1935 in science

The year 1935 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Astronomy

• Opening of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City.
• Opening of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, California.

Chemistry

• February 28–March 1 – Working with polyamides to develop a viable new fiber for chemical company DuPont, American chemist Gérard Berchet working under the direction of Wallace Carothers first synthesizes the synthetic polymer nylon at Wilmington, Delaware.^[1]
• Vitamin E is first isolated in a pure form by Gladys Anderson Emerson at the University of California, Berkeley.^[2]
• Eastman Kodak first market Kodachrome subtractive color reversal film as 16 mm movie film.^[3][4] It was invented by two professional musicians, Leopold Godowsky, Jr. and Leopold Mannes.^[5][6][7]

Ecology

• English botanist Arthur Tansley introduces the concept of the ecosystem.^[8][9]

Geology

• Charles Richter and Beno Gutenberg develop the Richter magnitude scale for quantifying earthquakes.

History of science and technology

• American virologist Hans Zisser publishes Rats, lice and history: being a study in biography, which... deals with the life history of typhus fever.^[10]
• Cornish Engines Preservation Committee formed to conserve the Levant Mine beam engine in Cornwall, England.

Mathematics

• April 19 – Alonzo Church presents his paper "An unsolvable problem of elementary number theory", introducing his theorem on the Entscheidungsproblem, to the American Mathematical Society.^[11]
• George Pólya develops counting techniques for graphs as algebra.^[12]
• George K. Zipf proposes Zipf's law on probability distribution.^[13]

Medicine

• January 28 – Iceland becomes the first country to legalize abortion on medical grounds.
• Ladislas J. Meduna discovers metrazol shock therapy
• First vaccine for Yellow Fever

Pharmacology

• January 2 – IG Farben are granted a patent in Germany for the medical application of the first sulfonamide prodrug, Sulfonamidochrysoidine (KI-730; marketed as Prontosil). In February, Gerhard Domagk and others publish (in Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift) the first clinical results on its properties as an antibiotic, the first commercially available; and in November a team directed by Ernest Fourneau at the Pasteur Institute identify sulfanilamide as the active component.^[14]

Physics

• January 8 – A.C. Hardy patents the spectrophotometer.
• February 26 – Robert Watson-Watt and Arnold Wilkins first demonstrate the reflection of radio waves from an aircraft, near Daventry in England;^[15] on June 17, the first radio detection of an aircraft by ground-based radar is made at Orford Ness.
• Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen publish a paper arguing that quantum mechanics is not a complete physical theory (the EPR paradox).^[16] Discussion of this introduces the 'Schrödinger's cat' thought experiment.^[17]
• Jacques Yvon introduces S-particle distribution functions in classical statistical mechanics;^[18] they will later be included in the BBGKY hierarchy.

Technology

• January 24 – The first beer can is sold in Richmond, Virginia, United States, by the Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company.^[19]
• July 16 – The world's first parking meter is installed in Oklahoma City to a design by Holger George Thuesen and Gerald A. Hale patented by Carl Magee.^{[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27]}
• November 6
  • Edwin H. Armstrong presents his paper on FM broadcasting, "A Method of Reducing Disturbances in Radio Signaling by a System of Frequency Modulation", to the New York section of the Institute of Radio Engineers.
  • First flight of the Hawker Hurricane British fighter aircraft, designed by Sydney Camm.
• Callender-Hamilton bridge patented by A. M. Hamilton.

Awards

• Nobel Prizes
  • Physics – James Chadwick
  • Chemistry – Frédéric Joliot, Irène Joliot-Curie
  • Medicine – Hans Spemann

Births

• January 29 - Roger Payne, American biologist and zoologist
• February 15 – Roger B. Chaffee (died in accident 1967), American astronaut.
• June 25 – Charles Sheffield (died 2002), English-born science fiction author and physicist.
• August 3 – Georgy Shonin (died 1997), Ukrainian cosmonaut.
• September 11 – Gherman Titov (died 2000), Soviet cosmonaut.
• November 11 – Magdi Yacoub, Egyptian-born cardiothoracic surgeon.
• Michael F. Ashby, English materials engineer.

Deaths

• March 12 – Mihajlo Idvorski Pupin (born 1858), physicist.
• July 3 – André Citroën (born 1878), automobile manufacturer.
• December 4 – Charles Richet (born 1850), winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine.
• November 6 – Henry Fairfield Osborn (born 1857), paleontologist.
• Agnes Pockels (born 1862), chemist.

References