1935 in science

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

Astronomy

 * May 14 – Opening of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles.
 * October 3 – Opening of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City.

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.
 * April 13 – Dorothy Hodgkin publishes her first solo paper, on the methodology of X-ray crystallography of insulin.
 * Vitamin E is first isolated in a pure form by Gladys Anderson Emerson at the University of California, Berkeley.
 * Eastman Kodak first market Kodachrome subtractive color reversal film as 16 mm movie film. It has been invented by two professional musicians, Leopold Godowsky Jr. and Leopold Mannes.

Ecology

 * English botanist Arthur Tansley introduces the concept of the ecosystem.

Geology

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

History of science and technology

 * American bacteriologist Hans Zinsser publishes Rats, lice and history: being a study in biography, which... deals with the life history of typhus fever.
 * 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.
 * Octav Onicescu and Gheorghe Mihoc develop the notion of the "chain with complete links" in probability theory.
 * George Pólya develops counting techniques for graphs as algebra.
 * George K. Zipf proposes Zipf's law on probability distribution.

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.

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; 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). Discussion of this introduces the 'Schrödinger's cat' thought experiment.
 * Jacques Yvon introduces S-particle distribution functions in classical statistical mechanics; they will later be included in the BBGKY hierarchy.

Physiology and medicine

 * January 28 – Iceland becomes the first country to legalize abortion on medical grounds.
 * May – The hormone testosterone is first isolated and named by a team at Organon in the Netherlands led by German scientist Ernst Laqueur. In August, the chemical synthesis of testosterone from cholesterol is achieved by Adolf Butenandt and Günther Hanisch. A week later, the Ciba group in Zurich, Leopold Ruzicka and A. Wettstein, publish their synthesis of the hormone.
 * Ladislas J. Meduna discovers metrazol shock therapy.
 * First vaccine for yellow fever.
 * German physician Karl Matthes develops the first two-wavelength ear O2 saturation meter.

Technology

 * January 24 – The first beer can is sold in Richmond, Virginia, United States, by the Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company.
 * June 12 – Conrad Bahr and George Pfefferle file a United States patent for an adjustable ratcheting torque wrench.
 * 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.
 * 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.
 * Helical lobe rotary-screw compressor patented by Alf Lysholm of Ljungstroms Angturbin in Sweden.

Events

 * September 16–21 – First Congress for the Unity of Science is held at the Sorbonne.

Awards

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

Births

 * January 26 – Andrew J. Stofan, American astronautical engineer.
 * January 29 – Roger Payne (died 2023), American biologist and zoologist.
 * February 15 – Roger B. Chaffee (died in accident 1967), American astronaut.
 * February 27 – Anne Treisman, née Taylor (died 2018), English-born psychologist.
 * April 11 – Kazys Almenas (died 2017), Lithuanian physicist, engineer and publisher.
 * April 25 – Jim Peebles, Canadian-born theoretical cosmologist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics.
 * June 14 – Louise Hay, née Schmir (died 1989), French-born American mathematician.
 * June 25 – Charles Sheffield (died 2002), English-born science fiction author and physicist.
 * June 30 – Animesh Chakravorty, Bengali Indian academic, chemistry professor.
 * July 2 – Sergei Khrushchev, Soviet, Russian and American control engineer (died 2020).
 * July 7 – H. Franklin Bunn, American physician, hematologist and biochemist.
 * July 12 – Satoshi Ōmura, Japanese biochemist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
 * July 14 – Ei-ichi Negishi, Japanese chemist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
 * August 3 – Georgy Shonin (died 1997), Ukrainian cosmonaut.
 * August 26 – Karen Spärck Jones (died 2007), English computer scientist.
 * September 11 – Gherman Titov (died 2000), Soviet cosmonaut.
 * September 12 – Harvey J. Alter, American virologist, winner of the Nobel Prize.
 * September 19 – Milan Antal (died 1999), Slovak astronomer
 * October 23 – JacSue Kehoe, American neuroscientist
 * October 26 – Ora Mendelsohn Rosen (died 1990), American biomedical researcher.
 * October 31 – Ronald Graham (died 2020), American mathematician.
 * November 11 – Magdi Yacoub, Egyptian-born cardiothoracic surgeon.
 * November 20 – Michael F. Ashby, English materials engineer.
 * December 27 – Stephan Tanneberger (died 2018), German oncologist, chemist.

Deaths

 * February 15 – Bohuslav Brauner, Czech chemist (born 1855)
 * March 7 – Mary Gage Day, American physician (born 1857)
 * March 12 – Mihajlo Pupin (born 1858), Serbian American physicist.
 * March 16 – John Macleod (born 1876), Scottish physician and physiologist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
 * May 12 – Abraham Groves (born 1847), Canadian surgeon.
 * May 21 – Hugo de Vries, Dutch botanist and geneticist (born 1848)
 * July 3 – André Citroën (born 1878), French automobile manufacturer.
 * August 21 – Kintarô Okamura (born 1867), Japanese phycologist.
 * September 19 – Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Russian rocket scientist (born 1857)
 * September 28 – W. K. Dickson (born 1860), British cinematographic pioneer.
 * December 4 – Charles Richet (born 1850), French physiologist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
 * November 6 – Henry Fairfield Osborn (born 1857), American paleontologist.
 * November 21 – Agnes Pockels (born 1862), German chemist.
 * December 10 – Sir John Carden, 6th Baronet (born 1892), English tank and vehicle designer (died in 1935 SABENA Savoia-Marchetti S.73 crash).
 * December 12 – Charles Loomis Dana (born 1852), American neurologist.
 * December 13 – Victor Grignard, French chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1871)