What was going on when I was born?

Governor Cuomo said yesterday that if the Federal Government provided enough manpower and other resources New York State might participate in a plan to evacuate residents near the Shoreham nuclear power plant on Long Island, even if Suffolk County refuses to cooperate. Since the beginning of his administration, Mr. Cuomo has taken no position on whether Shoreham should operate, but has offered many proposals and suggestions on issues of the plant's safety and economics. He said yesterday that it would be wrong to interpret his remarks as a signal that the plant should open, and that if the Federal Government did nothing he would oppose the issuing of an operating license. His comments, in a series of interviews, represented a division between Mr. Cuomo and Suffolk County, which does not want the nearly completed $3.5 billion, 809-megawatt Shoreham plant to go into operation.

WHEN Judy hurts herself, she cowers in a corner of the classroom and cries. After a while, she sidles over to the teacher, gradually inching closer until she is almost on the teacher's lap. But she will destroy her work rather than ask the teacher for help, and she almost never plays or works with the other children. Adam is impulsive and angry much of the time. When he has difficulty with a project, he abandons or wrecks it, just as he might strike another child who he thinks is in his way. Adam's classmates, fearful of his unpredictable violence, try to keep their distance. Judy and Adam (not their real names) are only 5 years old. They are both victims of child abuse and are already well on their way to being severely handicapped both socially and psychologically. They are part of a pioneering study that is following some 200 children from birth to their teen-age years to determine the causes and consequences of child abuse.

PUBLIC health officials are predicting the virtual end of tooth decay among children and young adults by the turn of the century because of new developments in dental technology, the wider application of discoveries already made and the fluoridation of municipal water supplies. This year alone a half-dozen advances have been reported in dental research, ranging from the identification of the gene that produces tooth enamel (and thus the potential for cloning it by genetic engineering) to the use of lasers in an experimental method of recrystallizing the mineral structure of decaying teeth. Coupled with the wider use of topical fluorides and sealants, the officials say, the new technology should virtually halt tooth decay for people under the age of 50 within the foreseeable future. ''There has been a revolution in dental research, dental technology and dental treatment, which has yielded results over the last decade that are nothing less than remarkable,'' said Dr. Harald L"oe, director of the National Institute of Dental Research in Bethesda, Md. ''For the first time in the history of man,'' Dr. L"oe said, ''we are seeing a decrease in tooth decay.'' He added that by the end of the century he believed that the loss of teeth ''would be rare.''

Israeli gunboats pounded the Tripoli harbor area today, and the planned evacuation of Yasir Arafat and 4,000 of his supporters who have been besieged here by Palestinian rebels for six weeks was put off for another day. Five Greek transport ships and a French escort left the Greek Cypriot port of Larnaca in the evening in an attempt to evacuate the Arafat forces, now expected to be made Tuesday. (The Greek ships and their and escort sailed into Tripoli early Tuesday, Reuters reported. Unidentified aircraft flew over the city after the arrival, and antiaircraft guns opened fire on them. Security personnel later said the planes were French jets from the carrier escorting the flotilla.)

Holiday partying sharply increases the need for maids and bartenders, while a surge in shoplifting vastly improves the security guard business. Some 16 million turkeys wind up as holiday meals, 10 percent of the year's consumption, but sales of chickens collapse to 70 percent of their pre-Christmas level. Liquor stores do one-third of their year's business and television advertisers shell out one-fifth of their annual budgets during the holidays. Gambling casinos and motels, on the other hand, cannot wait for the season's end. The generosity and gift giving that accompany the season fuel the single biggest business event of the year. But beyond that, no part of the national economy escapes the impact of Christmas.

An article in some copies of Business Day Saturday about the Mobil Oil Corporation's settlement of a lawsuit by the State of Texas and a Texas rancher misstated the terms. Mobil will transfer most of its interests in a disputed oil and gas lease to an unidentified third party, who will make cash payments and other concessions to the plaintiffs.

''The people in the Mideast have been fighting since the days of Abraham.

Senator Alfonse M. D'Amato, Republican of New York, has reached the midpoint of his first term. He has gained a reputation for dealing with such local issues as transit, housing and Federal grants to communities. His chief committee assignments are Appropriations and Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. The winner of a strenuous three-way race in 1980, Mr. D'Amato, who ran on the Republican, Conservative and Right to Life lines, was formerly Presiding Supervisor of Hempstead, L.I. During an interview recently at his office in Manhattan, Mr. D'Amato discussed his first three years in the Senate. He spoke of switching his vote to favor the production of nerve gas, causing a tie broken this year by Vice President Bush. and a measure he sponsored that cut off nonmilitary aid to Syria. He also said he opposed the Reagan Administration's intervention in the case of Baby Jane Doe, a Long Island infant with serious birth defects whose parents have ruled out corrective surgery.

Companies Kirk Kerkorian wants to take MGM/UA private in a deal valued at $452.2 million. The reclusive Las Vegas financier already controls 50.1 percent of the entertainment company's shares. As a result, analysts said, it was unclear how much of a voice other shareholders would have in assessing the bid. (Page D1.) Greyhound strikers voted overwhelmingly to accept a three- year contract and end their seven-week strike. The bus company hoped to have full service restored by tomorrow. (A1.)

Marine officers were criticized for leaving their headquarters at the Beirut International Airport vulnerable to attack on Oct. 23. A House subcommittee, after investigating the bombing of the Marine barracks that killed 241 American servicemen, has concluded that ''very serious errors of judgment'' were made by officers on the ground and up the chain of command. (Page A1, Column 6.) Israeli gunboats pounded Tripoli's harbor, and the planned evacuation of Yasir Arafat and 4,000 of his men was put off for another day. (A1:5.)

Barely 13 months after Yuri V. Andropov took power in the Kremlin with a vow to get the Soviet economy moving, the country is heading for the best year in industry and agriculture that it has had since 1978. Government data for individual sectors indicate a growth in the gross national product of close to 4 percent, about double the rate in 1981 and 1982. Among Western experts, however, there is caution. They note that overall performance in 1982 was the worst since World War II, which makes 1983's gains look strong. When compared with 1981, the figures suggest that what occurred this year was less a leap forward than a return to a more normal performance for an economy with deep-rooted problems that the Kremlin has barely touched.

IN another of the digressions that often give spice to the pursuit of science, scholars find themselves wrestling with the concept of Homer's ''wine-dark sea.'' The expression appears dozens of times in those epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Yet the sea in question, the Aegean, is no less blue or blue-green than any other. What did Homer have in mind?