The year 1902 in science and technology included many events, some of which are listed below.

See also: 1901 in science, other events of 1902, 1903 in science and the list of years in science.

Contents

1 Aeronautics 2 Archaeology 3 Chemistry 4 Photography 5 Physics 6 Awards 7 Births 8 Deaths

Aeronautics

• Lyman Gilmore reportedly becomes the first person to fly a powered airplane (a steam-powered glider).

Archaeology

• Spyridon Stais finds the Antikythera mechanism

Chemistry

• August Verneuil develops a process for making synthetic rubies.

Photography

• Arthur Korn devises practical phototelegraphy technology (reduction of photographic images to data bits which can transmitted by wire to other locations)

Physics

• James Jeans finds the length scale required for gravitational perturbations to grow in a static nearly homogeneous medium
• Philipp Lenard observes that maximum photoelectron energies are independent of illuminating intensity but depend on frequency
• Theodor Svedberg suggests that fluctuations in molecular bombardment cause the Brownian motion

Awards

• Nobel Prizes
  • Physics - Hendrik Lorentz, Pieter Zeeman
  • Chemistry - Hermann Emil Fischer
  • Medicine - Ronald Ross

Births

• February 10 - Walter Houser Brattain, physicist
• August 8 - Paul Dirac, physicist

Deaths

• September 5 - Rudolf Virchow, pathologist and biologist
• December 22 - Richard von Krafft-Ebing, sexologist