2004 in science

• January 4 - the rover Spirit successfully descended to Mars .
• June 21 - The world's first private spacecraft, SpaceShipOne , first launched into space.
• July 1 - The Cassini-Huygens spacecraft, after 7 years of travel, reached the Saturn system and began researching Saturn's rings , satellites, and magnetosphere .
• August 3 - Launch of the American automatic interplanetary messenger station to explore Mercury .
• November 20 - launch of the Swift orbital observatory.
• September - The LHC @ home distributed computing project was launched, the purpose of which is to calculate and optimize the magnetic subsystem of the Large Hadron Collider ^[1] .
• November - The project of distributed computing Einstein @ Home was launched, the purpose of which is to search for gravitational waves and pulsars ^[2] .

Discoveries

• February 3 - 113 and 115 chemical elements were discovered.
• July 21 - at the 17th conference on the general theory of relativity and gravity in Dublin , Ireland , astrophysicist Stephen Hawking in his report demonstrated a solution to the problem of the disappearance of information in a black hole , which remained unresolved for almost 30 years.
• November 14 - astronomers discovered Sedna , a trans-Neptune object in the Kuiper Belt .

Inventions

• June 17 - two research groups at once independently for the first time carried out quantum teleportation of atoms.
• October 22nd - Andrey Geim and Konstantin Novoselov invented a method for producing graphene ^[3] .

New kinds of animals

• Animals described in 2004

• Nobel Prize :
  • Physics - David Gross , David Politzer , Frank Wilcek , "For the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of strong interactions ."
  • Chemistry - Aaron Chehanover , Avram Gershko and Irwin Rose , "For the discovery of ubiquitin-mediated protein breakdown."
  • Physiology and Medicine - Richard Excel , Linda Buck , "For the study of olfactory receptors and the organization of the system of organs of smell".

• Grand Gold Medal named after M.V. Lomonosov
  • Guri Ivanovich Marchuk for his outstanding contribution to the creation of new models and methods for solving problems in nuclear physics, atmospheric and ocean physics, and immunology.
  • Edward Norton Lorenz - for his fundamental contribution to the development of the theory of general atmospheric circulation .

Other awards of the RAS

• Literary Studies:
  • A. Pushkin Prize - Mikhail Leonovich Gasparov - Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Head of the Section of Structural Linguistics and Linguistic Poetics of the Russian Language Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences for “Selected Works” (Volume 1 “On Poets”; Volume 2 “On Poems”; Volume 3 “ About the verse ") ^[4] .

• Balzan Award :
  • Prehistoric Archeology: Andrew Colin Renfrew (UK).
  • Humanity, Peace and Brotherhood between Peoples: Community of St. Egidio .
  • Epidemiology: Michael Marmot (UK).
  • Studies of the Islamic world from the end of the 19th to the end of the 20th centuries: Nikki Caddy (USA).
  • Mathematics: Pierre Deligne (Belgium).

• Turing Award
  • Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn - For pioneering work on the issue of internetworking, including the development and implementation of basic Internet protocols , TCP / IP, and for the leading role in the field of computer networks .

• Abel Prize
  • Sir Michael F. Atiyah ( University of Edinburgh , UK ) and Isador Singer ( Massachusetts Institute of Technology , USA ) - “for the discovery and proof of the index theorem, combining topology, geometry and analysis, and for their outstanding role in building new bridges between mathematics and theoretical physics. "

• First award of the Shao Prize (September 9, 2004):

• Astronomy : James Peebles (Canada) - “For his pioneering contribution to cosmology . He laid the foundation for almost all modern research in cosmology, theoretical and practical, turning an area full of assumptions into an exact science. ”
• Biology and Medicine : Stanley Cohen and Herbert Boyer (USA) - "For their discoveries in the field of DNA cloning and genetic engineering ."

Kan Yutwai (USA / Canada) - "For his discoveries in the field of DNA polymorphism and its impact on human genetics ."

Sir Richard Doll (UK) - "For his contribution to the modern epidemiology of cancer ."

• Mathematics : Chen Xinsheng (PRC) - "For the foundation of global differential geometry and continued leadership in this field, which led to excellent developments at the center of modern mathematics."

• International Biology Award
  • Cavalir Smith, Thomas - taxonomy and taxonomy.

• April 6 - Larisa Iosifovna Bogoraz , Soviet and Russian linguist, human rights activist, publicist.
• May 18 - Arnold Orville Beckman , American chemist , inventor of the pH meter , founder of Beckman Instruments .
• August 12 - Alexei Alekseevich Leontiev , Russian psychologist and linguist.
• August 15 - Sune Bergström , Swedish biochemist .
• September 23 - Bryce DeWitt , American physicist .
• October 8 - Jacques Derrida , French philosopher and literary theorist.
• October 19 - Kenneth Eugene Iverson , Canadian scientist in the theory of computer systems, programmer, author of the programming language APL , who received the Turing Prize for the Computer Technology Association ( ACM ) for this development in 1979 .
• November 19 - John Wayne , British pharmacologist , Nobel laureate in physiology and medicine .
• December 29 - Julius Axelrod , American biochemist and pharmacologist . Winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine .