1926 in science explained

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 was considered by some to be the start of the space age, although his rocket did not reach outer space.^[1]

Biology

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

Earth sciences

• Vladimir Vernadsky popularises the concept of the biosphere in a book (in Russian) 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.^{[3] [4] [5] [6]}

Medicine

• 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

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

Paleontology

• Gerhard Heilmann publishes The Origin of Birds (in English) 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 (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

• 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

• 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.
• August 11 – Sir Aaron Klug (died 2018), Lithuanian-born British biophysicist and chemist.
• 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

• 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.

Notes and References

1. Web site: Goddard launches space age with historic first 85 years ago today. 2022-08-09.
2. Web site: The Octane Scale. Polymer Science Learning Center. 2023-10-11.
3. Borůvka. Otakar. 1926. O jistém problému minimálním [About a certain minimal problem]. Práce Mor. Přírodověd. Spol. V Brně III. 3. 37–58. Czech, German.
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. 15. 153–4. Czech.
5. Nešetřil. Jaroslav. Jaroslav Nešetřil. Milková. Eva. Nešetřilová. Helena. 10.1016/S0012-365X(00)00224-7. 1–3. Discrete Mathematics. 1825599. 3–36. Otakar Borůvka on minimum spanning tree problem: translation of both the 1926 papers, comments, history. 233. 2001. 10338.dmlcz/500413. free.
6. Web site: ekonomicke stavby. www.domy-drevostavby-na-klic.cz. 20 January 2016.
7. Book: Pearl, Raymond. 1926. Alcohol and Longevity. Alfred A. Knopf. New York. 978-0-405-13615-3.
8. Book: Boyle, Peter. Oxford University Press. 9780199655786. Boffetta, Paolo. Lowenfels, Albert B.. Burns, Harry. Brawley, Otis. Zatonski, Witold. Rehm, Jürgen. Alcohol: Science, Policy and Public Health. 2013. 14.
9. Von Willebrand. E. A.. Hereditär pseudohemofili. Finska Läkaresällskapets Handlingar. 1926. 68. 87–112. Swedish.
10. Verruca senilis und Keratoma senile. Archiv für Dermatologie und Syphilis. 1926. 152. 2. 505–528. 10.1007/BF01828395. Freudenthal. Walter.
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. Web site: BBC - History - John Logie Baird. www.bbc.co.uk. 2019-04-07.
14. Book: The Hutchinson Factfinder. Helicon. 1999. 1-85986-000-1 .
15. Web site: Baird demonstrates TV. History com. 2019-04-13.
16. Web site: John Logie Baird British inventor. Encyclopædia Britannica. 2019-04-13.
17. [Royal Aircraft Establishment]
18. Alan Arnold Griffith. 1893–1963. A. A.. Rubbra. 117–136. Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 10. 1964. 769315. 10.1098/rsbm.1964.0008.
19. Web site: Photographs of the Zeiss Optical Company's first geodesic dome. . 2011-12-19 . https://web.archive.org/web/20130319084511/http://www.physics.princeton.edu/~trothman/domes.html . 2013-03-19 . dead .
20. Web site: Bellis. Mary. The History of Aerosol Spray Cans. https://archive.today/20120526093628/http://inventors.about.com/od/astartinventions/a/aerosol.htm. dead. May 26, 2012. About.com. 2011-06-27.
21. Reid. Mark Collin. Timber!. Canada's History. 2017. 97. 5. 20–23.
22. Web site: These Nobel Prize Winners Weren't Always Noble . https://web.archive.org/web/20200808155045/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/10/151005-nobel-laureates-forget-racist-sexist-science/ . dead . August 8, 2020 . National Geographic News . 19 January 2021 . en . 6 October 2015.
23. Kibble. T. W. B.. Muhammad Abdus Salam, K. B. E.. 29 January 1926-21 November 1996. Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 44. 387–401. en. 10.1098/rsbm.1998.0025. 1 November 1998.
24. Web site: Virgil I. Grissom American astronaut . Encyclopedia Britannica . 19 January 2021 . en.