Editing 1906 in science

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{{Year nav topic5|1906|science}}
{{Science year nav|1906}}

The year '''1906 in [[science]]''' and [[technology]] involved some significant events, listed below.

==Chemistry==
* [[Charles Barkla]] discovers that each element has a characteristic [[X-ray]] and that the degree of penetration of these X-rays is related to the [[atomic weight]] of the element.
* [[Mikhail Tsvet]] first names the [[chromatography]] technique for organic compound separation, in the course of demonstrating that [[chlorophyll]] is not a single [[chemical compound]].<ref>{{cite journal|first=Mikhail|last=Tswett|year=1906|title=Physikalisch-Chemische Studien über das Chlorophyll: Die Adsorption|journal=Berichte der Deutschen Botanischen Gesellschaft|volume=24|pages=316–326}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|first=Mikhail|last=Tswett|year=1906|title=Adsorptionanalyse und chromatographische Methode: Anwendung auf die Chemie des Chlorophylls|journal=Berichte der Deutschen Botanischen Gesellschaft|volume=24|pages=384–393}}</ref>

==Geology==
* April 18 – The [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|San Francisco earthquake]], an estimated 7.9 on the [[Richter magnitude scale|Richter scale]] and centered on the [[San Andreas Fault]], strikes near [[San Francisco, California]]. The [[earthquake]] and fire destroy over 80% of the buildings in the city, and kill as many as 6,000 people. [[Harry Fielding Reid]] devises the [[elastic-rebound theory]] to account for earthquake mechanism.<ref>{{cite book|last=Reid|first=H. F.|title=The Mechanics of the Earthquake, The California Earthquake of April 18, 1906: Report of the State Investigation Commission|volume=2|publisher=Carnegie Institution of Washington|location=Washington, D.C.|year=1910}}</ref>
* [[Richard Dixon Oldham|Richard Oldham]] argues that the Earth has a molten interior.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Bragg|first=William|authorlink=William Henry Bragg|year=1936|title=Tribute to Deceased Fellows of the Royal Society|journal=[[Science (journal)|Science]]|volume=84|issue=2190|pages=539–46|doi=10.1126/science.84.2190.539|pmid=17834950|bibcode=1936Sci....84..539B}}</ref>

==Mathematics==
* [[Andrey Markov]] produces his first theories on [[Markov chain]] processes.
* [[Axel Thue]] uses the [[Thue–Morse sequence]] to found the study of [[combinatorics on words]].

==Medicine==
* September – Last death from [[yellow fever]] in the [[Panama Canal Zone]] following  a [[mosquito]] eradication program led by [[William C. Gorgas]].<ref>{{cite book|page=474|first=Roy|last=Porter|authorlink=Roy Porter|title=The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: a medical history of humanity from antiquity to the present|location=London|publisher=HarperCollins|year=1997|isbn=978-0-00-215173-3}}</ref>
* October–December – Martha Baer undergoes [[sex reassignment surgery]] to become [[Karl M. Baer]] in Germany.
* November 3 – A speech given by [[Alois Alzheimer]] for the first time presents the pathology and clinical symptoms of pre-senile [[dementia]] together;<ref>{{cite journal|last=Alzheimer|first=Alois|title=Über eine eigenartige Erkrankung der Hirnrinde|journal=Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie und Psychisch-Gerichtlich Medizin|volume=64|issue=1–2|pages=146–148|year=1907}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Maurer|first=Konrad|author2=Ulrike|title=Alzheimer: the Life of a Physician and Career of a Disease|publisher=Columbia University Press|year=2003|location=New York|isbn=978-0-231-11896-5|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/alzheimerlifeofp00maur}}</ref> the condition will rapidly become known as [[Alzheimer's disease]].<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Berchtold|first1=N. C.|last2=Cotman|first2=C. W.|title=Evolution in the conceptualization of dementia and Alzheimer's disease: Greco-Roman period to the 1960s|journal=Neurobiology of Aging|volume=19|issue=3|pages=173–89|year=1998|pmid=9661992|doi=10.1016/S0197-4580(98)00052-9}}</ref>
* [[Bacillus Calmette-Guérin|BCG]] (Bacilli-Calmette-Guerin) immunization for [[tuberculosis]] first developed.
* Transmission of [[dengue fever]] by the ''[[Aedes]]'' [[mosquito]] is confirmed.<ref>{{cite journal|first=T. L.|last=Bancroft|title=On the aetiology of dengue fever|journal=Australian Medical Gazette|volume=25|year=1906|pages=17–18}}</ref>
* [[Frederick Hopkins]] proposes the existence of [[vitamin]]s and suggests that a lack of them causes [[scurvy]] and [[rickets]].
* [[Charles Sherrington]] publishes ''The Integrative Action of the Nervous System''.
* [[Clemens Peter von Pirquet]], with [[Béla Schick]], coins the term "[[allergy]]" to describe hypersensitive reactions.
* [[Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast]], is completed, the first such [[Air conditioning|air conditioned]] building in the world.
* [[George Newman (doctor)|George Newman]] publishes ''Infant Mortality: a Social Problem'' in England.
* [[August von Wassermann]] develops a [[complement fixation]] test for the diagnosis of [[syphilis]].

==Physics==
* [[Walther Nernst]] presents a formulation of the [[third law of thermodynamics]].

==Technology==
* January – [[Lee De Forest]] files a patent for the [[Audion tube|Audion vacuum tube]], which helps usher in the age of electronics.<ref>{{cite book<!--Citation Bot deny -->|last=Dyson|first=George|authorlink=George Dyson (science historian)|year=2012|title=Turing's Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe|url=https://archive.org/details/turingscathedral0000dyso|url-access=registration|publisher=Pantheon|isbn=978-0-375-42277-5}}</ref>
* February 10 – Launch of British [[battleship]] {{HMS|Dreadnought|1906|6}}.
* March 18 –  At [[Montesson]] in France, [[Romanians|Romanian]] inventor [[Traian Vuia]] becomes the first person to achieve an unassisted takeoff in a heavier-than-air powered [[monoplane]], but it is incapable of sustained flight.
* October 18 – German inventor [[Arthur Korn]] demonstrates the transmission of a photograph electronically over a distance of 1800&nbsp;km<ref>{{cite web|title=17.10.1906: First Photoelectric Fax Transmission|url=http://www.todayinhistory.de/index.php?what=thmanu&manu_id=1617&tag=17&monat=10&year=2009&dayisset=1&lang=en|publisher=[[Deutsche Welle]]|date=2012-01-04}}</ref> using his ''Bildetelegraph'' or [[Wirephoto|phototelautograph]] system.
* December 24 – [[Reginald Fessenden]] makes the first radio broadcast, including a musical recording, a violin solo, and readings, from [[Ocean Bluff-Brant Rock, Massachusetts|Brant Rock, Massachusetts]].
* The first practicable [[gyrocompass]] is invented by [[Hermann Anschütz-Kaempfe]] in Germany.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Anschutz Gyro-Compass and Gyroscope Engineering|pages=7–24|author=Elliott Laboratories|publisher=Watchmaker Publishing|year=2003|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VJ3WCpegQxwC|isbn=9781929148127}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|pages=34–37|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DN-9m2jSo8YC&pg=PA37|title=How Experiments End|isbn=978-0-226-27915-2|last=Galison|first=Peter|publisher=University of Chicago Press|year=1987|accessdate=2012-02-18}}</ref>

==Events==
* November 12 – First displays of the [[Deutsches Museum]] open to the public in [[Munich]].

==Publications==
* ''[[African Invertebrates]]'' begins publication as ''Annals of the Natal Government Museum''; it will be continuing publication more than a century later.

==Awards==
* [[Nobel Prize]]s
** [[Nobel Prize in Physics|Physics]] – Sir [[J. J. Thomson]]
** [[Nobel Prize in Chemistry|Chemistry]] – [[Henri Moissan]]
** [[Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine|Medicine]] – [[Camillo Golgi]], [[Santiago Ramón y Cajal]]
* [[Hughes Medal]] – [[Hertha Ayrton]]

==Births==
* January 6 – [[G. Ledyard Stebbins]] (died [[2000 in science|2000]]), American [[botany|botanist]] and [[geneticist]].
* January 10 – [[Grigore Moisil]] (died [[1973 in science|1973]]), Romanian [[mathematician]].
* January 11 – [[Albert Hofmann]] (died [[2008 in science|2008]]), Swiss [[chemist]].
* February 3 
** [[George Adamson]] (died [[1989 in science|1989]]), Indian-born [[wildlife conservation]]ist.
** [[Ilona Banga]], Hungarian biochemist (died [[1998 in science|1998]])
* February 4 – [[Clyde Tombaugh]] (died [[1997 in science|1997]]), American [[astronomer]].
* February 17 – [[Elizabeth M. Ramsey]] (died [[1993 in science|1993]]), American research [[physician]].
* February 18 – [[Hans Asperger]] (died [[1980 in science|1980]]), Austrian [[pediatrician]].
* April 28 – [[Kurt Gödel]] (died [[1978 in science|1978]]), Austrian [[mathematician]].
* June 13 – [[Bruno de Finetti]] (died [[1985 in science|1985]]), Italian [[statistician]].
* June 15 – [[Gordon Welchman]] (died 1985), English-born mathematician and [[cryptanalyst]].
* June 18 – [[Orvan Hess]] (died [[2002 in science|2002]]), American [[obstetrician]].
* June 23 – [[Derek Jackson]] (died [[1982 in science|1982]]), Swiss-born British [[spectroscopist]] and steeplechase rider (also his twin brother Vivian).
* June 28 – [[Maria Goeppert Mayer|Maria Göppert]] (died [[1972 in science|1972]]), German-born theoretical physicist, recipient of the [[Nobel Prize in Physics]]. 
* July 2 – [[Hans Bethe]] (died [[2005 in science|2005]]), German-born physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics.
* August 19 – [[Philo Farnsworth]] (died [[1971 in science|1971]]), American television pioneer.
* September 1 – [[Karl August Folkers]] (died [[1997 in science|1997]]), American biochemist.
* September 4 – [[Max Delbrück]] (died [[1981 in science|1981]]), German-born [[biologist]].
* September 30 – [[Vera Faddeeva]] (died [[1983 in science|1983]]), Soviet mathematician.
* October 2 – [[Willy Ley]] (died [[1969 in science|1969]]), German-born scientific populariser.
* November 3 – [[Carl Benjamin Boyer]] (died [[1976 in science|1976]]), American historian of mathematics.
* November 5 – [[Fred Lawrence Whipple]] (died [[2004 in science|2004]]), American [[astronomer]], coins the term "dirty snowball" to explain the nature of [[comet]]s.
* November 18 – [[George Wald]] (died [[1997 in science|1997]]), American scientist.
* December 9 – [[Grace Hopper]] (died [[1992 in science|1992]]), American [[computer scientist]].
* December 25 – [[Ernst Ruska]] (died [[1988 in science|1988]]), German physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics.

==Deaths==
* January 13 ([[Old Style and New Style dates|Old Style]] December 31, 1905) – [[Alexander Stepanovich Popov]] (born [[1859 in science|1859]]), Russian [[physicist]].
* January 14 – [[Hermann Sprengel]] (born [[1834 in science|1834]]), German-born British chemist.
* February 27 – [[Samuel Pierpont Langley]] (born [[1834 in science|1834]]), American [[astronomer]].
* March 8 – [[Henry Baker Tristram]] (born [[1822 in science|1822]]), English [[ornithologist]].
* April 19 – [[Pierre Curie]] (born 1859), French winner of the [[Nobel Prize in Physics]].
* May 15 – [[James Blyth (engineer)|James Blyth]] (born [[1839 in science|1839]]), [[Scottish people|Scottish]] electrical engineer.
* July 5 – [[Paul Drude]] (born [[1863 in science|1863]]), German physicist ([[suicide]]).
* September 5 – [[Ludwig Boltzmann]] (born [[1844 in science|1844]]), Austrian physicist.

==References==
{{reflist}}

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[[Category:1906 in science| ]]
[[Category:20th century in science]]
[[Category:1900s in science]]