The year 1983 in science and technology involved many significant events, as listed below.
Anthropology
New Zealand anthropologist Derek Freeman publishes Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth, critical of Coming of Age in Samoa (1928) by Margaret Mead (d. 1978).
Astronomy and space science
June 13 – Pioneer 10 passes the orbit of Neptune, becoming the first man-made object to travel beyond the major planets of the Solar System.
September 26 – The Soyuz T-10-1 mission ends in a pad abort at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, when a pad fire occurs at the base of the Soyuz U rocket during the launch countdown. The escape tower system, attached to the top of the capsule containing the crew and Soyuz spacecraft, fires immediately pulling the crew safe from the vehicle, six seconds before the rocket explodes, destroying the launch complex.
December – Yugoslav popular science magazine Galaksija releases a special (January 1984) issue, "Računari u vašoj kući", with complete instructions on how to build a full-featured home computer, Galaksija.
^Streb, H.; Irvine, R. F.; Berridge, M. J.; Schulz, I. (November 3, 1983). "Release of Ca2+ from a nonmitochondrial intracellular store in pancreatic acinar cells by inositol-1,4,5-trisphosphate". Nature. 306 (5938): 67–9. Bibcode:1983Natur.306...67S. doi:10.1038/306067a0. PMID6605482. S2CID4359904.
^Gorenstein, Daniel (1983). The classification of finite simple groups. Vol. 1. Groups of noncharacteristic 2 type. The University Series in Mathematics. New York: Plenum Press. ISBN978-0-306-41305-6. MR0746470.