 2009), French chemist and advocate of open access to information. May 30 – Jacqueline McGlade, British born marine biologist and pioneer of environmental informatics. June 8 – Tim Berners Lee, English creator of the World Wide Web. June 11 – Duncan Steel, English/Australasian space scientist. October 2 – Nancy Rothwell, English physiologist. October 28 – Bill Gates, American software designer and entrepreneur. November 4 – David Julius, American physiologist, winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. December 22 – Thomas C. Südhof, German born biochemist, winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Luis Álvarez Gaumé, Spanish theoretical physicist.

February 2 – Oswald Avery (born 1877), Canadian American bacteriologist. March 11 – Sir Alexander Fleming (born 1881), British bacteriologist, winner of the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. March 15 – Michele Besso (born 1873), Swiss engineer, confidant of Einstein. April 10 – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ (born 1881), French born paleontologist and philosopher. April 17 – Eduard Pernkopf (born 1888), Austrian anatomist. April 18 – Albert Einstein (born 1879), German born theoretical physicist, winner of the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics. June 12 – Redcliffe N. Salaman (born 1874), English botanist. July 21 – J. B. Christopherson (born 1868), English physician. August 11 – Robert W. Wood (born 1868), American optical physicist. August 12 – James B. Sumner (born 1887), American winner of the 1946 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. November 25 – Sir Arthur Tansley (born 1871), English botanist and ecologist. December 13 – Antonio Egas Moniz (born 1874), Portuguese neurologist, winner of the 1949 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.