1906 in science

The year 1906 in science and technology included many events, some of which are 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 discovers the chromatography technique for organic compound separation

Geology

• April 18 – The 1906 San Francisco earthquake, an est. 7.9 on the 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.
• Richard Oldham argues that the Earth has a molten interior

Physics

• Walther Nernst presents a formulation of the third law of thermodynamics

Medicine

• BCG (Bacilli-Calmette-Guerin) immunization for Tuberculosis first developed
• Frederick Hopkins suggests the existence of vitamins and suggests that a lack of vitamins causes scurvy and rickets

Technology

• Reginald Fessenden makes the first radio broadcast: a poetry reading, a violin solo, and a speech.

Awards

• Nobel Prizes
  • Physics – Sir Joseph John Thomson
  • Chemistry – Henri Moissan
  • Medicine – Camillo Golgi, Santiago Ramón y Cajal

Births

• January 11 – Albert Hofmann, chemist
• February 4 – Clyde Tombaugh (d. 1997), astronomer
• April 28 – Kurt Gödel (d. 1978), mathematician
• July 2 – Hans Bethe (d. 2005), Nobel Prize Physicist
• August 19 – Philo T. Farnsworth (d. 1971), television pioneer.
• September 4 – Max Delbrück (d. 1981), biologist.
• November 3 – Carl Benjamin Boyer (d. 1976), historian of mathematics
• November 5 – Fred Lawrence Whipple (d. 2004), American astronomer who coined the term "dirty snowball" to explain the nature of comets.
• December 25 – Ernst Ruska (d. 1988), Nobel Prize Physicist

Deaths

• February 27 – Samuel Pierpont Langley (b. 1834), astronomer.
• March 8 – Henry Baker Tristram (b. 1822), English ornithologist.
• September 5 – Ludwig Boltzmann (b. 1844), Austrian physicist.