1926 in science

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The year 1926 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Astronomy and space exploration[edit]

March 16 – Robert Goddard launches the first liquid-fueled rocket, at Auburn, Massachusetts. This was considered by some to be the start of the space age, although his rocket did not reach outer space.^[1]

Biology[edit]

American microbiologist Selman Waksman publishes Enzymes.
The Quarterly Review of Biology is established by Raymond Pearl in the United States.

Chemistry[edit]

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.^[2]
Phencyclidine (PCP, angel dust) is first synthesized.

Earth sciences[edit]

Vladimir Vernadsky popularises the concept of the biosphere in a book (in Russian) of this title.

Exploration[edit]

May 12 – Roald Amundsen, Umberto Nobile and crew fly over the North Pole in the airship Norge.

Mathematics[edit]

Otakar Borůvka publishes Borůvka's algorithm, introducing the greedy algorithm.^[3]^[4]^[5]^[6]

Medicine[edit]

First vaccine for pertussis.
American biogerontologist Raymond Pearl publishes his book Alcohol and Longevity^[7] demonstrating that drinking alcohol in moderation is associated with greater longevity than either abstaining or drinking heavily.^[8]
Finnish physician Erik Adolf von Willebrand first describes Hereditär pseudohemofili ("Hereditary pseudohemophilia"),^[9] later known as Von Willebrand disease.
German-Jewish dermatologist Walter Freudenthal gives the earliest clear histopathological description of keratoma senile (actinic keratosis), distinguishing it from verruca senilis (seborrheic keratosis), in Breslau.^[10]
The description 'glioblastoma multiforme' is introduced by Percival Bailey and Harvey Cushing.^[11]

Meteorology[edit]

Wasaburo Oishi first describes the jet stream.^[12]

Paleontology[edit]

Gerhard Heilmann publishes The Origin of Birds (in English) on bird evolution.

Physics[edit]

Wolfgang Pauli uses Werner Heisenberg's matrix theory of quantum mechanics to derive the observed spectrum of the hydrogen atom.

Technology[edit]

January 26 – Scottish inventor John Logie Baird demonstrates his pioneering greyscale mechanical television system (which he calls a "televisor") at his London laboratory for members of the Royal Institution and a reporter from The Times.^[13]^[14]^[15]^[16]
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.^[17]^[18]
- Carl Zeiss, Jena, open a planetarium housed in a geodesic dome designed by Walther Bauersfeld.^[19]
November 23 – The aerosol spray can is patented by Erik Rotheim, a Norwegian chemical engineer.^[20]
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.^[21]

Awards[edit]

Nobel Prizes
- Physics – Jean Baptiste Perrin
- Chemistry – Theodor Svedberg
- Medicine – Johannes Andreas Grib Fibiger^[22]
Copley Medal: Frederick Hopkins
Wollaston Medal for Geology: Henry Fairfield Osborn

Births[edit]

January 11 – Lev Dyomin (died 1998), Soviet Russian cosmonaut.
January 29 – Abdus Salam (died 1996), Punjabi theoretical physicist.^[23]
February – David Medved (died 2009), American physicist.
March 7 – Margaret Weston (died 2021), English electrical engineer and Director of the Science Museum, London.
April 3 – Gus Grissom (died 1967), American astronaut.^[24]
May 1 – Eva Siracká (died 2023), Slovak physician
May 8 – David Attenborough, English broadcaster and naturalist.
May 17 – Franz Sondheimer (died 1981), German-born British chemist
June 19 – Erna Schneider Hoover, American computer technologist.
June 23 – Lawson Soulsby (died 2017), English parasitologist.
July 27 – W. David Kingery (died 2000), American materials scientist specializing in ceramic materials.
July 31
- Bernard Nathanson (died 2011), American medical doctor and activist.
- Hilary Putnam (died 2016), American philosopher, mathematician and computer scientist.
September 4 – George William Gray (died 2013), Scottish chemist, discoverer of stable liquid crystal materials leading to the development of liquid-crystal displays.
September 7 – Donald Pinkel (died 2022), American pediatric hematologist and oncologist.
September 15 – Jean-Pierre Serre, French mathematician.
October 2 – Michio Suzuki (died 1998), Japanese mathematician.
October 12 – Ruth L. Kirschstein (died 2009), American pathologist and science administrator at the National Institutes of Health.
October 31 – Narinder Singh Kapany (died 2020), Punjabi-born physicist.
November 29 – Dilhan Eryurt (died 2012), Turkish astrophysicist.
December 10 – Neena Schwartz (died 2018), American endocrinologist.

Deaths[edit]

March 5 – Clément Ader (born 1841), French engineer and inventor, airplane pioneer.
April 11 – Luther Burbank (born 1849), American plant breeder.
May 8 – Stephen Paget (born 1855), English surgeon.
July 21 – Washington Roebling (born 1837), American civil engineer.
September 23 – Paul Kammerer (born 1880), Austrian Lamarckian biologist (suicide).
October 7 – Emil Kraepelin (born 1856), German psychiatrist.
October 10 – Clara H. Hasse (born 1880), American botanist.
October 19 – Victor Babeș (born 1854), Romanian physician and bacteriologist.
November 26 – John Browning (born 1855), American firearms designer.

References[edit]

^ "Goddard launches space age with historic first 85 years ago today". Retrieved 2022-08-09.
^ "The Octane Scale". Polymer Science Learning Center. Retrieved 2023-10-11.
^ Borůvka, Otakar (1926). "O jistém problému minimálním [About a certain minimal problem]". Práce Mor. Přírodověd. Spol. V Brně III (in Czech and German). 3: 37–58.
^ Borůvka, Otakar (1926). "Příspěvek k řešení otázky ekonomické stavby elektrovodních sítí [Contribution to the solution of a problem of economical construction of electrical networks]". Elektronický Obzor (in Czech). 15: 153–4.
^ Nešetřil, Jaroslav; Milková, Eva; Nešetřilová, Helena (2001). "Otakar Borůvka on minimum spanning tree problem: translation of both the 1926 papers, comments, history". Discrete Mathematics. 233 (1–3): 3–36. doi:10.1016/S0012-365X(00)00224-7. hdl:10338.dmlcz/500413. MR 1825599.
^ "ekonomicke stavby". www.domy-drevostavby-na-klic.cz. Retrieved 20 January 2016.
^ Pearl, Raymond (1926). Alcohol and Longevity. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 978-0-405-13615-3.
^ Boyle, Peter; Boffetta, Paolo; Lowenfels, Albert B.; Burns, Harry; Brawley, Otis; Zatonski, Witold; Rehm, Jürgen (2013). Alcohol: Science, Policy and Public Health. Oxford University Press. p. 14. ISBN 9780199655786.
^ Von Willebrand, E. A. (1926). "Hereditär pseudohemofili". Finska Läkaresällskapets Handlingar (in Swedish). 68: 87–112.
^ Freudenthal, Walter (1926). "Verruca senilis und Keratoma senile". Archiv für Dermatologie und Syphilis. 152 (2): 505–528. doi:10.1007/BF01828395.
^ Bailey; Cushing (1926). Tumors of the Glioma Group. Philadelphia: Lippincott.
^ Ooishi, W. (1926). Raporto de la Aerologia Observatorio de Tateno (in Esperanto). Aerological Observatory Report 1, Central Meteorological Observatory, Japan. 213 pp.
^ "BBC - History - John Logie Baird". www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2019-04-07.
^ The Hutchinson Factfinder. Helicon. 1999. ISBN 1-85986-000-1.
^ "Baird demonstrates TV". History com. Retrieved 2019-04-13.
^ "John Logie Baird | British inventor". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 2019-04-13.
^ Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, Report no. H 1111.
^ Rubbra, A. A. (1964). "Alan Arnold Griffith. 1893–1963". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 10: 117–136. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1964.0008. JSTOR 769315.
^ "Photographs of the Zeiss Optical Company's first geodesic dome". Archived from the original on 2013-03-19. Retrieved 2011-12-19.
^ Bellis, Mary. "The History of Aerosol Spray Cans". About.com. Archived from the original on May 26, 2012. Retrieved 2011-06-27.
^ Reid, Mark Collin (2017). "Timber!". Canada's History. 97 (5): 20–23.
^ "These Nobel Prize Winners Weren't Always Noble". National Geographic News. 6 October 2015. Archived from the original on August 8, 2020. Retrieved 19 January 2021.
^ Kibble, T. W. B. (1 November 1998). "Muhammad Abdus Salam, K. B. E.. 29 January 1926-21 November 1996". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 44: 387–401. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1998.0025.
^ "Virgil I. Grissom | American astronaut". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 19 January 2021.

[1] "Goddard launches space age with historic first 85 years ago today". Retrieved 2022-08-09.

[2] "The Octane Scale". Polymer Science Learning Center. Retrieved 2023-10-11.

[3] Borůvka, Otakar (1926). "O jistém problému minimálním [About a certain minimal problem]". Práce Mor. Přírodověd. Spol. V Brně III (in Czech and German). 3: 37–58.

[4] Borůvka, Otakar (1926). "Příspěvek k řešení otázky ekonomické stavby elektrovodních sítí [Contribution to the solution of a problem of economical construction of electrical networks]". Elektronický Obzor (in Czech). 15: 153–4.

[5] Nešetřil, Jaroslav; Milková, Eva; Nešetřilová, Helena (2001). "Otakar Borůvka on minimum spanning tree problem: translation of both the 1926 papers, comments, history". Discrete Mathematics. 233 (1–3): 3–36. doi:10.1016/S0012-365X(00)00224-7. hdl:10338.dmlcz/500413. MR 1825599.

[6] "ekonomicke stavby". www.domy-drevostavby-na-klic.cz. Retrieved 20 January 2016.

[7] Pearl, Raymond (1926). Alcohol and Longevity. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 978-0-405-13615-3.

[8] Boyle, Peter; Boffetta, Paolo; Lowenfels, Albert B.; Burns, Harry; Brawley, Otis; Zatonski, Witold; Rehm, Jürgen (2013). Alcohol: Science, Policy and Public Health. Oxford University Press. p. 14. ISBN 9780199655786.

[9] Von Willebrand, E. A. (1926). "Hereditär pseudohemofili". Finska Läkaresällskapets Handlingar (in Swedish). 68: 87–112.

[10] Freudenthal, Walter (1926). "Verruca senilis und Keratoma senile". Archiv für Dermatologie und Syphilis. 152 (2): 505–528. doi:10.1007/BF01828395.

[11] Bailey; Cushing (1926). Tumors of the Glioma Group. Philadelphia: Lippincott.

[12] Ooishi, W. (1926). Raporto de la Aerologia Observatorio de Tateno (in Esperanto). Aerological Observatory Report 1, Central Meteorological Observatory, Japan. 213 pp.

[13] "BBC - History - John Logie Baird". www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2019-04-07.

[14] The Hutchinson Factfinder. Helicon. 1999. ISBN 1-85986-000-1.

[15] "Baird demonstrates TV". History com. Retrieved 2019-04-13.

[16] "John Logie Baird | British inventor". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 2019-04-13.

[17] Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, Report no. H 1111.

[18] Rubbra, A. A. (1964). "Alan Arnold Griffith. 1893–1963". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 10: 117–136. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1964.0008. JSTOR 769315.

[19] "Photographs of the Zeiss Optical Company's first geodesic dome". Archived from the original on 2013-03-19. Retrieved 2011-12-19.

[20] Bellis, Mary. "The History of Aerosol Spray Cans". About.com. Archived from the original on May 26, 2012. Retrieved 2011-06-27.

[21] Reid, Mark Collin (2017). "Timber!". Canada's History. 97 (5): 20–23.

[22] "These Nobel Prize Winners Weren't Always Noble". National Geographic News. 6 October 2015. Archived from the original on August 8, 2020. Retrieved 19 January 2021.

[23] Kibble, T. W. B. (1 November 1998). "Muhammad Abdus Salam, K. B. E.. 29 January 1926-21 November 1996". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 44: 387–401. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1998.0025.

[24] "Virgil I. Grissom | American astronaut". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 19 January 2021.

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