August 7 – Thor Heyerdahl's balsa-wood raft, the Kon-Tiki, smashes into the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands after a 101-day, 4300-mile (6900-km) journey across the Pacific Ocean, demonstrating that prehistoric peoples could have traveled from South America.[1]
February 20 – The first living things sent into space (and returned) are fruit flies, accompanied by rye and cotton seeds, aboard a V-2 rocket launched by the U.S. Army Ordnance Corps which reaches an altitude of 68 miles (109 km).[3][4][5]
July 29 – After being shut off on November 9, 1946, for a refurbishment and relocation, ENIAC, one of the world's first digital computers, is turned on after a memory upgrade at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. It will remain in continuous operation until October 2, 1955.[11]
September 9 – A moth lodged in a relay is found to be the cause of a malfunction in the Harvard Mark II electromechanical computer, logged as "First actual case of bug being found."[12][13]
October – First recorded use of the word computer in its modern sense, referring to an electronic digital machine.[14]
February 21 – Edwin H. Land demonstrates the first practical instant camera, the Land Camera, in New York City. It will first be on commercial sale in December 1948.
^Lack, Andrew; Overall, Roy (2002). The Museum Swifts: the story of the swifts in the tower of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. Oxford University Museum of Natural History. ISBN0-9542726-0-9.
^US 2455992, Goldsmith Jr., Thomas T. & Estle Ray, Mann, "Cathode-ray tube amusement device", published 1948-12-14, assigned to Allen B. Du Mont Laboratories Inc.
^Dantzig, George B. (2003). Cottle, Richard W (ed.). The Basic George B. Dantzig. Stanford University Press.
^Dantzig, George B.; Thapa, Mukund N. (1997). Linear programming 1: Introduction. Springer.
^Dantzig, George B.; Thapa, Mukund N. (2003). Linear Programming 2: Theory and Extensions. Springer.
^Todd, Michael J. (February 2002). "The many facets of linear programming". Mathematical Programming. 91 (3): 417–436. doi:10.1007/s101070100261. S2CID6464735.
^Richet, P.; Bottinga, Y.; Javoy, M. (1977). "A Review of Hydrogen, Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Sulphur, and Chlorine Stable Isotope Fractionation Among Gaseous Molecules". Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences. 5: 65–110. Bibcode:1977AREPS...5...65R. doi:10.1146/annurev.ea.05.050177.000433.
^Urey, H.C. (1947). "The Thermodynamic Properties of Isotopic Substances". Journal of the Chemical Society: 562–581. doi:10.1039/JR9470000562. PMID20249764.
