1907 in science

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The year 1907 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Chemistry

• Emil Fischer artificially synthesizes peptide amino acid chains and thereby shows that amino acids in proteins are connected by amino group-acid group bonds.
• Hermann Staudinger prepares the first synthetic β-lactam.
• Georges Urbain discovers Lutetium (from Lutetia, the ancient name of Paris).

Geology

• Bertram Boltwood proposes that the amount of lead in uranium and thorium ores might be used to determine the Earth's age and crudely dates some rocks to have ages between 410—2200 million years.
• The Moine Thrust Belt in Scotland is identified by Ben Peach and John Horne, one of the first to be discovered.^[1][2]
• The rare phosphate mineral tarbuttite is first discovered at Broken Hill, Barotziland-North-Western Rhodesia.^[3][4]

Mathematics

• Paul Koebe conjectures the result of the Koebe quarter theorem.

Medicine

• Paul Ehrlich develops a chemotherapeutic cure for sleeping sickness.
• George Soper identifies "Typhoid Mary" Mallon as an asymptomatic carrier of typhoid in New York.^[5]
• Dengue fever becomes the second disease shown to be caused by a virus.^[6]

Paleontology

• October 21 – Jaw of Homo heidelbergensis (Mauer 1) found.^[7]

Physics

• Albert Einstein introduces the principle of equivalence of gravitation and inertia and uses it to predict the gravitational redshift.

Psychology

• Ivan Pavlov demonstrates conditioned responses with salivating dogs.
• Vladimir Bekhterev begins publication of Objective Psychology.^[8]

Technology

• August 29 – The partially completed Quebec Bridge collapses.^[9]
• Lee DeForest invents the triode thermionic amplifier, starting the development of electronics as a practical technology.
• Furuholmen Lighthouse in Sweden is the world's first to be equipped with AGA's Dalén light incorporating Gustaf Dalén's invention of the sun valve which turns the beacon's accumulator gas supply on and off using daylight,^[10] and for which Dalén will be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1912.^[11]
• Ole Evinrude invents the first practical outboard motor, in the United States.
• The Autochrome Lumière is the first color photography process marketed.
• Samuel Simon patents a screenprinting process in the United Kingdom.
• Peking to Paris motor race, won by Prince Scipione Borghese driving a 7-litre 35/45 hp Itala.

Zoology

• Carl Hagenbeck opens the Tierpark Hagenbeck in Stellingen, near Hamburg, Germany, the first zoo to use open moated enclosures, rather than barred cages, to better approximate animals' natural environments.^[12][13]
• December 28 – Last confirmed sighting of a Huia in New Zealand.

Awards

• Nobel Prizes
  • Physics – Albert Abraham Michelson
  • Chemistry – Eduard Buchner
  • Medicine – Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran
• Order of Merit: Florence Nightingale

Births

• January 12 – Sergei Korolev (died 1966), Ukrainian-born space scientist.
• March 4 – Rosalind Pitt-Rivers, née Henley (died 1990), English biochemist.
• March 18 – J. Z. Young (died 1997), English zoologist and neurophysiologist.
• April 15 – Nikolaas Tinbergen (died 1988), Dutch ethologist, ornithologist and Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine laureate.
• June 1 – Frank Whittle (died 1996), English aeronautical engineer.
• June 25 – Hans Daniel Jensen (died 1973), German physicist.
• June 26 – Robert Gwyn Macfarlane (died 1987), British hematologist.
• July 1 – Norman Pirie (died 1997), British virologist.
• July 7 – Robert A. Heinlein (died 1988), American hard science fiction author.
• August 30 – John Mauchly (died 1980), American co-inventor of the ENIAC computer.
• September 7 – Konstantin Petrzhak (died 1998), Polish-born physicist.
• September 14 – Solomon Asch (died 1996), Polish-born social psychologist.
• September 30 – Stanley Hooker (died 1984), English aeronautical engineer.
• October 2 – Alexander R. Todd (died 1997), Scottish-born biochemist and Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureate.
• December 25 – Rufus P. Turner (died 1982), African American electronic engineer.

Deaths

• January 20 – Dmitri Mendeleev (born 1834), Russian chemist.
• February 5 (O.S. January 22) – Nikolai Menshutkin (born 1842), Russian chemist.
• May 19 – Sir Benjamin Baker (born 1840), English civil engineer.
• June 7 – Edward Routh (born 1831), English mathematician.
• June 18 – Alexander Stewart Herschel (born 1836), British astronomer.
• July 14 – Sir William Henry Perkin (born 1838), English chemist.
• December 17 – William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin (born 1824), British physicist.

References

1. Peach, B. N.; et al. The Geological Structure of the North-West Highlands of Scotland. Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, Scotland. Glasgow: H.M.S.O.
2. Oldroyd, David R. (1990). The Highlands Controversy: Constructing Geological Knowledge through Fieldwork in Nineteenth-Century Britain. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-62634-5.
3. "Tarbuttite" (PDF). Handbook of Mineralogy. Mineral Data Publishing. Retrieved 2012-07-19.
4. Spencer, L. J. (April 1908). "On Hopeite and other zinc phosphates and associated minerals from the Broken Hill mines, North-Western Rhodesia" (PDF). Mineralogical Magazine. The Mineralogical Society. 15 (68): 1–38. doi:10.1180/minmag.1908.015.68.02. Retrieved 2012-07-19.
5. Soper, George A. (15 June 1907). "The work of a chronic typhoid germ distributor" (PDF). Journal of the American Medical Association. 48: 2019–22. doi:10.1001/jama.1907.25220500025002d. Retrieved 2011-04-04.
6. Henchal, Erik A.; Putnak, J. Robert (October 1990). "The Dengue Viruses". Clinical Microbiology Reviews. American Society for Microbiology. 3 (4): 376–96. doi:10.1128/CMR.3.4.376. PMC 358169. PMID 2224837. Retrieved 2011-11-26.
7. Schoetensack, Otto (1908). Der Unterkiefer des Homo heidelbergensis aus den Sanden von Mauer bei Heidelberg. Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann.
8. "Vladimir Bekhterev". Russia-IC. Retrieved 2011-04-15.
9. Ricketts, Bruce. "The Collapse of the Quebec City Bridge". Mysteries of Canada. Retrieved 2011-08-16.
10. Magnus Lundahl. "History – The Sun Valve". AGA. Archived from the original on 2012-03-06. Retrieved 2012-03-02.
11. "The Nobel Prize in Physics 1912: Gustaf Dalén – Biography". Nobelprize.org. 1912. Retrieved 2012-03-02.
12. "Hagenbeck Tierpark und Tropen-Aquarium". Zoo and Aquarium Visitor. Retrieved 2008-07-22. The founder and his idea Carl Hagenbeck built what no other dared dream of. In 1907, the Hamburg man opened the first barless zoo in the world. As early as the end of the 19th century, this son of a fishmonger had the idea of showing animals no longer caged up but in open viewing enclosures. In his zoo of the future, nothing more than unseen ditches were to separate wild animals from members of the public. Carl Hagenbeck patented this idea in 1896. Nine years later his dream was to come true in Hamburg-Stellingen. The revolutionary open viewing enclosures and panoramas were in fact ridiculed in professional circles but took the public's breath away. Hagenbeck's zoo is considered to have prepared the way for today's wildlife adventure parks.
13. Rothfels, Nigel (2002). Savages and Beasts: The Birth of the Modern Zoo. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-6910-2.