The year 1970 in

science Science is a systematic endeavor that Scientific method, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of Testability, testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earli ...

and

technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and Reproducibility, reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in me ...

involved some significant events, listed below.

Astronomy and space exploration

* February 11 – Japan becomes the fourth country to launch a satellite into orbit. * March 31 –

Explorer I Explorer 1 was the first satellite launched by the United States in 1958 and was part of the U.S. participation in the International Geophysical Year (IGY). The mission followed the first two satellites the previous year; the Soviet Union ...

reentry (after 12 years in orbit) * April 11 – Apollo 13 ill-fated space mission launched * April 17 – Apollo 13 returns safely to

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

* August 17 –

Venera program The Venera (, , which means "Venus" in Russian) program was the name given to a series of space probes developed by the Soviet Union between 1961 and 1984 to gather information about the planet Venus. Ten probes successfully landed on the s ...

Venera 7 Venera 7 (russian: Венера-7, lit=Venus 7) was a Soviet spacecraft, part of the Venera series of probes to Venus. When it landed on the Venusian surface on 15 December 1970, it became the first spacecraft to soft land on another planet an ...

is launched. It will later becomes the first spacecraft to successfully transmit data from another

planet A planet is a large, rounded astronomical body that is neither a star nor its remnant. The best available theory of planet formation is the nebular hypothesis, which posits that an interstellar cloud collapses out of a nebula to create a you ...

. * November 17 –

Luna program The Luna programme (from the Russian word "Luna" meaning "Moon"), occasionally called ''Lunik'' by western media, was a series of robotic spacecraft missions sent to the Moon by the Soviet Union between 1959 and 1976. Fifteen were successful, ...

: The

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

lands

Lunokhod 1 ''Lunokhod 1'' ( Russian: Луноход-1 ("Moonwalker 1"), also known as Аппарат 8ЕЛ № 203 ("Device 8EL No. 203")) was the first of two robotic lunar rovers landed on the Moon by the Soviet Union as part of its Lunokhod program. The ...

on Mare Imbrium (Sea of Rains) on the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

. This is the first roving remote-controlled robot to land on another world and was released by the orbiting

Luna 17 ''LOK Luna 17'' (Ye-8 series) was an unmanned space mission of the Luna program, also called ''Lunik 17''. It deployed the first robotic rover onto the surface of the Moon. Launch ''Luna 17'' was launched from an Earth parking orbit towards ...

spacecraft.

Biology

* Establishment of

Parc naturel régional de Camargue The Parc naturel régional de Carmargue is a protected area which was designated in 1970 along the shoreline of the Camargue, France. The park protects a wetland environment and an adjacent marine area. The boundaries of the park have been expanded ...

in the south of France.

Chemistry

* August – Ulrich K. Laemmli publishes his refinement of the

SDS-PAGE SDS-PAGE (sodium dodecyl sulfate–polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis) is a Discontinuous electrophoresis, discontinuous electrophoretic system developed by Ulrich K. Laemmli which is commonly used as a method to separate proteins with molecular m ...

method.

Computer science

* January 1 –

Unix time Current Unix time () Unix time is a date and time representation widely used in computing. It measures time by the number of seconds that have elapsed since 00:00:00 UTC on 1 January 1970, the beginning of the Unix epoch, less adjustments m ...

begins at 00:00:00 UTC. * June–August –

FLOW (programming language) FLOW is an educational programming language designed by Jef Raskin in 1970 and implemented on several minicomputers in the early 1970s. The goal of the language is to make it easy to explore algorithms through a highly interactive environment. T ...

devised by Jef Raskin. * November 17 – Douglas Engelbart receives a United States

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...

for the first

computer mouse A computer mouse (plural mice, sometimes mouses) is a hand-held pointing device that detects two-dimensional motion relative to a surface. This motion is typically translated into the motion of a pointer on a display, which allows a smooth ...

. *

Datapoint 2200 The Datapoint 2200 was a mass-produced programmable computer terminal usable as a computer, designed by Computer Terminal Corporation (CTC) founders Phil Ray and Gus Roche and announced by CTC in June 1970 (with units shipping in 1971). It was ...

is announced. A mass-produced programmable

terminal Terminal may refer to: Computing Hardware * Terminal (electronics), a device for joining electrical circuits together * Terminal (telecommunication), a device communicating over a line * Computer terminal, a set of primary input and output dev ...

, designed by Computer Terminal Corporation (CTC) founders Phil Ray and Gus Roche. *

Len Deighton Leonard Cyril Deighton (; born 18 February 1929) is a British author. His publications have included cookery books, history and military history, but he is best known for his spy novels. After completing his national service in the Royal Air Fo ...

's 1943-set ''

Bomber A bomber is a military combat aircraft designed to attack ground and naval targets by dropping air-to-ground weaponry (such as bombs), launching torpedoes, or deploying air-launched cruise missiles. The first use of bombs dropped from an air ...

'', published this year in England, is the first novel written on a

word processor A word processor (WP) is a device or computer program that provides for input, editing, formatting, and output of text, often with some additional features. Early word processors were stand-alone devices dedicated to the function, but current ...

, the

IBM MT/ST The IBM MT/ST (Magnetic Tape/Selectric Typewriter, and known in Europe as MT72) was a model of the IBM Selectric typewriter, built into its own desk, integrated with magnetic tape recording and playback facilities, located in an attached enclosur ...

. *

Niklaus Wirth Niklaus Emil Wirth (born 15 February 1934) is a Swiss computer scientist. He has designed several programming languages, including Pascal, and pioneered several classic topics in software engineering. In 1984, he won the Turing Award, generally ...

releases the first Pascal compiler. *

Xerox PARC PARC (Palo Alto Research Center; formerly Xerox PARC) is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California. Founded in 1969 by Jacob E. "Jack" Goldman, chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, the company was originally a division of Xero ...

computer laboratory opens in

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was es ...

Earth sciences

* January 4 – The 7.1 Tonghai earthquake shakes

Tonghai County Tonghai County () is located in Yuxi Prefecture-level City, Yunnan Province, China. Geography Tonghai County occupies the fertile valley of Qilu Lake, surrounded on all sides by mountains. The county seat is located on the south side of the lak ...

Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the C ...

province, China, with a maximum

Mercalli intensity The Modified Mercalli intensity scale (MM, MMI, or MCS), developed from Giuseppe Mercalli's Mercalli intensity scale of 1902, is a seismic intensity scale used for measuring the intensity of shaking produced by an earthquake. It measures the eff ...

of X (''Extreme''). Between 10,000–14,621 are killed and 26,783 injured. * May 24 –

Kola Superdeep Borehole The Kola Superdeep Borehole (russian: Кольская сверхглубокая скважина, translit=Kol'skaya sverkhglubokaya skvazhina) SG-3 is the result of a scientific drilling project of the Soviet Union in the Pechengsky District ...

drilling begins on the

Kola Peninsula sjd, Куэлнэгк нёа̄ррк , image_name= Kola peninsula.png , image_caption= Kola Peninsula as a part of Murmansk Oblast , image_size= 300px , image_alt= , map_image= Murmansk in Russia.svg , map_caption = Location of Murmansk Oblas ...

of Russia.

Mathematics

Conway's Game of Life The Game of Life, also known simply as Life, is a cellular automaton devised by the British mathematician John Horton Conway in 1970. It is a zero-player game, meaning that its evolution is determined by its initial state, requiring no furthe ...

cellular automaton A cellular automaton (pl. cellular automata, abbrev. CA) is a discrete model of computation studied in automata theory. Cellular automata are also called cellular spaces, tessellation automata, homogeneous structures, cellular structures, tesse ...

devised by

John Horton Conway John Horton Conway (26 December 1937 – 11 April 2020) was an English mathematician active in the theory of finite groups, knot theory, number theory, combinatorial game theory and coding theory. He also made contributions to many branches ...

. * Mathematician Kurt Gödel allows circulation of his ontological proof of the existence of God.

Medicine

* The Dubowitz Score for estimating the

gestational age In obstetrics, gestational age is a measure of the age of a pregnancy which is taken from the beginning of the woman's last menstrual period (LMP), or the corresponding age of the gestation as estimated by a more accurate method if available. Su ...

of babies is published by Lilly and Victor Dubowitz. * The Exeter

hip replacement Hip replacement is a surgical procedure in which the hip joint is replaced by a prosthetic implant, that is, a hip prosthesis. Hip replacement surgery can be performed as a total replacement or a hemi (half) replacement. Such joint replacement o ...

stem, developed by surgeon

Robin Ling Robin Sydney Mackwood Ling, (7 September 1927 – 9 October 2017) was an English surgeon who invented the Exeter hip system, a hip replacement. As an orthopaedic surgeon at the Princess Elizabeth orthopaedic hospital, Exeter, he co-operated wi ...

and engineer

Clive Lee Alan John Clive Lee (18 February 1939 – 2 November 2021) was a British design engineer known for co-creating the Exeter hip system in association with orthopaedic surgeon, Robin Ling. Unlike any other hip replacement, the collarless polishe ...

, is first implanted, at the Princess Elizabeth Orthopaedic Hospital in Exeter, England. * First cases of

monkeypox Monkeypox (also called mpox by the WHO) is an infectious viral disease that can occur in humans and some other animals. Symptoms include fever, swollen lymph nodes, and a rash that forms blisters and then crusts over. The time from exposure t ...

in humans identified in the

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...

Physics

* Prediction of the

GIM mechanism In particle physics, the GIM mechanism (or Glashow–Iliopoulos–Maiani mechanism) is the mechanism through which flavour-changing neutral currents (FCNCs) are suppressed in loop diagrams. It also explains why weak interactions that change strang ...

, requiring the existence of a

charm quark The charm quark, charmed quark or c quark (from its symbol, c) is the third-most massive of all quarks, a type of elementary particle. Charm quarks are found in hadrons, which are subatomic particles made of quarks. Examples of hadrons containin ...

, by

Sheldon Glashow Sheldon Lee Glashow (, ; born December 5, 1932) is a Nobel Prize-winning American theoretical physicist. He is the Metcalf Professor of Mathematics and Physics at Boston University and Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics, Emeritus, at Harvard U ...

John Iliopoulos John (Jean) Iliopoulos (Greek: Ιωάννης Ηλιόπουλος; 1940, Kalamata, Greece) is a Greek physicist. He is the first person to present the Standard Model of particle physics in a single report. He is best known for his prediction of ...

and

Luciano Maiani Luciano Maiani (born 16 July 1941, in Rome) is a Sammarinese physicist best known for his prediction of the charm quark with Sheldon Glashow and John Iliopoulos (the " GIM mechanism"). Academic history In 1964 Luciano Maiani received his degree ...

Psychology

Henri Tajfel Henri Tajfel (born Hersz Mordche; 22 June 1919 – 3 May 1982) was a Polish social psychologist, best known for his pioneering work on the cognitive aspects of prejudice and social identity theory, as well as being one of the founders of the E ...

develops his

minimal group paradigm The minimal group paradigm is a method employed in social psychology. Although it may be used for a variety of purposes, it is best known as a method for investigating the minimal conditions required for discrimination to occur between groups. Exper ...

, a constituent of social identity theory. * '' Studies in Animal and Human Behavior, Volume I'' is published by

Konrad Lorenz Konrad Zacharias Lorenz (; 7 November 1903 – 27 February 1989) was an Austrian zoologist, ethologist, and ornithologist. He shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Nikolaas Tinbergen and Karl von Frisch. He is often regarde ...

Technology

* June 2 –

Cleddau Bridge The Cleddau Bridge (, cy, Pont Cleddau) in Pembrokeshire, Wales, carries the A477 road over the River Cleddau between Neyland and Pembroke Dock. Errors in the box girder design caused the collapse during construction in 1970. The bridge bec ...

in Wales collapses during erection, killing four, leading to introduction of new standards for

box girder bridge A box girder bridge, or box section bridge, is a bridge in which the main beams comprise girders in the shape of a hollow box. The box girder normally comprises prestressed concrete, structural steel, or a composite of steel and re ...

s in the United Kingdom.

Events

* June 19 – The

Patent Cooperation Treaty The Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) is an international patent law treaty, concluded in 1970. It provides a unified procedure for filing patent applications to protect inventions in each of its contracting states. A patent application filed und ...

is signed into

international law International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...

, providing a unified procedure for filing

patent application A patent application is a request pending at a patent office for the grant of a patent for an invention described in the patent specification and a set of one or more claims stated in a formal document, including necessary official forms and re ...

s to protect inventions.

Awards

* Fields Prize in Mathematics: Alan Baker, Heisuke Hironaka, Sergei Novikov and

John Griggs Thompson John Griggs Thompson (born October 13, 1932) is an American mathematician at the University of Florida noted for his work in the field of finite groups. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1970, the Wolf Prize in 1992, and the Abel Prize in 2008. ...

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 ...

–

Hannes Alfvén Hannes Olof Gösta Alfvén (; 30 May 1908 – 2 April 1995) was a Swedish electrical engineer, plasma physicist and winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). He described the class of MHD waves now ...

Louis Néel Louis Eugène Félix Néel (22 November 1904 – 17 November 2000) was a French physicist born in Lyon who received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1970 for his studies of the magnetic properties of solids. Biography Néel studied at the Lycé ...

** Chemistry – Luis F. Leloir **

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 ...

– Bernard Katz,

Ulf von Euler Ulf Svante von Euler (7 February 1905 – 9 March 1983) was a Swedish physiologist and pharmacologist. He shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1970 for his work on neurotransmitters. Life Ulf Svante von Euler-Chelpin was born in ...

Julius Axelrod Julius Axelrod (May 30, 1912 – December 29, 2004) was an American biochemist. He won a share of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1970 along with Bernard Katz and Ulf von Euler. The Nobel Committee honored him for his work on the re ...

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 ...

– James H. Wilkinson

Births

* March 27 –

Eleanor Maguire Eleanor Anne Maguire (born 27 March 1970) is an Irish neuroscientist. Since 2007, she has been Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London where she is also a Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow. Early life and educat ...

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

-born

neuropsychologist Neuropsychology is a branch of psychology concerned with how a person's cognition and behavior are related to the brain and the rest of the nervous system. Professionals in this branch of psychology often focus on how injuries or illnesses of t ...

. * August 1 –

Elon Lindenstrauss Elon Lindenstrauss ( he, אילון לינדנשטראוס, born August 1, 1970) is an Israeli mathematician, and a winner of the 2010 Fields Medal. Since 2004, he has been a professor at Princeton University. In 2009, he was appointed to Profess ...

, Israeli

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, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

. * September 3 –

Stanislav Smirnov Stanislav Konstantinovich Smirnov (russian: Станисла́в Константи́нович Cмирно́в; born 3 September 1970) is a Russian mathematician currently working at the University of Geneva. He was awarded the Fields Medal in ...

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

-born mathematician.

Deaths

* January 5 – Max Born (b.

1882 Events January–March * January 2 ** The Standard Oil Trust is secretly created in the United States to control multiple corporations set up by John D. Rockefeller and his associates. ** Irish-born author Oscar Wilde arrives in t ...

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

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 cau ...

and recipient 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 " ...

in 1954. * January 27 –

Marietta Blau Marietta Blau (29 April 1894 – 27 January 1970) was an Austrian physicist credited with developing photographic nuclear emulsions that were usefully able to image and accurately measure high-energy nuclear particles and events, significantly a ...

(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 ...

), Austrian physicist. * April 27 – Orii Hyōjirō (b.

1883 Events January–March * January 4 – ''Life'' magazine is founded in Los Angeles, California, United States. * January 10 – A fire at the Newhall Hotel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States, kills 73 people. * Ja ...

), Japanese animal specimen collector. * May 1 –

Ralph Hartley Ralph Vinton Lyon Hartley (November 30, 1888 – May 1, 1970) was an American electronics researcher. He invented the Hartley oscillator and the Hartley transform, and contributed to the foundations of information theory. Biography Hartley wa ...

(b.

1888 In Germany, 1888 is known as the Year of the Three Emperors. Currently, it is the year that, when written in Roman numerals, has the most digits (13). The next year that also has 13 digits is the year 2388. The record will be surpassed as late ...

), American electrical engineer. * July 20 – Margaret Reed Lewis (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 ...

), American

cell biologist Cell biology (also cellular biology or cytology) is a branch of biology that studies the structure, function, and behavior of cells. All living organisms are made of cells. A cell is the basic unit of life that is responsible for the living and ...

. * July 29 – Emanuel Miller (b.

1892 Events January–March * January 1 – Ellis Island begins accommodating immigrants to the United States. * February 1 - The historic Enterprise Bar and Grill was established in Rico, Colorado. * February 27 – Rudolf Diesel applies fo ...

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, ...

child psychiatrist. * August 1 –

Otto Heinrich Warburg Otto Heinrich Warburg (, ; 8 October 1883 – 1 August 1970), son of physicist Emil Warburg, was a German physiologist, medical doctor, and Nobel laureate. He served as an officer in the elite Uhlan (cavalry regiment) during the First World War, ...

(b.

), German physiologist and winner of the 1931

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 ...

. * September 22 –

Vojtěch Jarník Vojtěch Jarník (; 1897–1970) was a Czech mathematician who worked for many years as a professor and administrator at Charles University, and helped found the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. He is the namesake of Jarník's algorithm for ...

(b.

1897 Events January–March * January 2 – The International Alpha Omicron Pi sorority is founded, in New York City. * January 4 – A British force is ambushed by Chief Ologbosere, son-in-law of the ruler. This leads to a puni ...

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus' Places * Czech, ...

mathematician.

References

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