1829 in science

The year 1829 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Chemistry

 * Isaac Holden produces a form of friction match.

Mathematics

 * Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet publishes a memoir giving the Dirichlet conditions, showing for which functions the convergence of the Fourier series holds; introducing Dirichlet's test for the convergence of series; the Dirichlet function as an example that not any function is integrable; and, in the proof of the theorem for the Fourier series, the Dirichlet kernel and Dirichlet integral. He also introduces a general modern concept for a function.
 * Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky publishes his work on hyperbolic non-Euclidean geometry.
 * S. D. Poisson publishes Sur l'attraction des sphéroides.

Medicine

 * Dr Benjamin Guy Babington makes the first known use of a laryngoscope.

Palaeontology

 * Jules Desnoyers names the Quaternary period.
 * Engis 2, part of the skull of a young child and other bones, recognised in 1936 as the first known Neanderthal fossil, is found in the Awirs cave near Engis in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands (modern-day Belgium) by Philippe-Charles Schmerling.

Technology

 * May – Cyrill Demian patents a version of the accordion in Vienna.
 * June 30 – Henry Robinson Palmer files a British patent application for corrugated iron for use in buildings.
 * July 23 – In the United States, William Burt obtains the first patent for a form of typewriter, the typographer.
 * October 6–14 – The Rainhill Trials, a steam locomotive competition, are run in England and won by Stephenson's Rocket.
 * December 19 – Charles Wheatstone patents the concertina in Britain.
 * Louis Braille publishes the first description of his method of embossed printing that allows the visually impaired to read.

Higher Education

 * Chalmers University of Technology founded in Gothenburg, Sweden.
 * Technical University of Denmark (originally named 'College of Advanced Technology') founded in Copenhagen, Denmark.
 * University of Stuttgart founded in Stuttgart, Germany.
 * Ecole Centrale Paris (originally named 'École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures') founded in Paris, France.

Awards

 * Copley Medal: not awarded

Births

 * February 2
 * Alfred Brehm (died 1884), German zoologist.
 * William Stanley (died 1909), English inventor.
 * March 23 – N. R. Pogson (died 1891 in science), English-born astronomer.
 * April 28 – Charles Bourseul (died 1912), Belgian-born telegraph engineer.
 * April 30 – Ferdinand von Hochstetter (died 1884), German-born geologist.
 * July 30 – George Rolleston (died 1881), English physician and zoologist.
 * August 13 (O.S. August 1) – Ivan Sechenov (died 1905), "the father of Russian physiology".
 * August 23 – Moritz Cantor (died 1920), German historian of mathematics.
 * August 24 - Emanuella Carlbeck (died 1901), Swedish pioneer in the education of students with intellectual disability.
 * September 7 – August Kekulé (died 1896), German chemist.
 * September 30
 * Franz Reuleaux (died 1905), German mechanical engineer.
 * Joseph Wolstenholme (died 1891), English mathematician.
 * October 15 - Asaph Hall (died 1907), American astronomer.
 * November 4 - Hanna Hammarström (died 1909), Swedish inventor.

Deaths

 * March 1 – Thomas Earnshaw (born 1749), English watchmaker.
 * April 6 – Niels Henrik Abel (born 1802), Norwegian mathematician.
 * May 10 – Thomas Young (born 1773), English physicist.
 * May 29 – Humphry Davy (born 1778), English chemist.
 * June 29 – James Smithson (born 1764), English mineralogist, chemist and benefactor.
 * November 14 – Louis Nicolas Vauquelin (born 1763), French chemist.
 * October 10 – Maria Elizabetha Jacson (born 1755), English botanist.
 * December 28 – Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (born 1744), French naturalist.
 * undated - Huang Lü, Chinese scientist.