1934 in science

Astronomy

• Richard Tolman shows that black-body radiation in an expanding universe cools but remains thermal.
• Georges Lemaître interprets the cosmological constant as due to a vacuum energy with an unusual perfect fluid equation of state.

  Chemistry

• The Mulliken scale of chemical element electronegativity is developed by Robert S. Mulliken.
• Norman Haworth and Edmund Hirst report the first synthesis of vitamin C.
• J. D. Bernal and Dorothy Crowfoot first successfully apply the technique of X-ray crystallography to analysis of a biological substance, pepsin.
• The first commercial heavy water plant is built at Vemork in Norway; production also starts this year at Dnepropetrovsk in the Soviet Union.

  History of science and technology

• January 18 – The Iron Bridge in Shropshire, dating from the Industrial Revolution period, becomes an officially scheduled monument in England.
• Lewis Mumford publishes Technics and Civilization.

  Mathematics

• Penrose triangle devised.

  Physics

• Sonoluminescence is discovered at the University of Cologne.
• Gregory Breit and John A. Wheeler describe the Breit–Wheeler process.
• Henri Coandă obtains his first patent, in France, on the Coandă effect.

  Physiology and medicine

• March 8 – Sodium thiopental, the first intravenous anesthetic, synthesized by Ernest H. Volwiler with Donalee L. Tabern of Abbott Laboratories, is first administered to human subjects.
• November 1 – William F. Wells publishes the Wells curve giving an explanation of the behavior of exhaled respiratory droplets and their influence on the transmission of infectious respiratory diseases.
• Outbreak of "atypical poliomyelitis", strongly resembling what would later be called chronic fatigue syndrome, affects a large number of medical staff at the Los Angeles County Hospital.
• George de Hevesy uses heavy water in one of the first biological tracer experiments, to estimate the rate of turnover of water in the human body.
• Austrian biochemist Regina Kapeller-Adler develops an innovative early pregnancy test based on the presence of histidine in urine.
• Tudor Thomas' work on corneal grafting restores the sight of a man who had been nearly blind for 27 years.

  Technology

• April 3 – Percy Shaw patents the cat's eye road-safety device in Britain.
• April 18 – Citroën Traction Avant introduced, the world's first front-wheel drive monocoque production automobile, designed by André Lefèbvre and Flaminio Bertoni.
• April 24 – Laurens Hammond patents the Hammond organ in the United States.
• The 135 film cartridge is introduced in Germany and the United States with the Kodak Retina camera, making 35mm film easy to use.
• The first commercial electronic television sets with cathode ray tubes are manufactured by Telefunken in Germany.

  Publications

• Samuel C. Bradford proposes Bradford's law of scattering, an example of Pareto distribution applicable in the bibliometrics of scientific literature and beyond.
• Karl Popper publishes Logik der Forschung.

  Awards

• Nobel Prize
• * Physics: not awarded
• * Chemistry: Harold Clayton Urey
• * Physiology or Medicine: George Hoyt Whipple, George Richards Minot, William Parry Murphy

  Births

• March 4 – Janez Strnad, Slovenian physicist
• March 5 – Daniel Kahneman, Israeli-American psychologist, winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.
• March 9 – Yuri Gagarin, Russian cosmonaut, the first man in space.
• March 14 – Eugene Cernan, American astronaut, the last man to walk on the moon for at least 45 years.
• March 23 – Ludvig Faddeev, Russian mathematician and theoretical physicist.
• March 31 – Carlo Rubbia, Italian winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics.
• April 2 – Paul Cohen, American mathematician, winner of the Fields Medal.
• April 3 – Jane Goodall, English primatologist.
• April – Dona Strauss, South African-born mathematician.
• May 21 – Bengt I. Samuelsson, Swedish biochemist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
• May 23
• * Robert Moog, American pioneer of electronic music.
• * Willie Hobbs Moore, African American engineer.
• May 30 – Alexei Leonov, Russian cosmonaut, the first man to walk in space.
• July 7 – Robert McNeill Alexander, British zoologist, authority on animal locomotion.
• September 21 – David J. Thouless, Scottish-born winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics.
• November 9 – Carl Sagan, American astronomer.
• November 27 – Gilbert Strang, American mathematician.

  Deaths

• January 6 – Fernand Lataste, French zoologist.
• January 14 – Ioan Cantacuzino, Romanian microbiologist.
• January 29 – Fritz Haber, German chemist.
• February 25 – Elizabeth Gertrude Britton, American botanist.
• April 10 – Cecilia Grierson, Argentine physician and reformer.
• April 21 – Carsten Borchgrevink, Norwegian Antarctic explorer.
• July 4 – Marie Curie, Polish-born French physicist.
• October 17 – Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Spanish winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
• September 27 – Ellen Willmott, English horticulturist.
• November 16 – Carl von Linde, German refrigeration engineer.
• November 20 – Willem de Sitter, Dutch mathematician, physicist and astronomer.
• December 10 – Theobald Smith, American bacteriologist.
• William Hoskins, American inventor.