SCIENTIFIC EVENTS

1945- 1968

1945: NOBEL PRIZE FOR MEDICINE AND PHYSIOLOGY WAS AWARDED

JOINTLY TO SIR ALEXANDER FLEMING, ERNST BORIS CHAIN AND SIR
HOWARD WALTER FLOREY

Sir Scot Alexander Fleming (a Scottish biologist, pharmacologist and botanist)

discovered penicillin based on careful study as well as accidental factors. He served
as a military doctor during the First World War and he observed that antiseptics only
temporarily cured the wounded soldiers. Later in his laboratory he realized that same
samples of microbe culture, which he had thrown away, showed a kind of mould
fighting bacteria.
That fact led him, after much research, to discover a fungus, penicillin, which could
fight bacteria.
Because of this discovery and its curative effect in various infectious diseases, in
1945, he was awarded together with Ernst Boris Chain (a German-born British
biochemist) and Sir Howard Walter Florey (an Australian pharmacologist and
pathologist) the Nobel prize for Medicine and Physiology.

1953: THE DISCOVERY OF THE STRUCTURE OF DNA

On April 25, James Watson and Francis Crick, working together at Cambridge,
formally announced that they had determined the structure of DNA as a double- helix
polymer or a spiral of two DNA strands, each containing a long chain of monomer
nucleotides, wound around each other. According to their findings, DNA replicates
itself by being separated into individual strands, each of which becomes the template
for a new double helix.
The explanation of the way the structure of DNA determines particular genetic
choices, is considered to be the most important discovery of the 20th century. It
allows scientists to acquire a better understanding of life genetics and of certain
hereditary diseases. DNA conveys all the genetic information of a cell and carries
them from one generation to another.
Nine years later, in 1962, Watson and Crick shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or
Medicine with Maurice Wilkins, for solving a fundamental mystery of sciencehow it
was possible for genetic instructions to be held inside organisms and passed from
generation to generation.
Half a century later, important new implications of this contribution to science are still
coming to light.

1954: FOUNDATION OF CERN

On 29th September 1954 the convection for the creation of the biggest nuclear
research center known as CERN (French name Conseil Europen pour la
Recherche Nuclaire) was signed by 12 at first states- founders, among which
Greece as well.
The laboratory is today equipped with the biggest particle accelerator, cyclotron and
in the beginning it was engaged in studying atomic nucleus, but soon it began to deal
with the study of interactions between subatomic particles.
Its main function is to provide the particle accelerators and other infrastructure
needed in the field of high-energy physics.
CERN operates a network of six accelerators and a decelerator. Each machine in the
chain increases the energy of particle beams before delivering them to experiments
or to the next more powerful accelerator.
Nowadays around 10000 scientists and engineers from 500 universities from all over
the world and of 80 different nationalities are employed in the CERN.

1956: THE INVENTION OF VIDEO

In 1956 Russian engineer Alexander Poniatoff working in for the American company
AMPEX, which he had set up himself, managed to record an electronic signal of
picture reflection, directing in an electromagnetic way, elementary magnetic particles
on a tape together with the sound of the picture and he presented the first ever video
recorder: VR-1000. The same year CBS broadcast the first ever recorded program.
Ampex kept its lead in the market for professional magnetic recording of video for
half a century and global electronics giants had to use Poniatoffs patents to produce
home video equipment.

1957: LAUNCH OF SPUTNIK 1

On 4th October 1957 the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite in elliptical
orbit around earth in purpose to study the environment beyond the atmosphere of the
earth. Its name was Sputnik 1 and it was the first of a number of satellites under this
name.
It was no bigger than a ball with a diameter of 58cm and weighted about 83kg.
That launch ushered in new political, military, technological, and scientific
developments and marked the start of the space age and the U.S.-U.S.S.R space
race, a great part of the Cold War.
Nowadays there are tens of geosynchronous satellites (satellites with an orbital
period the same as the Earth's rotation period) so that they seem to be motionless in
the same area of the sky.
Satellites are often used for telecommunications, televised programs, whether
forecasts and of course military purposes.

1960: BATHYSCAPHE TRIESTE

Apart from exploring space, man also desired to explore the depth of the ocean.
On 23rd January 1960, Swiss Jacques Piccard (son of Auguste Piccard -a scientist
from Switzerland who had experimented with buoyancy methods for his balloon
flights) boarded in his bathyscaphe named Trieste and descended in the deepest
known part of the sea, the Challenger Deep, in the Mariana Trench near Guam
island in the Pacific. He actually reached a depth of 10916 meters.
In the following years same other diving vessels were made, but sea bottom
exploring was considered to be not important from both a financial and military point
of view.

1961: THE FIRST MAN IN SPACE

April 12th is a huge day on space history. On that day in 1961, Russian pilot and
cosmonaut, Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin, became the first human in space, making a
108-minute orbital flight in his spacecraft Vostok 1. His short flight was the first huge
mans step to conquer space.
After his historic feat was announced, Gagarin became an instant worldwide
celebrity. He was awarded the Order of Lenin and given the title of Hero of the Soviet
Union. Monuments were raised to him across the Soviet Union and streets renamed
in his honor.
From then on the two superpowers, the Soviet Union and the U.S.A went in for
competing with each other to conquer space earlier.
Yuri Gagarin died in 1968 in a routine jet-aircraft test flight. His ashes were placed in
the Kremlin wall. The Yuri Gagarin Medal is awarded in his honor.

1963: THE INVENTION OF CASSETTE

In August 1963 Lou Ottens, a member of Philips company, presents an invention of
his, in the Berlin radio exhibition. It is the cassette, which is mass produced next
year. Its use was spread quickly as it was easy to use and could be used again many
times. However, its success reached a pick quite later, during the eighties, with the
use of Walkman.
Nowadays it has gone out of use as it has been replaced by digital visual storage
means such as CD and DVD.