1934 in science

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The year 1934 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

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.

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.^[1]
J. D. Bernal and Dorothy Crowfoot first successfully apply the technique of X-ray crystallography to analysis of a biological substance, pepsin.^[2]
The first commercial heavy water plant is built at Vemork in Norway; production also starts this year at Dnepropetrovsk in the Soviet Union.

March 8 – Sodium thiopental, the first intravenous anesthetic, synthesized by Ernest H. Volwiler with Donalee L. Tabern of Abbott Laboratories,^[3] is first administered to human subjects.
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.^[4]
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.^[5]
Tudor Thomas' work on corneal grafting restores the sight of a man who had been nearly blind for 27 years.

April 3 – Percy Shaw patents the cat's eye road-safety device in Britain.^[6]
April 18 – Citroën Traction Avant introduced, the world's first front-wheel drive monocoque (welded steel unit body) production automobile, designed by André Lefèbvre and Flaminio Bertoni.
April 24 – Laurens Hammond patents the Hammond organ in the United States.^[7]
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.

Samuel C. Bradford proposes Bradford's law of scattering, an example of Pareto distribution applicable in the bibliometrics of scientific literature and beyond.^[8]
Karl Popper publishes Logik der Forschung.

March 5 – Daniel Kahneman, Israeli-American psychologist, winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.
March 9 – Yuri Gagarin (died 1968), Russian cosmonaut, the first man in space.
March 31 – Carlo Rubbia, Italian winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics.
April 3 – Jane Goodall, English primatologist.
May 23 – Robert Moog (died 2005), American pioneer of electronic music.
July 7 – Robert McNeill Alexander (died 2016), British zoologist, authority on animal locomotion.
November 9 – Carl Sagan (died 1996), American astronomer.
September 21 – David J. Thouless, Scottish-born winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics.
Willie Hobbs Moore (died 1994), African American engineer.

January 29 – Fritz Haber (born 1868), German chemist.
April 21 – Carsten Borchgrevink (born 1864), Norwegian Antarctic explorer.
July 4 – Marie Curie (born 1867), Polish-born French physicist.
October 17 – Santiago Ramón y Cajal (born 1852), Spanish winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
September 27 – Ellen Willmott (born 1858), English horticulturist.
November 16 – Carl von Linde (born 1842), German refrigeration engineer.
November 20 – Willem de Sitter (born 1872), Dutch mathematician, physicist and astronomer.

^ Davies, Michael B.; Austin, John; Partridge, David A. (1991). Vitamin C: Its Chemistry and Biochemistry. London: Royal Society of Chemistry. p. 48. ISBN 0-85186-333-7.
^ "Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin, OM". Retrieved 2012-01-13.
^ Tabern, D. L.; Volwiler, E. H. (1935). "Sulfur-containing barbiturate hypnotics". Journal of the American Chemical Society. 57 (10): 1961–3. doi:10.1021/ja01313a062. Retrieved 2010-09-13.
^ Patarca-Montero, R. (2004). Medical Etiology, Assessment, and Treatment of Chronic Fatigue and Malaise. New York: Haworth Press. pp. 6–7. ISBN 0-7890-2196-X.
^ de Hevesy, G.; Hofer, E. (1934). "Die vermeilzeit der Wasser in menschlischen Körper, untersucht mit hilfe von "shwerem" Wasser als Indikator". Klinische Wochenschrift. 13: 1524.
^ Challoner, Jack, ed. (2009). 1001 Inventions That Changed the World. London: Cassell. pp. 634–5. ISBN 978-1-84403-611-0.
^ US patent 1956350, Laurens Hammond, "Electrical Musical Instrument", issued 1934-04-24
^ Bradford, Samuel C. (1934-01-26). "Sources of Information on Specific Subjects". Engineering. 137. London: 85–86.