1926 in science
The year 1926 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.
Astronomy and space exploration
- March 16 – Robert Goddard launches the first liquid-fueled rocket, at Auburn, Massachusetts. This is considered by some to be the start of the space age, although his rocket did not reach outer space.
Biology
- August 7 – American herpetologist G.K. Noble publishes a demonstration that Paul Kammerer's claims to have shown Lamarckian inheritance in the midwife toad suffer from falsification of evidence.
- American microbiologist Selman Waksman publishes Enzymes.The Quarterly Review of Biology is established by Raymond Pearl in the United States.
Chemistry
- Waldo Semon and the B.F. Goodrich Company develop a method of plasticizing polyvinyl chloride, giving it commercial potential.
- Graham Edgar originates the octane rating system for automotive fuel.
- Phencyclidine is first synthesized.
Earth sciences
- Vladimir Vernadsky popularises the concept of the biosphere in a book of this title.
Exploration
- May 12 – Roald Amundsen, Umberto Nobile and crew fly over the North Pole in the airship Norge.
Mathematics
- Otakar Borůvka publishes Borůvka's algorithm, introducing the greedy algorithm.
Medicine
- First vaccine for pertussis.
- American biogerontologist Raymond Pearl publishes his book Alcohol and Longevity demonstrating that drinking alcohol in moderation is associated with greater longevity than either abstaining or drinking heavily.
- Finnish physician Erik Adolf von Willebrand first describes Hereditär pseudohemofili, later known as Von Willebrand disease.
- German-Jewish dermatologist Walter Freudenthal gives the earliest clear histopathological description of keratoma senile, distinguishing it from verruca senilis, in Breslau.
- The description 'glioblastoma multiforme' is introduced by Percival Bailey and Harvey Cushing.
Meteorology
- Wasaburo Oishi first describes the jet stream.
Paleontology
- Gerhard Heilmann publishes The Origin of Birds on bird evolution.
Physics
- Wolfgang Pauli uses Werner Heisenberg's matrix theory of quantum mechanics to derive the observed spectrum of the hydrogen atom.
Technology
- January 26 – Scottish inventor John Logie Baird demonstrates his pioneering greyscale mechanical television system at his London laboratory for members of the Royal Institution and a reporter from The Times.
- February – Hidetsugu Yagi and Shintaro Uda publish the first description of the Yagi–Uda antenna.
- June 28 – A patent for an electric percussion fuse for explosive projectiles, invented by Herbert Rühlemann, is filed in Germany.
- July
- * Alan A. Griffith publishes An Aerodynamic Theory of Turbine Design, proposing an airfoil shape for turbine blades.
- * Carl Zeiss, Jena, open a planetarium housed in a geodesic dome designed by Walther Bauersfeld.
- November 23 – The aerosol spray can is patented by Erik Rotheim, a Norwegian chemical engineer.
- The Einstein refrigerator is invented by Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard.
- Ulster-born engineer Harry Ferguson is granted a British patent for his 'Duplex' hitch linking tractor and plough.
- German engineer Andreas Stihl patents and develops an electric chainsaw.
Awards
- Nobel Prizes
- * Physics – Jean Baptiste Perrin
- * Chemistry – Theodor Svedberg
- * Medicine – Johannes Andreas Grib Fibiger
- Copley Medal: Frederick Hopkins
- Wollaston Medal for Geology: Henry Fairfield Osborn
Births
- January 11 – Lev Dyomin, Soviet Russian cosmonaut.
- January 29 – Abdus Salam, Punjabi theoretical physicist.
- February – David Medved, American physicist.
- March 7 – Margaret Weston, English electrical engineer and Director of the Science Museum, London.
- April 3 – Gus Grissom, American astronaut.
- May 1 – Eva Siracká, Slovak physician
- May 8 – David Attenborough, English broadcaster and naturalist.
- May 17 – Franz Sondheimer, German-born British chemist
- June 19 – Erna Schneider Hoover, American computer technologist.
- June 23 – Lawson Soulsby, English parasitologist.
- July 27 – W. David Kingery, American materials scientist specializing in ceramic materials.
- July 31
- * Bernard Nathanson, American medical doctor and activist.
- * Hilary Putnam, American philosopher, mathematician and computer scientist.
- August 11 – Sir Aaron Klug, Lithuanian-born British biophysicist and chemist.
- August 19 – George Daniels, English horologist.
- September 4 – George William Gray, Scottish chemist, discoverer of stable liquid crystal materials leading to the development of liquid-crystal displays.
- September 7 – Donald Pinkel, American pediatric hematologist and oncologist.
- September 15 – Jean-Pierre Serre, French mathematician.
- October 2 – Michio Suzuki, Japanese mathematician.
- October 12 – Ruth L. Kirschstein, American pathologist and science administrator at the National Institutes of Health.
- October 31 – Narinder Singh Kapany, Punjabi-born physicist.
- November 29 – Dilhan Eryurt, Turkish astrophysicist.
- December 10 – Neena Schwartz, American endocrinologist.
Deaths
- March 5 – Clément Ader, French engineer and inventor, airplane pioneer.
- April 11 – Luther Burbank, American plant breeder.
- May 8 – Stephen Paget, English surgeon.
- July 21 – Washington Roebling, American civil engineer.
- September 23 – Paul Kammerer, Austrian Lamarckian biologist.
- October 7 – Emil Kraepelin, German psychiatrist.
- October 10 – Clara H. Hasse, American botanist.
- October 19 – Victor Babeș, Romanian physician and bacteriologist.
- November 26 – John Browning, American firearms designer.