The year 1991 in science and technology involved many significant events, some listed below.

Astronomy and space exploration

* May 18 –

Helen Sharman Helen Patricia Sharman, CMG, OBE, HonFRSC (born 30 May 1963) is a British chemist and cosmonaut who became the first British person, first Western European woman and first privately funded woman in space, as well as the first woman to visit ...

becomes the first British person in space, flying with the

Soyuz TM-12 Soyuz TM-12 was the 12th expedition to Mir, and included the first Briton in space,The mission report is available here: http://www.spacefacts.de/mission/english/soyuz-tm12.htm Helen Sharman. Crew Mission highlights The Mir crew welcomed aboa ...

mission. * October 29 – The ''Galileo'' probe becomes the first spacecraft to visit an asteroid (

951 Gaspra 951 Gaspra is an S-type asteroid that orbits very close to the inner edge of the asteroid belt. Gaspra was discovered by Russian astronomer G. N. Neujmin in 1916. Neujmin named it after Gaspra, a Black Sea retreat that was visited by his contem ...

). * Steven Balbus and John F. Hawley publish their insights on

magnetorotational instability The magnetorotational instability (MRI) is a fluid instability that causes an accretion disk orbiting a massive central object to become turbulent. It arises when the angular velocity of a conducting fluid in a magnetic field decreases as the d ...

. * Asteroid 6859 Datemasamune is discovered by

Masahiro Koishikawa was a Japanese astronomer. He studied both major and minor planets, and discovered multiple asteroids. Koishikawa was a staff member of the Sendai Astronomical Observatory frin 1972. His research was based out of the Sendai's Ayashi ( 391) ...

. * Asteroid 11514 Tsunenaga is discovered by

. * There are four lunar eclipses: three penumbral on January 30,

July 26 Events Pre-1600 * 657 – First Fitna: In the Battle of Siffin, troops led by Ali ibn Abu Talib clash with those led by Muawiyah I. * 811 – Battle of Pliska: Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros I is killed and his heir Staurakios is se ...

, and

June 27 Events Pre-1600 * 1358 – The Republic of Ragusa is founded. *1497 – Cornish rebels Michael An Gof and Thomas Flamank are executed at Tyburn, London, England. * 1499 – Americo Vespucci, on Spanish financed trip, sights coa ...

, and one minor partial lunar eclipse on

December 21 Events Pre-1600 *AD 69 – The Roman Senate declares Vespasian emperor of Rome, the last in the Year of the Four Emperors. *1124 – Pope Honorius II is consecrated, having been elected after the controversial dethroning of Pope Celes ...

. * There are two solar eclipses: one annular eclipse on January 15, and a very long total eclipse on

July 11 Events Pre-1600 * 472 – After being besieged in Rome by his own generals, Western Roman Emperor Anthemius is captured in St. Peter's Basilica and put to death. * 813 – Byzantine emperor Michael I, under threat by conspiracies, ...

(lasting 6 minutes and 53 seconds).

Chemistry

* Carbon nanotubes discovered in the insoluble material of arc-burned graphite rods by

Sumio Iijima is a Japanese physicist and inventor, often cited as the inventor of carbon nanotubes. Although carbon nanotubes had been observed prior to his "invention", Iijima's 1991 paper generated unprecedented interest in the carbon nanostructures and ...

NEC is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. The company was known as the Nippon Electric Company, Limited, before rebranding in 1983 as NEC. It provides IT and network soluti ...

Computer science

* February 26 – Tim Berners-Lee introduces

WorldWideWeb WorldWideWeb (later renamed Nexus to avoid confusion between the software and the World Wide Web) is the first web browser and web page editor. It was discontinued in 1994. It was the first WYSIWYG HTML editor. The source code was released in ...

(the first

web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used o ...

), and a

WYSIWYG In computing, WYSIWYG ( ), an acronym for What You See Is What You Get, is a system in which editing software allows content to be edited in a form that resembles its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product, such as a printed d ...

HTML editor An HTML editor is a program for editing HTML, the markup of a web page. Although the HTML markup in a web page can be controlled with any text editor, specialized HTML editors can offer convenience and added functionality. For example, many HT ...

. * May 14 –

Nicola Pellow Nicola Pellow is an English mathematician and information scientist who was one of the nineteen members of the ''WWW Project'' at CERN working with Tim Berners-Lee. She joined the project in November 1990, while an undergraduate maths student en ...

, an intern working under the direction of Berners-Lee, introduces Line Mode Browser, the first cross-platform web browser. * June 5 –

Phil Zimmermann Philip R. Zimmermann (born 1954) is an American computer scientist and cryptographer. He is the creator of Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), the most widely used email encryption software in the world. He is also known for his work in VoIP encryption ...

posts the first

Pretty Good Privacy Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) is an encryption program that provides cryptographic privacy and authentication for data communication. PGP is used for signing, encrypting, and decrypting texts, e-mails, files, directories, and whole disk partition ...

(PGP)

data encryption In cryptography, encryption is the process of encoding information. This process converts the original representation of the information, known as plaintext, into an alternative form known as ciphertext. Ideally, only authorized parties can deci ...

program Program, programme, programmer, or programming may refer to: Business and management * Program management, the process of managing several related projects * Time management * Program, a part of planning Arts and entertainment Audio * Progra ...

. * June 23 – The

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

'' Sonic the Hedgehog'' is first released, propelling the Sega Genesis 16-bit console into mass popularity. * August 6 – The first

website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Wi ...

goes online at CERN. * The

Trojan Room coffee pot The Trojan Room coffee pot was a coffee machine located in the Computer Laboratory of the University of Cambridge, England. Created in 1991 by Quentin Stafford-Fraser and Paul Jardetzky, it was migrated from their laboratory network to the we ...

at the

Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge The Department of Computer Science and Technology, formerly the Computer Laboratory, is the computer science department of the University of Cambridge. it employed 35 academic staff, 25 support staff, 35 affiliated research staff, and about 15 ...

, England, inspires the first

webcam A webcam is a video camera which is designed to record or stream to a computer or computer network. They are primarily used in videotelephony, livestreaming and social media, and security. Webcams can be built-in computer hardware or peripheral ...

. * October -

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ' ...

releases the PowerBook

laptop computer A laptop, laptop computer, or notebook computer is a small, portable personal computer (PC) with a screen and alphanumeric keyboard. Laptops typically have a clam shell form factor with the screen mounted on the inside of the upper li ...

Conservation

* October 1 – The

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

Resource Management Act 1991 The Resource Management Act (RMA) passed in 1991 in New Zealand is a significant, and at times, controversial Act of Parliament. The RMA promotes the sustainable management of natural and physical resources such as land, air and water. New Zeal ...

comes into effect.

Geophysics

* Alan Hildebrand and others provide support for the

Alvarez hypothesis The Alvarez hypothesis posits that the mass extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs and many other living things during the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event was caused by the impact of a large asteroid on the Earth. Prior to 2013, it was c ...

for the

Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event The Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) extinction event (also known as the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction) was a sudden mass extinction of three-quarters of the plant and animal species on Earth, approximately 66 million years ago. With the ...

by proposing the

Chicxulub crater The Chicxulub crater () is an impact crater buried underneath the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. Its center is offshore near the community of Chicxulub, after which it is named. It was formed slightly over 66 million years ago when a large a ...

in the

Yucatán Peninsula The Yucatán Peninsula (, also , ; es, Península de Yucatán ) is a large peninsula in southeastern Mexico and adjacent portions of Belize and Guatemala. The peninsula extends towards the northeast, separating the Gulf of Mexico to the north ...

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

as the impact site for a large asteroid 66 million years ago. * The Ames crater impact structure is identified in

Major County, Oklahoma Major County is a county in the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. As of the 2010 census, its population was 7,527. Its county seat is Fairview. The county was created in 1907. Located in northwestern Oklahoma, Major County is b ...

Mathematics

* July – English physicist

Philip Candelas Philip Candelas, (born 24 October 1951, London, UK) is a British physicist and mathematician. After 20 years at the University of Texas at Austin, he served as Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford until 2020 and is a Fe ...

and colleagues show that

mirror symmetry In mathematics, reflection symmetry, line symmetry, mirror symmetry, or mirror-image symmetry is symmetry with respect to a reflection. That is, a figure which does not change upon undergoing a reflection has reflectional symmetry. In 2D ther ...

could be used to solve problems in

enumerative geometry In mathematics, enumerative geometry is the branch of algebraic geometry concerned with counting numbers of solutions to geometric questions, mainly by means of intersection theory. History The problem of Apollonius is one of the earliest examp ...

. *

Qiudong Wang Qiudong Wang is a professor at the Department of Mathematics, the University of Arizona. In 1982 he received a B.S. at Nanjing University and in 1994 a Ph.D. at the University of Cincinnati. Wang is best known for his 1991 paper ''The global so ...

produces a global solution to the ''n''-body problem.

Physics

* January 1 –

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

joins CERN. * July 1 –

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

joins CERN. * October 15 – the "

Oh-My-God particle The Oh-My-God particle was an ultra-high-energy cosmic ray detected on 15 October 1991 by the Fly's Eye camera in Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, U.S. It is the highest-energy cosmic ray ever observed. This particle's energy was unexpected an ...

", the first

ultra-high-energy cosmic ray In astroparticle physics, an ultra-high-energy cosmic ray (UHECR) is a cosmic ray with an energy greater than 1 EeV (1018 electronvolts, approximately 0.16 joules), far beyond both the rest mass and energies typical of other cosmic ray parti ...

measured at an energy of (40,000,000 times that of the highest energy protons that have been produced in a particle accelerator), is observed at the

University of Utah The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University of De ...

HiRes Hires may refer to: * High Resolution Fly's Eye, ultra-high-energy cosmic ray observatory * High Resolution Echelle Spectrometer or High Resolution Echelle Spectrograph, W. M. Keck Observatory's spectrometer * Hires Big H, restaurant chain headquar ...

observatory in

Dugway Proving Ground Dugway Proving Ground (DPG) is a U.S. Army facility established in 1942 to test biological and chemical weapons, located about southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, and south of the Utah Test and Training Range. Location Dugway P ...

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

Physiology and medicine

Takotsubo cardiomyopathy Takotsubo cardiomyopathy or Takotsubo syndrome (TTS), also known as stress cardiomyopathy, is a type of non-ischemic cardiomyopathy in which there is a sudden temporary weakening of the muscular portion of the heart. It usually appears after a ...

first studied.

Technology

* July 1 – World's first

GSM The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a standard developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to describe the protocols for second-generation ( 2G) digital cellular networks used by mobile devices such ...

telephone call made in Finland.

Publications

* The first open-access scientific online archive,

arXiv arXiv (pronounced "archive"—the X represents the Greek letter chi ⟨χ⟩) is an open-access repository of electronic preprints and postprints (known as e-prints) approved for posting after moderation, but not peer review. It consists of ...

, is begun as a preprint service for physicists, initiated by

Paul Ginsparg Paul Henry Ginsparg (born January 1, 1955) is a physicist. He developed the arXiv.org e-print archive. Education He is a graduate of Syosset High School in Syosset, New York. He graduated from Harvard University with a Bachelor of Arts in phy ...

Awards

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

s **

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 r ...

–

Pierre-Gilles de Gennes Pierre-Gilles de Gennes (; 24 October 1932 – 18 May 2007) was a French physicist and the Nobel Prize laureate in physics in 1991. Education and early life He was born in Paris, France, and was home-schooled to the age of 12. By the age of ...

** Chemistry –

Richard R. Ernst Richard Robert Ernst (14 August 1933 – 4 June 2021) was a Swiss physical chemist and Nobel Laureate. Ernst was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1991 for his contributions towards the development of Fourier transform nuclear magnetic re ...

Medicine Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pr ...

– Erwin Neher,

Bert Sakmann Bert Sakmann (; born 12 June 1942) is a German cell physiologist. He shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Erwin Neher in 1991 for their work on "the function of single ion channels in cells," and the invention of the patch cl ...

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 comput ...

–

Robin Milner Arthur John Robin Gorell Milner (13 January 1934 – 20 March 2010), known as Robin Milner or A. J. R. G. Milner, was a British computer scientist, and a Turing Award winner.

Births

* February 28 – Sheree Atcheson, Sri Lankan-Irish computer scientist

Deaths

* January 30 – John Bardeen (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 4 ...

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

physicist, co-inventor of the

transistor upright=1.4, gate (G), body (B), source (S) and drain (D) terminals. The gate is separated from the body by an insulating layer (pink). A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch ...

and twice winner of the

Nobel Prize in Physics ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then " ...

. * February 6 –

Salvador Luria Salvador Edward Luria (August 13, 1912 – February 6, 1991) was an Italian microbiologist, later a Naturalized citizen of the United States#Naturalization, naturalized U.S. citizen. He won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1969, with ...

(b. 1912), Italian-born

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 (biology), cell, a multicellular organism, or a Community (ecology), community of Biological inter ...

, co-winner of the

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, accord ...

. * February 23 – Sir

Charles Illingworth Charles Frederick William Illingworth (8 May 1899 – 23 February 1991) was a British surgeon who specialised in gastroenterology. Along with a range of teaching and research interests, he wrote several surgical textbooks, and played a leading ...

(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 ...

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

surgeon. * March 1 –

Edwin H. Land Edwin Herbert Land, ForMemRS, FRPS, Hon.MRI (May 7, 1909 – March 1, 1991) was an Russian-American scientist and inventor, best known as the co-founder of the Polaroid Corporation. He invented inexpensive filters for polarizing light, a ...

(b.

1909 Events January–February * January 4 – Explorer Aeneas Mackintosh of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition escaped death by fleeing across ice floes. * January 7 – Colombia recognizes the independence of Panama. * Jan ...

), American inventor of the

Land Camera The Land Camera is a model of self-developing film camera manufactured by Polaroid between 1948 and 1983. It is named after their inventor, the American scientist Edwin Land, who developed a process for self-developing photography between 194 ...

. * June 2 – Mary Loveless (b. 1899), American immunologist. * June 5 –

Min Chueh Chang Min Chueh Chang (, October 10, 1908 – June 5, 1991), often credited as M.C. Chang, was a Chinese-American reproductive biologist. His specific area of study was the fertilisation process in mammalian reproduction. Though his career produced ...

(b. 1908), Chinese American embryologist. * July 4 –

Victor Chang Victor Peter Chang, AC (born Chang Yam Him; 21 November 19364 July 1991), was a Chinese-born Australian cardiac surgeon and a pioneer of modern heart transplantation in Australia. His sudden murder in 1991 stunned Australia, and is considered ...

(b.

1936 Events January–February * January 20 – George V of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India, dies at his Sandringham Estate. The Prince of Wales succeeds to the throne of the United Kingdom as King E ...

), Australian

cardiac surgeon Cardiac surgery, or cardiovascular surgery, is surgery on the heart or great vessels performed by cardiac surgeons. It is often used to treat complications of ischemic heart disease (for example, with coronary artery bypass grafting); to corr ...

, murdered. * December 2 – Anne Beloff-Chain (b. 1921), British biochemist.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:1991 In Science 20th century in science 1990s in science