1926 in science

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.