The year 1975 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Astronomy and space exploration

* April 19 –

Aryabhata Aryabhata ( ISO: ) or Aryabhata I (476–550 CE) was an Indian mathematician and astronomer of the classical age of Indian mathematics and Indian astronomy. He flourished in the Gupta Era and produced works such as the '' Aryabhatiya'' (whi ...

, India's first satellite, is launched using

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

boosters. * July 17 –

Apollo–Soyuz Apollo–Soyuz was the first crewed international space mission, carried out jointly by the United States and the Soviet Union in July 1975. Millions of people around the world watched on television as a United States Apollo spacecraft docked ...

Test Project: An American

Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...

and a Soviet

Soyuz spacecraft Soyuz () is a series of spacecraft which has been in service since the 1960s, having made more than 140 flights. It was designed for the Soviet space program by the Korolev Design Bureau (now Energia). The Soyuz succeeded the Voskhod spacecraf ...

dock with each other in

orbit In celestial mechanics, an orbit is the curved trajectory of an object such as the trajectory of a planet around a star, or of a natural satellite around a planet, or of an artificial satellite around an object or position in space such a ...

marking the first such link-up between spacecraft from the two nations. * August 20 –

Viking program The ''Viking'' program consisted of a pair of identical American space probes, '' Viking 1'' and '' Viking 2'', which landed on Mars in 1976. Each spacecraft was composed of two main parts: an orbiter designed to photograph the surface of Mars ...

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedi ...

launches the '' Viking 1'' planetary probe toward

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin atmos ...

Biology

* August 7 –

César Milstein César Milstein, CH, FRS (8 October 1927 – 24 March 2002) was an Argentine biochemist in the field of antibody research. Milstein shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1984 with Niels Kaj Jerne and Georges J. F. Köhler for d ...

and Georges Köhler report their discovery of how to use hybridoma cells to isolate

monoclonal antibodies A monoclonal antibody (mAb, more rarely called moAb) is an antibody produced from a cell Lineage made by cloning a unique white blood cell. All subsequent antibodies derived this way trace back to a unique parent cell. Monoclonal antibodies ...

, effectively beginning the history of monoclonal antibody use in science. * Living specimens of the Chacoan Peccary (''Catagonus wagneri''), previously known only from fossils, are identified in

Paraguay Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to th ...

Climatology

* August 8 – The term ''

global warming In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in a broader sense also includes ...

'' is probably first used in its modern sense by Wallace Smith Broecker.

Computer science

* January –

Altair 8800 The Altair 8800 is a microcomputer designed in 1974 by MITS and based on the Intel 8080 CPU. Interest grew quickly after it was featured on the cover of the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics and was sold by mail order through advertisemen ...

is released, sparking the era of the

microcomputer A microcomputer is a small, relatively inexpensive computer having a central processing unit (CPU) made out of a microprocessor. The computer also includes memory and input/output (I/O) circuitry together mounted on a printed circuit board (P ...

. * March 5 –

Hacker A hacker is a person skilled in information technology who uses their technical knowledge to achieve a goal or overcome an obstacle, within a computerized system by non-standard means. Though the term ''hacker'' has become associated in popu ...

s in

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo Count ...

hold the first meeting of the Homebrew Computer Club. * April 4 –

Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions ...

and

Paul Allen Paul Gardner Allen (January 21, 1953 – October 15, 2018) was an American business magnate, computer programmer, researcher, investor, and philanthropist. He co-founded Microsoft Corporation with childhood friend Bill Gates in 1975, which h ...

form a company at this time called Micro Soft in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to develop and sell

BASIC BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages designed for ease of use. The original version was created by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College ...

interpreter software for the Altair 8800. * The

MOS Technology 6502 The MOS Technology 6502 (typically pronounced "sixty-five-oh-two" or "six-five-oh-two") William Mensch and the moderator both pronounce the 6502 microprocessor as ''"sixty-five-oh-two"''. is an 8-bit microprocessor that was designed by a small te ...

is introduced. An 8-bit

microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circu ...

that was designed by a small team led by Chuck Peddle for

MOS Technology MOS Technology, Inc. ("MOS" being short for Metal Oxide Semiconductor), later known as CSG (Commodore Semiconductor Group) and GMT Microelectronics, was a semiconductor design and fabrication company based in Audubon, Pennsylvania. It is mo ...

. It was, by a considerable margin, the least expensive full-featured microprocessor on the market.

Mathematics

* Benoit Mandelbrot coins the term ''

fractal In mathematics, a fractal is a geometric shape containing detailed structure at arbitrarily small scales, usually having a fractal dimension strictly exceeding the topological dimension. Many fractals appear similar at various scales, as il ...

''. * The Harada–Norton group is discovered. *

John N. Mather John Norman Mather (June 9, 1942 – January 28, 2017) was a mathematician at Princeton University known for his work on singularity theory and Hamiltonian dynamics. He was descended from Atherton Mather (1663–1734), a cousin of Cotton Mathe ...

and

Richard McGehee Richard Paul McGehee (born 20 September 1943, in San Diego) is an American mathematician, who works on dynamical systems with special emphasis on celestial mechanics. McGehee received from Caltech in 1964 his bachelor's degree and from Univers ...

prove that for the Newtonian collinear four-body problem there exist solutions which become unbounded in a finite time interval. * The Monty Hall problem in

probability Probability is the branch of mathematics concerning numerical descriptions of how likely an Event (probability theory), event is to occur, or how likely it is that a proposition is true. The probability of an event is a number between 0 and ...

is first posed, by Steve Selvin.

Medicine

Lyme disease Lyme disease, also known as Lyme borreliosis, is a vector-borne disease caused by the '' Borrelia'' bacterium, which is spread by ticks in the genus '' Ixodes''. The most common sign of infection is an expanding red rash, known as erythema ...

first recognised at

Lyme, Connecticut Lyme is a town in New London County, Connecticut, United States, situated on the eastern side of the Connecticut River. The population was 2,352 at the 2020 census. Lyme is the eponym of Lyme disease. History In February 1665, the portion of th ...

. * Mini–mental state examination (MMSE) or Folstein test introduced to screen for

dementia Dementia is a disorder which manifests as a set of related symptoms, which usually surfaces when the brain is damaged by injury or disease. The symptoms involve progressive impairments in memory, thinking, and behavior, which negatively affe ...

or other cognitive dysfunction.

Technology

* Steven Sasson of

Eastman Kodak The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...

in the United States produces the first self-contained (portable)

digital camera A digital camera is a camera that captures photographs in digital memory. Most cameras produced today are digital, largely replacing those that capture images on photographic film. Digital cameras are now widely incorporated into mobile devic ...

Awards

* Nobel Prizes **

Physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which rel ...

– Aage Bohr, Ben Roy Mottelson, James Rainwater ** Chemistry – John Warcup Cornforth, Vladimir Prelog **

Medicine Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, and Health promotion ...

–

David Baltimore David Baltimore (born March 7, 1938) is an American biologist, university administrator, and 1975 Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine. He is President Emeritus and Distinguished Professor of Biology at the California Institute of Tech ...

Renato Dulbecco Renato Dulbecco ( , ; February 22, 1914 – February 19, 2012) was an Italian–American virologist who won the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on oncoviruses, which are viruses that can cause cancer when they infect anim ...

, Howard Martin Temin *

Turing Award The ACM A. M. Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to computer science. It is generally recognized as the highest distinction in compu ...

– Allen Newell, Herbert A. Simon

Births

* July 11 –

Naomi McClure-Griffiths Naomi McClure-Griffiths (born July 11, 1975) is an American-born astrophysicist and radio astronomer who researches and lives in Australia. In 2004, she discovered a new spiral arm in the Milky Way galaxy. She was awarded the Prime Minister's Pr ...

, American-born astrophysicist. * July 17 – Terence Tao, Australian-born

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

. * November 14 –

Martin Hairer Sir Martin Hairer (born 14 November 1975) is an Austrian-British mathematician working in the field of stochastic analysis, in particular stochastic partial differential equations. He is Professor of Mathematics at EPFL (École Polytechnique F ...

, Swiss-born Austrian-British mathematician. * Catherine A. Lozupone, American

microbiologist A microbiologist (from Greek ) is a scientist who studies microscopic life forms and processes. This includes study of the growth, interactions and characteristics of microscopic organisms such as bacteria, algae, fungi, and some types of par ...

Deaths

* February 14 – Sir

Julian Huxley Sir Julian Sorell Huxley (22 June 1887 – 14 February 1975) was an English evolutionary biologist, eugenicist, and internationalist. He was a proponent of natural selection, and a leading figure in the mid-twentieth century modern synthes ...

(b. 1887), English

biologist A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual cell, a multicellular organism, or a community of interacting populations. They usually speciali ...

and author. * April 19 – Percy Lavon Julian (b.

1899 Events January 1899 * January 1 ** Spanish rule ends in Cuba, concluding 400 years of the Spanish Empire in the Americas. ** Queens and Staten Island become administratively part of New York City. * January 2 – **Bolivia sets up a c ...

), African American research chemist. * May 14 – Ernst Alexanderson (b. 1878),

Swedish American Swedish Americans ( sv, svenskamerikaner) are Americans of Swedes, Swedish ancestry. They include the 1.2 million Swedish immigrants during 1865–1915, who formed tight-knit communities, as well as their descendants and more recent immigrants. ...

television pioneer. * May 18 – Christopher Strachey (b. 1916), English computer scientist. * June 8 – Douglas Guthrie (b.

1885 Events January–March * January 3– 4 – Sino-French War – Battle of Núi Bop: French troops under General Oscar de Négrier defeat a numerically superior Qing Chinese force, in northern Vietnam. * January 4 &ndash ...

), Scottish otolaryngologist and medical historian. * June 27 – Sir Geoffrey Taylor (b.

1886 Events January–March * January 1 – Upper Burma is formally annexed to British Burma, following its conquest in the Third Anglo-Burmese War of November 1885. * January 5– 9 – Robert Louis Stevenson's novella ''Strange ...

), English

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate ca ...

. * September 5 – Alice Catherine Evans (b.

1881 Events January–March * January 1– 24 – Siege of Geok Tepe: Russian troops under General Mikhail Skobelev defeat the Turkomans. * January 13 – War of the Pacific – Battle of San Juan and Chorrillos: The C ...

), American microbiologist. * October 10 – August Dvorak (b.

1894 Events January–March * January 4 – A military alliance is established between the French Third Republic and the Russian Empire. * January 7 – William Kennedy Dickson receives a patent for motion picture film in the United S ...

), American

educational psychologist An educational psychologist is a psychologist whose differentiating functions may include diagnostic and psycho-educational assessment, psychological counseling in educational communities (students, teachers, parents, and academic authorities), ...

. * October 23 –

Gordon Hamilton Fairley Gordon Hamilton Fairley DM, FRCP (20 April 1930 – 23 October 1975) was a professor of medical oncology. Born and raised in Australia, he moved to the United Kingdom, where he studied and worked. He was killed by a Provisional Irish Republican ...

(b.

1930 Events January * January 15 – The Moon moves into its nearest point to Earth, called perigee, at the same time as its fullest phase of the Lunar Cycle. This is the closest moon distance at in recent history, and the next one will be ...

), British oncologist. * November – Priscilla Fairfield Bok (b. 1896), American astronomer. * December 13 – Mary Locke Petermann (b.

1908 Events January * January 1 – The British ''Nimrod'' Expedition led by Ernest Shackleton sets sail from New Zealand on the ''Nimrod'' for Antarctica. * January 3 – A total solar eclipse is visible in the Pacific Ocean, and is the 46 ...

), American cellular

biochemist Biochemists are scientists who are trained in biochemistry. They study chemical processes and chemical transformations in living organisms. Biochemists study DNA, proteins and cell parts. The word "biochemist" is a portmanteau of "biological che ...

. * December 28 –

Frances McConnell-Mills Frances Mary McConnell-Mills (July 9, 1900 – December 28, 1975) was an American toxicologist. She was the first woman to be appointed Denver's city toxicologist, the first female toxicologist in the Rocky Mountains, and probably the first femal ...

(b.

1900 As of March 1 ( O.S. February 17), when the Julian calendar acknowledged a leap day and the Gregorian calendar did not, the Julian calendar fell one day further behind, bringing the difference to 13 days until February 28 ( O.S. February 15), ...

), American

toxicologist Toxicology is a scientific discipline, overlapping with biology, chemistry, pharmacology, and medicine, that involves the study of the adverse effects of chemical substances on living organisms and the practice of diagnosing and treating ex ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:1975 In Science 20th century in science 1970s in science