2002 in science
Encyclopedia
The year 2002 in science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...

and technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...

 involved some significant events.

Astronomy and space exploration

  • February 19 - NASA
    NASA
    The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...

    's Mars Odyssey space probe
    Space probe
    A robotic spacecraft is a spacecraft with no humans on board, that is usually under telerobotic control. A robotic spacecraft designed to make scientific research measurements is often called a space probe. Many space missions are more suited to telerobotic rather than crewed operation, due to...

     begins to map the surface of Mars
    Mars
    Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...

     using its thermal emission imaging system.
  • May 26 - The Mars Odyssey finds signs of huge water
    Water
    Water is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. A water molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state . Water also exists in a...

     ice
    Ice
    Ice is water frozen into the solid state. Usually ice is the phase known as ice Ih, which is the most abundant of the varying solid phases on the Earth's surface. It can appear transparent or opaque bluish-white color, depending on the presence of impurities or air inclusions...

     deposits on the planet Mars.
  • June 4 - Quaoar
    50000 Quaoar
    50000 Quaoar is a rocky trans-Neptunian object in the Kuiper belt with one known moon. Discovered on June 4, 2002 by astronomers Chad Trujillo and Michael Brown at the California Institute of Technology from images acquired at the Samuel Oschin Telescope at Palomar Observatory, it is thought by...

     is discovered.
  • June 10 - Annular solar eclipse
    Solar eclipse of June 10, 2002
    An annular solar eclipse occurred on June 10, 2002. -External links:Photos:*...

    .
  • December 4 - Total solar eclipse.

Biology

  • April 18 - New order of insect
    Insect
    Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...

    s, Mantophasmatodea
    Mantophasmatodea
    Mantophasmatodea is a suborder of carnivorous African insects discovered in 2002, originally considered to be a new order, but since relegated to subordinal status, and comprising the single family Mantophasmatidae...

    , announced.
  • Publication of Systema Porifera: a guide to the classification of sponges edited by John N. A. Hooper
    John Hooper (marine biologist)
    John N.A. Hooper is an Australian marine biologist and writer on science. He is the current Head of Biodiversity & Geosciences Programs at the Queensland Museum. His research has included studying the possible medical benefits of marine sponges, including beta blockers for heart disease, and for...

     and Rob W. M. Van Soest.

Cybernetics

  • March 14 - Prof. Kevin Warwick
    Kevin Warwick
    Kevin Warwick is a British scientist and professor of cybernetics at the University of Reading, Reading, Berkshire, United Kingdom...

     has part of his nervous system experimentally linked to a computer.

Geology

  • January 17 - Eruption of Mount Nyiragongo
    Mount Nyiragongo
    Mount Nyiragongo is a stratovolcano in the Virunga Mountains associated with the Great Rift Valley. It is located inside Virunga National Park, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, about 20 km north of the town of Goma and Lake Kivu and just west of the border with Rwanda. The main crater...

     in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
    Democratic Republic of the Congo
    The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a state located in Central Africa. It is the second largest country in Africa by area and the eleventh largest in the world...

    , displacing an estimated 400,000 people.

Mathematics

  • August 6 - Polynomial-time primality test
    Primality test
    A primality test is an algorithm for determining whether an input number is prime. Amongst other fields of mathematics, it is used for cryptography. Unlike integer factorization, primality tests do not generally give prime factors, only stating whether the input number is prime or not...

     published.
  • November 12 - Grigori Perelman
    Grigori Perelman
    Grigori Yakovlevich Perelman is a Russian mathematician who has made landmark contributions to Riemannian geometry and geometric topology.In 1992, Perelman proved the soul conjecture. In 2002, he proved Thurston's geometrization conjecture...

     posts the first of a series of eprints to the arXiv
    ArXiv
    The arXiv |Chi]], χ) is an archive for electronic preprints of scientific papers in the fields of mathematics, physics, astronomy, computer science, quantitative biology, statistics, and quantitative finance which can be accessed online. In many fields of mathematics and physics, almost all...

    , in which he proves the century old Poincaré conjecture
    Poincaré conjecture
    In mathematics, the Poincaré conjecture is a theorem about the characterization of the three-dimensional sphere , which is the hypersphere that bounds the unit ball in four-dimensional space...

    .

Medicine

  • November - Severe acute respiratory syndrome
    Severe acute respiratory syndrome
    Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome is a respiratory disease in humans which is caused by the SARS coronavirus . Between November 2002 and July 2003 an outbreak of SARS in Hong Kong nearly became a pandemic, with 8,422 cases and 916 deaths worldwide according to the WHO...

     (SARS) epidemic
    Epidemic
    In epidemiology, an epidemic , occurs when new cases of a certain disease, in a given human population, and during a given period, substantially exceed what is expected based on recent experience...

     begins in Guangdong
    Guangdong
    Guangdong is a province on the South China Sea coast of the People's Republic of China. The province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province...

     Province of China
    China
    Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

    .
  • December 19 - Clozapine
    Clozapine
    Clozapine is an antipsychotic medication used in the treatment of schizophrenia, and is also used off-label in the treatment of bipolar disorder. Wyatt. R and Chew...

     is the first drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration
    Food and Drug Administration
    The Food and Drug Administration is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, one of the United States federal executive departments...

     for reducing the risk of suicidal behaviour.

Physics

  • Claims regarding bubble fusion
    Bubble fusion
    Bubble fusion, also known as sonofusion, is the non-technical name for a nuclear fusion reaction hypothesized to occur during a high-pressure version of sonoluminescence, an extreme form of acoustic cavitation...

    , in which a table-top apparatus is reported as producing small-scale fusion
    Cold fusion
    Cold fusion, also called low-energy nuclear reaction , refers to the hypothesis that nuclear fusion might explain the results of a group of experiments conducted at ordinary temperatures . Both the experimental results and the hypothesis are disputed...

     in a liquid
    Liquid
    Liquid is one of the three classical states of matter . Like a gas, a liquid is able to flow and take the shape of a container. Some liquids resist compression, while others can be compressed. Unlike a gas, a liquid does not disperse to fill every space of a container, and maintains a fairly...

     undergoing acoustic cavitation
    Cavitation
    Cavitation is the formation and then immediate implosion of cavities in a liquidi.e. small liquid-free zones that are the consequence of forces acting upon the liquid...

     are published.

Technology

  • January 7- The iMac G4
    IMac G4
    The iMac G4 was a computer that was produced by Apple from the beginning of 2002 to mid 2004. It replaced the aging iMac G3. The computer had a new design compared to older Macs. It had a 15-inch LCD which was mounted on an adjustable arm above a hemisphere containing a full-size, tray-loading...

     is introduced by Apple, Inc., as the next generation iMac
    IMac
    The iMac is a range of all-in-one Macintosh desktop computers built by Apple. It has been the primary part of Apple's consumer desktop offerings since its introduction in 1998, and has evolved through five distinct forms....

    .
  • June 10 - First direct electronic communication experiment between the nervous systems of two humans carried out by Kevin Warwick
    Kevin Warwick
    Kevin Warwick is a British scientist and professor of cybernetics at the University of Reading, Reading, Berkshire, United Kingdom...

     at the University of Reading
    University of Reading
    The University of Reading is a university in the English town of Reading, Berkshire. The University was established in 1892 as University College, Reading and received its Royal Charter in 1926. It is based on several campuses in, and around, the town of Reading.The University has a long tradition...

    .
  • November 4 - A Tactical high energy laser
    Tactical High Energy Laser
    The Tactical High-Energy Laser, or THEL, is a laser developed for military use, also known as the Nautilus laser system. The mobile version is the Mobile Tactical High-Energy Laser, or MTHEL.- Demonstrator :...

     prototype shoots down an incoming artillery shell.

Awards

  • Fields Prize in Mathematics
    Fields Medal
    The Fields Medal, officially known as International Medal for Outstanding Discoveries in Mathematics, is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians not over 40 years of age at each International Congress of the International Mathematical Union , a meeting that takes place every four...

    : Laurent Lafforgue
    Laurent Lafforgue
    Laurent Lafforgue is a French mathematician.He won 2 silver medals at International Mathematical Olympiad in 1984 and 1985....

     and Vladimir Voevodsky
    Vladimir Voevodsky
    Vladimir Voevodsky is a Russian American mathematician. His work in developing a homotopy theory for algebraic varieties and formulating motivic cohomology led to the award of a Fields Medal in 2002.- Biography :...

  • Nobel Prize
    Nobel Prize
    The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...

    s
    • Chemistry
      Nobel Prize in Chemistry
      The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, physics, literature,...

      • John B. Fenn (Virginia Commonwealth University
        Virginia Commonwealth University
        Virginia Commonwealth University is a public university located in Richmond, Virginia. It comprises two campuses in the Downtown Richmond area, the product of a merger between the Richmond Professional Institute and the Medical College of Virginia in 1968...

        , Richmond, USA) and Koichi Tanaka
        Koichi Tanaka
        is a Japanese scientist who shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2002 for developing a novel method for mass spectrometric analyses of biological macromolecules with John Bennett Fenn and Kurt Wuthrich ....

         (Shimadzu Corp.
        Shimadzu Corp.
        is a manufacturer of precision instruments, measuring instruments and medical equipment, based in Kyoto, Japan.The company was established by in 1875. X-ray devices, the spectrum camera, the electron microscope, and the gas chromatograph were developed and commercialized in advance of other...

        , Kyoto, Japan) "for their development of soft desorption ionisation methods for mass spectrometric analyses of biological macromolecules"
      • Kurt Wüthrich
        Kurt Wüthrich
        Kurt Wüthrich is a Swiss chemist and Nobel Chemistry laureate.-Biography:Born in Aarberg, Switzerland, Wüthrich was educated in chemistry, physics, and mathematics at the University of Berne before pursuing his Ph.D. under the direction of Silvio Fallab at the University of Basel, awarded in 1964...

         (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zürich
        ETH Zurich
        The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich or ETH Zürich is an engineering, science, technology, mathematics and management university in the City of Zurich, Switzerland....

        , Switzerland and The Scripps Research Institute
        The Scripps Research Institute
        The Scripps Research Institute is an American medical research facility that focuses on research in the basic biomedical sciences. Headquartered in La Jolla, California, with a sister facility in Jupiter, Florida, the institute is home to 3,000 scientists, technicians, graduate students, and...

        , La Jolla, USA) "for his development of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy for determining the three-dimensional structure of biological macromolecules in solution"
    • Physics
      Nobel Prize in Physics
      The Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded once a year by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895 and awarded since 1901; the others are the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Peace Prize, and...

      • Raymond Davis Jr.
        Raymond Davis Jr.
        Raymond Davis, Jr. was an American chemist, physicist, and Nobel Prize in Physics laureate.-Early life and education:...

         (Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA) and Masatoshi Koshiba
        Masatoshi Koshiba
        is a Japanese physicist. He jointly won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2002.He graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1951 and received a Ph.D. in physics at the University of Rochester, New York, in 1955...

         (International Center for Elementary Particle Physics
        International Center for Elementary Particle Physics
        The is a division of the University of Tokyo, Japan dedicated to the study of particle physics....

        , University of Tokyo, Japan) "for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, in particular for the detection of cosmic neutrinos"
      • Riccardo Giacconi
        Riccardo Giacconi
        Riccardo Giacconi is an Italian/American Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist who laid the foundations of X-ray astronomy. He is currently a professor at the Johns Hopkins University.- Biography :...

         (Associated Universities Inc., Washington DC, USA) "for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, which have led to the discovery of cosmic X-ray sources"
    • Medicine
      Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
      The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine administered by the Nobel Foundation, is awarded once a year for outstanding discoveries in the field of life science and medicine. It is one of five Nobel Prizes established in 1895 by Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, in his will...

      • Sydney Brenner
        Sydney Brenner
        Sydney Brenner, CH FRS is a South African biologist and a 2002 Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine laureate, shared with H...

        , H. Robert Horvitz
        H. Robert Horvitz
        Howard Robert Horvitz is an American biologist best known for his research on the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans.-Life:Horvitz did his undergraduate studies at MIT in 1968, where he joined Alpha Epsilon Pi...

         and John E. Sulston
        John E. Sulston
        Sir John Edward Sulston FRS is a British biologist. He is a joint winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.He is currently Chair of the Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovation at the University of Manchester....

         "for their discoveries concerning genetic regulation of organ development and programmed cell death"
  • Turing Award
    Turing Award
    The Turing Award, in full The ACM A.M. Turing Award, is an annual award given by the Association for Computing Machinery to "an individual selected for contributions of a technical nature made to the computing community. The contributions should be of lasting and major technical importance to the...

    : Ron Rivest
    Ron Rivest
    Ronald Linn Rivest is a cryptographer. He is the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Professor of Computer Science at MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and a member of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory...

    , Adi Shamir
    Adi Shamir
    Adi Shamir is an Israeli cryptographer. He is a co-inventor of the RSA algorithm , a co-inventor of the Feige–Fiat–Shamir identification scheme , one of the inventors of differential cryptanalysis and has made numerous contributions to the fields of cryptography and computer...

    , and Leonard Adleman
    Leonard Adleman
    Leonard Max Adleman is an American theoretical computer scientist and professor of computer science and molecular biology at the University of Southern California. He is known for being a co-inventor of the RSA cryptosystem in 1977, and of DNA computing...

  • Wollaston Medal
    Wollaston Medal
    The Wollaston Medal is a scientific award for geology, the highest award granted by the Geological Society of London.The medal is named after William Hyde Wollaston, and was first awarded in 1831...

     for Geology: Rudolf Trumpy
    Rudolf Trumpy
    Rudolf Trümpy is a Swiss Geologist, who was born in the small Swiss town of Glarus. He graduated from the ETH Zürich in the late 1940s with a thesis titled: “Der Lias der Glarner Alpen”. From 1947 to 1953 he spent his post-doctoral years in Lausanne before being appointed professor at ETH Zürich...


Deaths

  • January 8 - Aleksandr Mikhailovich Prokhorov
    Aleksandr Mikhailovich Prokhorov
    Alexander Mikhaylovich Prokhorov was a Russian physicist known for his pioneering research on lasers and masers for which he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1964 with Charles Hard Townes and Nikolay Basov....

     (b. 1916
    1916 in science
    The year 1916 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Chemistry:* Gilbert N. Lewis and Irving Langmuir formulate an electron shell model of chemical bonding....

    ), physicist
    Physicist
    A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...

    .
  • February 6 - Max Perutz
    Max Perutz
    Max Ferdinand Perutz, OM, CH, CBE, FRS was an Austrian-born British molecular biologist, who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with John Kendrew, for their studies of the structures of hemoglobin and globular proteins...

     (b. 1914
    1914 in science
    The year 1914 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Astronomy and space exploration:* Sinope, the outermost known moon of Jupiter, is discovered by Seth Barnes Nicholson at Lick Observatory....

    ), biologist
    Biologist
    A biologist is a scientist devoted to and producing results in biology through the study of life. Typically biologists study organisms and their relationship to their environment. Biologists involved in basic research attempt to discover underlying mechanisms that govern how organisms work...

    .
  • February 10 - Harold Furth
    Harold Furth
    Harold P. Furth was an Austrian-American physicist.Furth emigrated to the United States in 1941. He graduated from Harvard University with a Bachelor's degree in 1951 and received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1960...

     (b. 1930
    1930 in science
    The year 1930 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Astronomy and space exploration:* February 18 - Pluto is discovered by Clyde Tombaugh.* Bernhard Schmidt invents the Schmidt Camera.-Atmospheric chemistry:...

    ), expert in plasma physics and nuclear fusion
    Nuclear fusion
    Nuclear fusion is the process by which two or more atomic nuclei join together, or "fuse", to form a single heavier nucleus. This is usually accompanied by the release or absorption of large quantities of energy...

    .
  • March 3 - Roy Porter
    Roy Porter
    Roy Sydney Porter was a British historian noted for his prolific work on the history of medicine.-Life:...

     (b. 1946
    1946 in science
    The year 1946 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Biology:* November 10 - Peter Scott opens the Slimbridge Wetland Reserve in England.* Karl von Frisch publishes "Die Tänze der Bienen" ....

    ), medical historian.
  • April 18 - Thor Heyerdahl
    Thor Heyerdahl
    Thor Heyerdahl was a Norwegian ethnographer and adventurer with a background in zoology and geography. He became notable for his Kon-Tiki expedition, in which he sailed by raft from South America to the Tuamotu Islands...

     (b. 1914
    1914 in science
    The year 1914 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Astronomy and space exploration:* Sinope, the outermost known moon of Jupiter, is discovered by Seth Barnes Nicholson at Lick Observatory....

    ), explorer, led the Kon-Tiki
    Kon-Tiki
    Kon-Tiki was the raft used by Norwegian explorer and writer Thor Heyerdahl in his 1947 expedition across the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Polynesian islands. It was named after the Inca sun god, Viracocha, for whom "Kon-Tiki" was said to be an old name...

    expedition.
  • May 20 - Stephen Jay Gould
    Stephen Jay Gould
    Stephen Jay Gould was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was also one of the most influential and widely read writers of popular science of his generation....

     (b. 1941
    1941 in science
    The year 1941 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Biology:* George Wells Beadle and Edward Lawrie Tatum publish "Genetic Control of Biochemical Reactions in Neurospora" which shows that specific genes code for specific proteins.-Chemistry:* February 23 -...

    ), paleontologist/evolutionist.
  • June 20 - Erwin Chargaff
    Erwin Chargaff
    Erwin Chargaff was an American biochemist who emigrated to the United States during the Nazi era. Through careful experimentation, Chargaff discovered two rules that helped lead to the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA...

     (b. 1905
    1905 in science
    The year 1905 in science and technology involved some significant events, particularly in physics, listed below.-Astronomy:* January 2 - Charles Dillon Perrine at Lick Observatory discovers Elara, one of Jupiter's natural satellites....

    ), biochemist
    Biochemist
    Biochemists are scientists who are trained in biochemistry. Typical biochemists study chemical processes and chemical transformations in living organisms. The prefix of "bio" in "biochemist" can be understood as a fusion of "biological chemist."-Role:...

    .
  • June 29 - Ole-Johan Dahl
    Ole-Johan Dahl
    Ole-Johan Dahl was a Norwegian computer scientist and is considered to be one of the fathers of Simula and object-oriented programming along with Kristen Nygaard.- Career :...

     (b. 1931
    1931 in science
    The year 1931 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Mathematics:* January - Kurt Gödel's "On Formally Undecidable Propositions..." is published in Monatshefte für Mathematik.-Technology:...

    ), computer scientist
    Computer scientist
    A computer scientist is a scientist who has acquired knowledge of computer science, the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and their application in computer systems....

    , invented concepts in object-oriented programming
    Object-oriented programming
    Object-oriented programming is a programming paradigm using "objects" – data structures consisting of data fields and methods together with their interactions – to design applications and computer programs. Programming techniques may include features such as data abstraction,...

    .
  • July 4 - Laurent Schwartz
    Laurent Schwartz
    Laurent-Moïse Schwartz was a French mathematician. He pioneered the theory of distributions, which gives a well-defined meaning to objects such as the Dirac delta function. He was awarded the Fields medal in 1950 for his work...

     (b. 1915
    1915 in science
    The year 1915 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Astronomy:* Pluto is photographed for the first time but not recognized as a planet....

    ), mathematician
    Mathematician
    A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....

    .
  • August 6 - Edsger Dijkstra
    Edsger Dijkstra
    Edsger Wybe Dijkstra ; ) was a Dutch computer scientist. He received the 1972 Turing Award for fundamental contributions to developing programming languages, and was the Schlumberger Centennial Chair of Computer Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin from 1984 until 2000.Shortly before his...

     (b. 1930
    1930 in science
    The year 1930 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Astronomy and space exploration:* February 18 - Pluto is discovered by Clyde Tombaugh.* Bernhard Schmidt invents the Schmidt Camera.-Atmospheric chemistry:...

    ), computer scientist.
  • August 31 - George Porter
    George Porter
    George Hornidge Porter, Baron Porter of Luddenham, OM, FRS was a British chemist.- Life :Porter was born in Stainforth, near Thorne, South Yorkshire. He was educated at Thorne Grammar School, then won a scholarship to the University of Leeds and gained his first degree in chemistry...

     (b. 1920
    1920 in science
    The year 1920 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-History of science and technology:* Newcomen Society founded in the United Kingdom for the study of the history of engineering and technology.-Medicine:...

    ), Nobel laureate in chemistry
    Nobel Prize in Chemistry
    The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, physics, literature,...

    .
  • September 21 - Robert Lull Forward (b. 1932
    1932 in science
    The year 1932 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Astronomy and space sciences:* Estonian astronomer Ernst Öpik postulates that long-period comets originate in an orbiting cloud at the outermost edge of the Solar System.-Biology:* Geneticist J. B. S...

    ), science fiction
    Science fiction
    Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

     author and physicist.
  • October 18 - Nikolai Rukavishnikov
    Nikolai Rukavishnikov
    |Nikolai Nikolayevich Rukavishnikov was a Soviet cosmonaut who flew three space missions of the Soyuz programme: Soyuz 10, Soyuz 16, and Soyuz 33...

     (b. 1932
    1932 in science
    The year 1932 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Astronomy and space sciences:* Estonian astronomer Ernst Öpik postulates that long-period comets originate in an orbiting cloud at the outermost edge of the Solar System.-Biology:* Geneticist J. B. S...

    ), cosmonaut
    Astronaut
    An astronaut or cosmonaut is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft....

    .
  • November 2 - Charles Sheffield
    Charles Sheffield
    Charles Sheffield , was an English-born mathematician, physicist and science fiction author. He had been a President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and of the American Astronautical Society....

     (b. 1935
    1935 in science
    The year 1935 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Geology:* Charles Richter and Beno Gutenberg develop the Richter magnitude scale for quantifying earthquakes.-History of science:...

    ), science fiction author and physicist.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK