1909 in science

The year 1909 CE in science and technology included many events, some of which are listed below.

See also: 1908 in science, other events of 1909, 1910 in science, and the list of years in science.

Table of contents

1 Archeaology 2 Astronomy 3 Geology 4 Physics 5 Medicine 6 Technology 7 Awards 8 Births 9 Deaths

Archeaology

• Discovery of the Burgess Shale Cambrian fossil site

Astronomy

• Comet Halley first becomes visible on a photographic plate.

Geology

• Ernest Shackleton's expedition finds the magnetic South Pole.

Physics

• Albert Einstein together with Marcel Grossmann starts to develop a theory which would bind metric tensor g_ik, which defines a space geometry, with a source of gravity, that is with mass
• Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden discover large angle deflections of alpha particles by thin metal foils
• Ernest Rutherford and Thomas Royds demonstrate that alpha particles are doubly ionized helium atoms

Medicine

• Karl Landsteiner develops system of blood groups.

Technology

• Leo Baekeland presents the Bakelite hard thermosetting plastic
• Einar Dessau uses a short-wave radio transmitter becoming the first to broadcast as a ham radio operator.
• Louis Bleriot is the first man to fly across the English Channel in a heavier-than-air craft.

Awards

• Nobel Prizes
  • Physics - Guglielmo Marconi, Karl Ferdinand Braun
  • Chemistry - Wilhelm Ostwald
  • Medicine - Emil Theodor Kocher

Births

• January 5 - Stephen Cole Kleene, mathematician
• April 13 - Stanislaw Marcin Ulam, mathematician
• May 7 - Edwin H. Land, inventor and founder of Polaroid
• November 24 - Gerhard Gentzen, mathematician
• Giulio Racah, mathematician and physicist

Deaths

• January 12 - Hermann Minkowski, mathematician
• July 11 - Simon Newcomb, astronomer
• August 27 - Emil Christian Hansen, fermentation physiologist