The year 1999 in science Science is a systematic enterprise of gathering knowledge about nature and organizing and condensing that knowledge into testable laws and theories. As knowledge has increased, some methods have proved more reliable than others, and today the scientific method is the standard for science. It includes the use of careful observation, experimentation, and technology Technology is a term referring to whatever can be said at any particular historical period, concerning the state of the art in the whole general field of practical know-how and tool use. It therefore encompasses all that can be said about arts, crafts, professions, applied sciences, and skills. By extension it can also refer to any systems or involved some significant events.
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Aeronautics
- February 27 - While trying to circumnavigate Circumnavigation – literally, "navigation of a circumference" – refers to travelling all the way around an island, a continent, or the entire planet Earth the world in a hot air balloon On Nov 21, 1783, in Paris, France, the first untethered manned flight was made by Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d'Arlandes in a hot air balloon created on Dec 14, 1782 by the Montgolfier brothers. Recently, balloon envelopes have been made in all kinds of shapes, such as hot dogs, rocket ships, and the shapes of, Colin Prescot and Andy Elson set a new endurance record after being in a hot air balloon for 233 hours and 55 minutes.
- March 3 - Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones Lewis Brian Hopkin Jones known as Brian Jones was an English musician and founding member of The Rolling Stones. Jones was a gifted multi-instrumentalist, and known for the use of non-traditional instruments such as the sitar and marimba and to experiment with the slide guitar in the work of The Rolling Stones. Jones is also remembered for begin their attempt to circumnavigate the world in a hot air balloon without stopping. Their journey ended in success on March 20.
Astronomy and space exploration
Total solar eclipse of August 11, viewed from France- January 31 - A total penumbral lunar eclipse
- February 7 - Stardust Stardust is an American interplanetary mission of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, whose primary purpose was to investigate the makeup of the comet Wild 2 and its coma. It was launched on February 7, 1999 by NASA, travelled nearly 3 billion miles , and returned to Earth on January 15, 2006 to release a sample material capsule. It is the first is launched on a mission to collect samples of a comet A comet is an icy small Solar System body that, when close enough to the Sun, displays a visible coma , and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena are both due to the effects of solar radiation and the solar wind upon the nucleus of the comet. Comet nuclei are themselves loose collections of ice, dust, and small rocky particles, ranging from a few coma In astronomy, a coma is the nebulous envelope around the nucleus of a comet. It is formed when the comet passes close to the Sun on its highly elliptical orbit; as the comet warms, parts of it sublimate, and return them to Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets. It is sometimes referred to as the World, the Blue Planet,[note 6] or by its Latin name, Terra.[note 7].
- February 16 - Annular solar eclipse, visible from Australia For at least 40,000 years before European settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who belonged to one or more of the roughly 250 language groups. After sporadic visits by fishermen from the immediate north and discovery by Dutch explorers in 1606, Australia's eastern half was claimed by the British.
- July 20 - Mercury program Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States. It ran from 1959 through 1963 with the goal of putting a human in orbit around the Earth. The Mercury-Atlas 6 flight on February 20, 1962, was the first Mercury flight to achieve this goal. The program included 20 unmanned launches followed by six flights with astronaut: Liberty Bell 7 Mercury-Redstone 4 was a Mercury program manned space mission launched on July 21, 1961 using a Redstone rocket. Its spacecraft was named Liberty Bell 7 and performed a suborbital flight piloted by astronaut Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom. It reached an altitude of over 118.26 mi and traveled about 300 mi (480 km). The Redstone was MRLV-8 and is raised from the Atlantic Ocean.
- July 28 - Partial lunar eclipse, visible from Australia, eastern Asia, and western North America.
- July 31 - NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an Executive Branch agency of the United States government, responsible for the nation's civilian space program and aeronautics and aerospace research. Since February 2006 NASA's self-described mission statement is to "pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and intentionally crashes the Lunar Prospector The Lunar Prospector mission was the third selected by NASA for full development and construction as part of the Discovery Program. At a cost of $62.8 million, the 19-month mission was designed for a low polar orbit investigation of the Moon, including mapping of surface composition and possible polar ice deposits, measurements of magnetic and spacecraft into the Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite[nb 4] and is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System. It is the largest natural satellite in the Solar System relative to the size of its planet, a quarter the diameter of Earth and 1/81 its mass, and is the second densest satellite after Io. It is in synchronous rotation with Earth, always, thus ending its mission to detect frozen water Water is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. Its 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 vapor or steam on the moon's surface.
- August 11 - Total solar eclipse, visible from Europe, across the Middle east, and ending in India India, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with 1.18 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world. Mainland India is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal on the.
- NASA loses two 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. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin atmosphere, having surface features reminiscent both of the impact probes, the Mars Climate Orbiter The Mars Climate Orbiter was one of two NASA spacecraft in the Mars Surveyor '98 program, the other being the Mars Polar Lander (formerly the Mars Surveyor '98 Lander). The two missions were to study the Martian weather, climate, water and carbon dioxide budget, in order to understand the reservoirs, behavior, and atmospheric role of volatiles and and the Mars Polar Lander Mars Polar Lander is one of two exploration vehicles of the NASA Mars Surveyor '98 program. Launched on 3 January 1999, 23 days after its partner, the Mars Climate Orbiter, the mission ended in failure with the loss of both craft in separate incidents. After attempts to re-establish communications failed following entry into Mars atmosphere, the.
- The Subaru 8.3-m and Gemini North 8.1-m reflecting telescopes A reflecting telescope is an optical telescope which uses a single or combination of curved mirrors that reflect light and form an image. The reflecting telescope was invented in the 17th century as an alternative to the refracting telescope which, at that time, was a design that suffered from severe chromatic aberration. Although reflecting open at the Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii.
- The Cetus Dwarf galaxy is discovered.
Biology
- The bacterium Thiomargarita namibiensis Thiomargarita namibiensis is a gram-negative coccoid Proteobacterium, found in the ocean sediments of the continental shelf of Namibia. It is the largest bacterium ever discovered, generally 0.1–0.3 mm wide, but sometimes up to 0.75 mm (750 µm) is discovered off the coast of Namibia Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia , is a country in southern Africa whose western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and east. It gained independence from South Africa on 21 March 1990 following the Namibian War of Independence. Its. At 0.3mm in diameter, it is largest bacteria The bacteria ( [bækˈtɪəriə] ; singular: bacterium)[α] are a large group of single-celled, prokaryote microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a wide range of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods and spirals. Bacteria are ubiquitous in every habitat on Earth, growing in soil, acidic hot springs, radioactive waste, yet[update] discovered.
Chemistry
Computer science
- March 26 - The Melissa worm attacks the Internet The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet Protocol Suite to serve billions of users worldwide. It is a network of networks that consists of millions of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope that are linked by a broad array of electronic and.
- First working 3-qubit NMR computer demonstrated at IBM International Business Machines (NYSE: IBM) is a multinational computer, technology and IT consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, North Castle, New York, United States. IBM is the world's fourth largest technology company and the second most valuable by global brand (after Coca-Cola). IBM is one of the few information technology companies's Almaden Research Center. First execution of Grover's algorithm.
Geology
- January 25 - A 6.0 Richter scale The Richter magnitude scale, also known as the local magnitude scale, assigns a single number to quantify the amount of seismic energy released by an earthquake. It is a base-10 logarithmic scale obtained by calculating the logarithm of the combined horizontal amplitude (shaking amplitude) of the largest displacement from zero on a particular type earthquake An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes are measured with a seismometer; a device which also records is known as a seismograph. The moment magnitude (or the related and mostly obsolete Richter magnitude) of an earthquake is conventionally reported, with magnitude 3 or hits western Colombia Colombia (pronounced /kəˈlʌmbiə/ ), officially the Republic of Colombia (Spanish: República de Colombia, pronounced [reˈpuβlika ðe koˈlombja] ( listen)), is a constitutional republic in northwestern South America. Colombia is bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea;, killing at least 1,000.
- August 17 - A 7.4-magnitude earthquake strikes northwestern Turkey Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey ( Türkiye Cumhuriyeti (help·info)), is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in western Asia and Thrace (Rumelia) in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe. Turkey is one of the six independent Turkic states. Turkey is bordered by eight countries: Bulgaria to the, killing more than 17,000 and injuring 44,000.
Telecommunications
- The first BlackBerry The blackberry is an edible fruit produced by any of several species in the Rubus genus of the Rosaceae family. The fruit is not a true berry; botanically it is termed an aggregate fruit. The plants typically have biennial canes and perennial roots. Blackberries and raspberries are also called caneberries or brambles. It is a widespread, and well is released, using the same hardware Hardware is a general term for the physical artifacts of a technology. It may also mean the physical components of a computer system, in the form of computer hardware as the Inter@ctive pager 950, and running on the Mobitex Mobitex is an OSI based open standard, national public access wireless packet-switched data network. Mobitex puts great emphasis on safety and reliability with its use by military, police, firefighters and ambulance services. Mobitex was developed in the beginning of the 1980s by the Swedish Televerket Radio. From 1988 the development took place network.
Awards
- Nobel Prizes The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. They were established in 1895 by the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite. The prizes in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace were first awarded in 1901. The
- 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 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine. The first Nobel - Gerardus 't Hooft Gerardus 't Hooft (born July 5, 1946, Den Helder) is a professor in theoretical physics at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. He shared the 1999 Nobel Prize in Physics with Martinus J. G. Veltman "for elucidating the quantum structure of electroweak interactions". Asteroid 9491 Thooft is named in his honor; he has written a, Martinus J.G. Veltman
- 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, peace, and physiology or medicine. This award is - Ahmed H. Zewail Ahmed Hassan Zewail (born February 26, 1946 in Damanhour, Egypt) is an Egyptian-American scientist, and the winner of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on femtochemistry. Also Dr. Zewail has been nominated and will participate in President Barack Obama's Presidential Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). The council
- Medicine The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded once a year by the Swedish Karolinska Institute. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in Physics, Chemistry, Literature, Peace, and Physiology or Medicine since 1901. The first Nobel Prize in Physiology or - Günter Blobel Günter Blobel is a German American biologist
- Turing Award The A. M. Turing Award is given annually 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 computer field". The Turing Award is recognized as the "highest: Fred Brooks Frederick Phillips Brooks, Jr. is a software engineer and computer scientist, best-known for managing the development of OS/360, then later writing candidly about the process in his seminal book The Mythical Man-Month. "It is a very humbling experience to make a multi-million-dollar mistake, but it is also very memorable." Brooks
- Wollaston Medal for Geology The Wollaston Medal is a scientific award for geology, the highest award granted by the Geological Society of London: John Frederick Dewey
Births
Deaths
- February 25 - Glenn T. Seaborg Glenn Theodore Seaborg was an American scientist who won the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for "discoveries in the chemistry of the transuranium elements," contributed to the discovery and isolation of ten elements, developed the actinide concept, which led to the current arrangement of the actinoid series in the periodic table of the (b. 1912), physical chemist A chemist is a scientist trained in the science of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density, acidity, size and shape. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms. Chemists carefully measure substance, Nobel laureate in Chemistry
- May 26 - Waldo Semon Semon put his name into the history books for inventing vinyl, the world's second most used plastic. He found the formula for vinyl by mixing a few synthetic polymers, and the result was a substance that was elastic, but wasn't adhesive. Semon worked on methods of improving rubber, and eventually developed a synthetic substitute. On December 11, 19 (b. 1898), inventor.
- November 11 - Vivian Ernest Fuchs (d. 1908), geologist A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid and liquid matter that constitutes the Earth as well as the processes and history that has shaped it. Geologists usually engage in studying geology. Geologists, studying more of an applied science than a theoretical one, must approach Geology using physics, chemistry and biology as well as other and explorer Categories: Explorers | Exploration | Lists of explorers .
Organisations
- CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research , known as CERN (see History), pronounced /ˈsɜrn/ (French pronunciation: [sɛʁn]), is the world's largest particle physics laboratory, situated in the northwest suburbs of Geneva on the Franco–Swiss border (46°14′3″N 6°3′19″E / 46.23417°N 6.05528°E), established in 1954. The: Bulgaria becomes a member of CERN.
Categories: 1999 in science | 1999 | Years in science
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