1909 in science

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The year 1909 CE in science and technology included many events, some of which are listed below.

See also: 1908 in science, other events of 1909, 1910 in science, and the list of years in science.

Table of contents

1 Archeaology
2 Astronomy
3 Geology
4 Physics
5 Medicine
6 Technology
7 Awards
8 Births
9 Deaths

Archeaology

Discovery of the Burgess Shale Cambrian fossil site

Astronomy

Comet Halley first becomes visible on a photographic plate.

Geology

Ernest Shackleton's expedition finds the magnetic South Pole.

Physics

Albert Einstein together with Marcel Grossmann starts to develop a theory which would bind metric tensor g_ik, which defines a space geometry, with a source of gravity, that is with mass
Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden discover large angle deflections of alpha particles by thin metal foils
Ernest Rutherford and Thomas Royds demonstrate that alpha particles are doubly ionized helium atoms

Medicine

Karl Landsteiner develops system of blood groups.

Technology

Leo Baekeland presents the Bakelite hard thermosetting plastic
Einar Dessau uses a short-wave radio transmitter becoming the first to broadcast as a ham radio operator.
Louis Bleriot is the first man to fly across the English Channel in a heavier-than-air craft.

Awards

Nobel Prizes

Births

January 5 - Stephen Cole Kleene, mathematician
April 13 - Stanislaw Marcin Ulam, mathematician
May 7 - Edwin H. Land, inventor and founder of Polaroid
November 24 - Gerhard Gentzen, mathematician
Giulio Racah, mathematician and physicist

Deaths

January 12 - Hermann Minkowski, mathematician
July 11 - Simon Newcomb, astronomer
August 27 - Emil Christian Hansen, fermentation physiologist