Editing 1971 in science (section)

==Mathematics==
* [[Stephen Cook]]  introduces the concept of [[NP-completeness]] in [[computational complexity theory]] at the 3rd Annual [[Association for Computing Machinery|ACM]] [[Symposium on Theory of Computing]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Cook|first=Stephen|year=1971|chapter=The complexity of theorem proving procedures|chapter-url=http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?coll=GUIDE&dl=GUIDE&id=805047|title=Proceedings of the Third Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing|pages=151–158|doi=10.1145/800157.805047 |isbn=9781450374644 |s2cid=7573663 }}</ref>
* [[Daniel Quillen]] publishes a proof of the [[Adams conjecture]].<ref>{{cite journal|last=Quillen|first=Daniel|title=The Adams Conjecture|doi=10.1016/0040-9383(71)90018-8|mr=0279804|year=1971|journal=[[Topology (journal)|Topology]]|issn=0040-9383|volume=10|pages=67–80|doi-access=free}}</ref>
* [[Steven Takiff]] introduces [[Takiff algebra]]s.<ref>{{cite journal|author-link=Steven Takiff|last1=Takiff|first1=S. J.|title=Rings of invariant polynomials for a class of Lie algebras|jstor=1995803|doi=10.2307/1995803|mr=0281839|year=1971|journal=[[Transactions of the American Mathematical Society]]|issn=0002-9947|volume=160|pages=249–262|doi-access=free}}</ref>
* The [[Quine–Putnam indispensability argument]] is first presented explicitly, by [[Hilary Putnam]] in his book ''Philosophy of Logic''.