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Science
Friday > Archives
> 1998
> February
> February 13, 1998:
Hour Two: 150 Years of Science:
From classification of animals to the cloning of animals - science has come a long way in 150 years!
| In September of 1848, the American Association for the Advancement of Science was officially organized. The group had been born in 1819 as the American Geolgical Society (changed to the Association of American Geologists in 1840, and to the Association of American Geologists and Naturalists in 1842). |  | If you had attended the first meeting in 1840, you would have been able to hear talks like "On some recent improvements in recording magnetic telegraphs" by W.R. Johnson, "A Discourse on the Flexible Surface" by B. Pierce, and "On the Phonetic Apparatus of the Cricket" by L. Agassiz.
150 years later, the AAAS is still going strong. This year's talks cover topics from astrostatistics to thermodynamics and everything in between. On this hour of Science Friday, we'll take a look back at the discoveries of the past 150 years.
| 1848 | First meeting of AAAS in Philadelphia. | | | | | 1872 | Botanist Asa Gray presents a report on research on sequoia trees, researched with naturalist John Muir. His report helped refine Darwin's theory of evolution. | | | | | 1878 | O.C. Marsh presents a report on the paleontological history of vertebrates in America. Darwin praises the report as the strongest confirmation of his theory of evolution. | | | | | 1887 | Physicist A.A. Michelson and chemist Edward Morley announce that experiments have failed to detect the "ether" that was supposed to fill all of space. Their experiment forced many to change theories of physics. | | | | | 1908 | G.N. Lewis and R.C. Tolman introduce the U.S. to Einstein's special theory of relativity. | | | | | 1933 | E.O. Lawrence describes the invention of a new device, the cyclotron. The cyclotron allowed researchers to bombard atomic nuclei, beginning particle physics. | | 1934 | Albert Einstein appears at AAAS for the first time, announces his new and simplified proof that mass and energy are equivalent. | | | | | 1938 | Sessions examine and attack Nazi racial theories. | | | | | | | | 1970 | Report presented on the use of Agent Orange and similar chemical agents during Vietnam War. | | | | | 1993 | Lectures in 1993 and 1994 address the growing problem of disease-resistant antibiotics. |
What are the most significant scientific accomplishments from the past 150 years?
Here's what some of you thought.
Guests:
Leon Lederman
Nobel Laureate
Pritzker Professor of Science, Illinois Institute of Technology
Director Emeritus, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
Batavia, IL
Dudley Herschbach
Nobel Laureate
Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science, Harvard University
Cambridge, MA
Keith Benson
Executive Secretary, History of Science Society
Professor of History of Science, University of Washington
Seattle, WA
Susan Lindee
Author
"The
Suffering Made Real: American Science and the Survivors at Hiroshima,"
(University of Chicago Press)
Associate Professor of the History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA
Books/Articles Discussed:
Related Links:
The
AAAS Annual Meeting
Virtual Library - History of Science, Technology and Medicine
History of Physics from AIP
Geology and Earth Sciences
Math History
Chronology
of Significant Events in the Biological Sciences
MendelWeb
National Library of Medicine
IEEE Center for the History of Electrical Engineering
Thomas A. Edison Papers
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