The year 1941 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.
Biology
George Wells Beadle and Edward Lawrie Tatum publish "Genetic Control of Biochemical Reactions in Neurospora" which shows that specific genes code for specific proteins. John William Field develops Field stain to detect malarial parasites.
Chemistry
February 23 – Chemical element 94, plutonium, is first synthesized by Glenn T. Seaborg, Arthur C. Wahl, Joseph W. Kennedy and Emilio Segrè. It is kept secret until after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as it is being developed for the first atomic bombs. Folic acid is first isolated via extraction from spinach leaves by Herschel K. Mitchell, Esmond E. Snell and Roger J. Williams at the University of Texas at Austin. The first polyester fibre, polyethylene terephthalate (terylene), is patented by John Rex Whinfield, James T. Dickson and their employer the Calico Printers' Association of Manchester, England.
Computer science
May 12 – German engineer Konrad Zuse presents the Z3, the world's first working programmable, Turing complete, fully automatic computer, to an audience of aviation engineers in Berlin. John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford E. Berry develop the Atanasoff–Berry Computer.
History of science
Charles Singer's A Short History of Science to the Nineteenth Century published in the U.K.
Mathematics
Cahit Arf defines the Arf invariant of a nonsingular quadratic form over a field of characteristic 2.
Medicine
February 12 – Reserve Constable Albert Alexander, a patient at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford, becomes the first person treated with penicillin intravenously, by Howard Florey’s team. He reacts positively but there is insufficient supply of the drug to reverse his terminal infection. A successful treatment is achieved during May. April – Birmingham Accident Hospital opens as the world's first trauma centre in Birmingham, England. The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics is first published in New York by Alfred Gilman and Louis S. Goodman, pharmacologists at the Yale School of Medicine.
Mineralogy
German mineralogist Karl Hugo Strunz's Mineralogische Tabellen introduces Nickel–Strunz classification of minerals.
Physics
June – British scientist G. I. Taylor predicts the blast effects from an atomic bomb. June 28 – President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt signs Executive Order 8807 creating the Office of Scientific Research and Development with Vannevar Bush as its director. The office is charged with production of an atomic bomb. October 1 – Artificial nuclear transmutation of mercury into gold by fast neutrons is reported in Physical Review. December 2 – First calutron operated.
Technology
May 15 – First flight of the Gloster E.28/39, the first British jet aircraft. September 1 – The rocket-powered interceptor aircraft Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet is first flown. November – Prototype AI Mk. VIII radar, the first operational microwave-frequency Airborne Interception radar, introduced by the British Royal Air Force.
Events
February 20 – Polish microbiologist Ludwik Hirszfeld, his wife, Hanka, and daughter are forced to move into the Warsaw ghetto; here for two years he organizes anti-epidemic measures and vaccination campaigns against typhus and typhoid, as well as conducting secret medical courses.
Awards
July 4 – Frederick Lindemann is raised to the British peerage as Baron Cherwell.