The year 1901 in science and technology involved
some significant events, listed below.
== Biology ==
Okapi, a relative of the 
Giraffe found in the rainforests around the
Congo River in north east Zaire, is discovered
(previously known only to local natives).
Publication of Robert Ridgway's The Birds
of North and Middle America by the Smithsonian
Institution begins.
Edmund Selous publishes the book Bird Watching
in the U.K., giving rise to the term birdwatching.
== Chemistry ==
May 27 – The Edison Storage Battery Company
is founded in New Jersey.
Europium is discovered by Eugène-Anatole
Demarçay.
Emil Fischer, in collaboration with Ernest
Fourneau, synthesizes the dipeptide, glycylglycine,
and also publishes his work on the hydrolysis
of casein.
Edith Humphrey becomes (probably) the first
British woman to obtain a doctorate in chemistry,
at the University of Zurich.
== Computing ==
December 13 (20:45:52) – Retrospectively,
this becomes the earliest date representable
with a signed 32-bit integer on digital computer
systems that reference time in seconds since
the Unix epoch.
== Exploration ==
August 6 – Discovery Expedition: Robert
Falcon Scott sets sail on the RRS Discovery
to explore the Ross Sea in Antarctica.
== History of Science ==
September 25 – Establishment of Deutsche
Gesellschaft für Geschichte der Medizin und
der Naturwissenschaften, the world's first
history of science society.
== Mathematics ==
April – Henri Lebesgue defines Lebesgue
integration for some function f(x).
May/June – Russell's paradox: Bertrand Russell
shows that Georg Cantor's naive set theory
leads to a contradiction.
Élie Cartan develops the exterior derivative.
Leonard Eugene Dickson publishes Linear groups
with an exposition of the Galois field theory
in Leipzig, advancing the classification of
finite simple groups and listing almost all
non-abelian simple groups having order less
than one billion.
Aleksandr Lyapunov proves the central limit
theorem rigorously using characteristic functions.
== Paleontology ==
Publication begins of A Monograph of British
Graptolites by Gertrude L. Elles and Dr Ethel
M. R. Wood, edited by Charles Lapworth.
== Photography ==
Eastman Kodak introduce the 120 film.
== Physics ==
Albert Einstein publishes his conclusions
on capillarity.
Owen Richardson describes the phenomenon in
thermionic emission which gives rise to Richardson's
Law.
Ivan Yarkovsky describes the Yarkovsky effect,
a thermal force acting on rotating bodies
in space, in a pamphlet on "The density of
light ether and the resistance it offers to
motion" published in Bryansk.
December 12 – Guglielmo Marconi receives
the first trans-Atlantic radio signal, sent
from Poldhu in Cornwall, England, to Newfoundland,
the letter "S" in Morse.
== Physiology and medicine ==
November 25 – Auguste Deter is first examined
by Dr Alois Alzheimer in Frankfort leading
to a diagnosis of the condition that will
carry Alzheimer's name.
Jokichi Takamine isolates and names adrenaline
from mammalian organs.
Ivan Pavlov develops the theory of the "conditional
reflex".
Georg Kelling of Dresden performs the first
"coelioscopy" (laparoscopic surgery), on a
dog.
William C. Gorgas controls the spread of yellow
fever in Cuba by a mosquito eradication program.
Scottish military doctor William Boog Leishman
identifies organisms from the spleen of a
patient who had died from "Dum Dum fever"
(later known as leishmaniasis) and proposes
them to be trypanosomes, found for the first
time in India.
An improved sphygmomanometer, for the measurement
of blood pressure, is invented and popularized
by Harvey Cushing.
Karl Landsteiner discovers the existence of
different human blood types
== Psychology ==
Edward B. Titchener's textbook Experimental
Psychology popularizes the Ebbinghaus illusion.
== Technology ==
May 16 – TS King Edward is launched at William
Denny and Brothers' shipyard in Dumbarton,
Scotland. The first commercial merchant vessel
propelled by steam turbines, she enters excursion
service on the Firth of Clyde on July 1.
July 10 – The world's first passenger-carrying
trolleybus in regular service operates on
the Biela Valley Trolleybus route at Koeninggstein
in Germany, pioneering Max Schiemann's under-running
trolley current collection system.
August 30 – Hubert Cecil Booth patents the
electrically powered vacuum cleaner in the
United Kingdom
November 30 – Frank Hornby of Liverpool
is granted a U.K. patent for the construction
toy that will become Meccano.
December 3 – King C. Gillette files a U.S.
patent application for his design of safety
razor utilizing thin, disposable blades of
stamped steel.
Ernest Godward invents the spiral hairpin
in New Zealand.
Theodor Rall patents his design of rolling
lift bridge.
== Publications ==
H. G. Wells' "scientific romance" The First
Men in the Moon and his collected articles
on futurology Anticipations of the Reaction
of Mechanical and Scientific Progress Upon
Human Life and Thought.
== Awards ==
First Nobel Prizes awarded
Physics – Wilhelm Röntgen
Chemistry – Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff
Medicine – Emil Adolf von Behring
Wollaston Medal for Geology – Charles Barrois
== Births ==
January 14 – Alfred Tarski (died 1983),
Polish Jewish logician and mathematician.
January 18 – Frank Zamboni (died 1988),
American inventor
February 28 – Linus Pauling (died 1994),
American chemist, Nobel Prize winner for chemistry
and peace.
March 2 – Grete Hermann (died 1984), German
mathematician and philosopher
March 6 – Rex Wailes (died 1986), English
engineer and historian of technology.
April 23 – E. B. Ford (died 1988), English
ecological geneticist and lepidopterist.
April 29 – Hirohito (died 1989), marine
biologist and Emperor of Japan.
July 2 – Esther Somerfeld-Ziskind (died
2002), American neurologist and psychiatrist.
August 8 – Ernest Lawrence (died 1958),
American nuclear scientist and winner of the
Nobel Prize in Physics in 1939.
August 10 – Franco Rasetti (died 2001),
Italian physicist.
September 29 – Enrico Fermi (died 1954),
Italian nuclear physicist.
October 8 – Mark Oliphant (died 2000), Australian
nuclear physicist.
November 6 – Kathleen Mary Drew-Baker (died
1957), British phycologist.
December 5 – Werner Heisenberg (died 1976),
German theoretical physicist.
December 16 – Margaret Mead (died 1978),
American cultural anthropologist.
December 20 – Robert J. Van de Graaff (died
1967), American physicist.
== Deaths ==
January 21 – Elisha Gray (born 1835), American
electrical engineer.
February 11 – Henry Willis (born 1821),
English organ builder.
February 22 – George FitzGerald (born 1851),
Irish mathematician.
April 16 – Henry Augustus Rowland (born
1848), American physicist.
September 10 - Emanuella Carlbeck (born 1829),
Swedish pioneer in the education of students
with Intellectual disability
