1989 in science

The year 1989 in science and technology

Astronomy

• August – the asteroid 4769 Castalia is the first asteroid directly imaged, by radar from Arecibo

Computer science

• July 26 – A federal grand jury indicts Cornell University student Robert Tappan Morris, Jr. for releasing a computer virus, making him the first person to be prosecuted under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

Physics

• March 23 – Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann announce cold fusion at the University of Utah

Awards

• Nobel Prizes
  • Physics – Norman F. Ramsey, Hans G. Dehmelt, Wolfgang Paul
  • Chemistry – Sidney Altman, Thomas R. Cech
  • Medicine – J. Michael Bishop, Harold E. Varmus
• Turing Award – William (Velvel) Kahan

Births

Deaths

• February 27 – Konrad Lorenz (b. 1903), zoologist.
• August 12 – William Bradford Shockley (b. 1910), physicist.
• October 11 – M. King Hubbert (b. 1903), geophysicist.
• December 14 – Andrei Sakharov (b. 1921), nuclear physicist.