The year 1939 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Astronomy

• Robert Oppenheimer jointly predicts two new types of celestial object:
  • With George Volkoff he calculates the structure of neutron stars.^[1]
  • With Hartland Snyder he predicts the existence of what will come to be called black holes.^[2]

Biology

• Autumn DDT's properties as an insecticide are discovered by Paul M ller of Geigy.^[3]

Chemistry

• July Edward Adelbert Doisy of Saint Louis University publishes the chemical structure of vitamin K.^[4]

Computer science

• September 4 Alan Turing and Gordon Welchman report to the United Kingdom Government Code and Cypher School, Bletchley Park.^[5]
• October John V. Atanasoff with Clifford Berry demonstrate the first prototype Atanasoff Berry Computer at Iowa State University.^[6]

Mathematics

• Richard von Mises poses the birthday problem in probability.^[7]

Physics

• January February Discovery of nuclear fission is announced independently by Lise Meitner and Otto Hahn.^[8][9][10]
• August 2 The Einstein Szil rd letter is signed, advising President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt of the potential use of uranium to construct an atomic bomb. It is delivered on October 11.
• October 21 First meeting of the Advisory Committee on Uranium under Lyman James Briggs, authorised by President Roosevelt to oversee neutron experiments.

Physiology and medicine

• John H. Lawrence uses beams of energized neutrons from a particle accelerator to treat a patient with leukemia.
• Drs Philip Levine and Rufus Stetson published a first case report on the clinical consequences of non-recognized Rh factor, hemolytic transfusion reaction and hemolytic disease of the newborn in its most severe form.^[11]

Technology

• January 11 First flight of the Lockheed P-38 Lightning.
• August 27 Flying the Heinkel He 178, Erich Warsitz makes the first flight entirely on turbojet power (the HeS 3 jet engine).
• November 1 2 Physicist Hans Ferdinand Mayer writes the Oslo Report on German weapons systems and passes it to the British Secret Intelligence Service.
• December 9 First flight of the Consolidated XB-24 "Liberator" bomber prototype.
• Kirlian photography is invented by Semyon Kirlian.

Awards

• Nobel Prizes
  • Physics Ernest Lawrence
  • Chemistry Adolf Friedrich Johann Butenandt, Lavoslav Ruzicka
  • Medicine Gerhard Domagk

Births

• January 20 Chandra Wickramasinghe, British astronomer.
• May 19 Dick Scobee (died 1986), astronaut.
• August 19 Alan Baker, British mathematician.
• October 7 John Hopcroft, American theoretical computer scientist.
• October 10 Neil Sloane, British mathematician.

Deaths

• July 15 Eugen Bleuler (born 1857), Swiss psychiatrist.
• September 23 Sigmund Freud (born 1856), Austrian-born psychoanalyst.
• October 7 Harvey Cushing (born 1869), American neurosurgeon.

References

fr:1939 en science he:1939 mk:1939 no:Vitenskaps ret 1939 nn:Vitskap i 1939 pl:1939 w nauce pt:1939 na ci ncia ru:1939 sv:Vetenskaps ret 1939