1926 in science

• March 16 – Robert Goddard launches the first liquid-fueled rocket, at Auburn, Massachusetts. This is considered by some to be the start of the space age, although his rocket did not reach outer space.{{Cite web|title = Goddard launches space age with historic first 85 years ago today|url = http://www.clarku.edu/article/goddard-launches-space-age-historic-first-85-years-ago-today|access-date = 2022-08-09}}

• American microbiologist Selman Waksman publishes Enzymes.
• The Quarterly Review of Biology is established by Raymond Pearl in the United States.

• 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.{{cite web|title=The Octane Scale|url=https://pslc.ws/macrog/exp/rubber/synth/octane.htm|publisher=Polymer Science Learning Center|accessdate=2023-10-11}}
• 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.

• May 12 – Roald Amundsen, Umberto Nobile and crew fly over the North Pole in the airship Norge.

• Otakar Borůvka publishes Borůvka's algorithm, introducing the greedy algorithm.{{cite journal|last=Borůvka|first=Otakar|year=1926|title=O jistém problému minimálním [About a certain minimal problem]|journal=Práce Mor. Přírodověd. Spol. V Brně III|volume=3|pages=37–58|language=Czech, German}}{{cite journal|last=Borůvka|first=Otakar|year=1926|title=Příspěvek k řešení otázky ekonomické stavby elektrovodních sítí [Contribution to the solution of a problem of economical construction of electrical networks]|journal=Elektronický Obzor|volume=15|pages=153–4|language=Czech}}{{cite journal|last1=Nešetřil|first1=Jaroslav|author1-link=Jaroslav Nešetřil|last2=Milková|first2=Eva|last3=Nešetřilová|first3=Helena|doi=10.1016/S0012-365X(00)00224-7|issue=1–3|journal=Discrete Mathematics|mr=1825599|pages=3–36|title=Otakar Borůvka on minimum spanning tree problem: translation of both the 1926 papers, comments, history|volume=233|year=2001|hdl=10338.dmlcz/500413|hdl-access=free}}{{cite web|title=ekonomicke stavby|url=http://www.domy-drevostavby-na-klic.cz/technologie-ekonomicke-stavby/|publisher=www.domy-drevostavby-na-klic.cz|accessdate=20 January 2016}}

• First vaccine for pertussis.
• American biogerontologist Raymond Pearl publishes his book Alcohol and Longevity{{cite book|first=Raymond|last=Pearl|year=1926|title=Alcohol and Longevity|url=https://archive.org/details/b2981635x|publisher=Alfred A. Knopf|location=New York|isbn=978-0-405-13615-3}} demonstrating that drinking alcohol in moderation is associated with greater longevity than either abstaining or drinking heavily.{{cite book|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780199655786|last=Boyle|first=Peter|author2=Boffetta, Paolo|author3=Lowenfels, Albert B.|author4=Burns, Harry|author5=Brawley, Otis|author6=Zatonski, Witold|author7= Rehm, Jürgen|title=Alcohol: Science, Policy and Public Health|year=2013|page=14}}
• Finnish physician Erik Adolf von Willebrand first describes Hereditär pseudohemofili ("Hereditary pseudohemophilia"),{{cite journal|last=Von Willebrand|first=E. A.|title=Hereditär pseudohemofili|journal=Finska Läkaresällskapets Handlingar|date=1926|volume=68|pages=87–112|language=Swedish}} 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.{{cite journal|title=Verruca senilis und Keratoma senile|journal=Archiv für Dermatologie und Syphilis|year=1926|volume=152|issue=2|pages=505–528|doi=10.1007/BF01828395|last1 = Freudenthal|first1 = Walter}}
• The description 'glioblastoma multiforme' is introduced by Percival Bailey and Harvey Cushing.Bailey; Cushing (1926). Tumors of the Glioma Group. Philadelphia: Lippincott.

• Wasaburo Oishi first describes the jet stream.Ooishi, W. (1926). Raporto de la Aerologia Observatorio de Tateno (in Esperanto). Aerological Observatory Report 1, Central Meteorological Observatory, Japan. 213 pp.

• Gerhard Heilmann publishes The Origin of Birds (in English) on bird evolution.

• Wolfgang Pauli uses Werner Heisenberg's matrix theory of quantum mechanics to derive the observed spectrum of the hydrogen atom.

• 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.{{Cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/baird_logie.shtml|title=BBC - History - John Logie Baird|website=www.bbc.co.uk|access-date=2019-04-07}}{{cite book|title=The Hutchinson Factfinder|publisher=Helicon|year=1999|isbn=1-85986-000-1 }}{{Cite web|url=https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/baird-demonstrates-tv|title=Baird demonstrates TV|website=History com|access-date=2019-04-13}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Logie-Baird|title=John Logie Baird {{!}} British inventor|website=Encyclopædia Britannica|access-date=2019-04-13}}
• 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.Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, Report no. H 1111.{{cite journal|title=Alan Arnold Griffith. 1893–1963|first=A. A.|last=Rubbra|pages=117–136|journal=Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society|volume=10|year=1964|jstor=769315|doi=10.1098/rsbm.1964.0008}}
• Carl Zeiss, Jena, open a planetarium housed in a geodesic dome designed by Walther Bauersfeld.{{Cite web |url=http://www.physics.princeton.edu/~trothman/domes.html |title=Photographs of the Zeiss Optical Company's first geodesic dome. |access-date=2011-12-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130319084511/http://www.physics.princeton.edu/~trothman/domes.html |archive-date=2013-03-19 |url-status=dead }}
• November 23 – The aerosol spray can is patented by Erik Rotheim, a Norwegian chemical engineer.{{cite web|last=Bellis|first=Mary|url=http://inventors.about.com/od/astartinventions/a/aerosol.htm|archive-url=https://archive.today/20120526093628/http://inventors.about.com/od/astartinventions/a/aerosol.htm|url-status=dead|archive-date=May 26, 2012|title=The History of Aerosol Spray Cans|work=About.com|accessdate=2011-06-27}}
• 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.{{cite journal|last1=Reid|first1=Mark Collin|title=Timber!|journal=Canada's History|date=2017|volume=97|issue=5|pages=20–23}}

• Nobel Prizes
• Physics – Jean Baptiste Perrin
• Chemistry – Theodor Svedberg
• Medicine – Johannes Andreas Grib Fibiger{{cite web |title=These Nobel Prize Winners Weren't Always Noble |url=https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/10/151005-nobel-laureates-forget-racist-sexist-science/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200808155045/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/10/151005-nobel-laureates-forget-racist-sexist-science/ |url-status=dead |archive-date=August 8, 2020 |website=National Geographic News |access-date=19 January 2021 |language=en |date=6 October 2015}}
• Copley Medal: Frederick Hopkins
• Wollaston Medal for Geology: Henry Fairfield Osborn

• January 11 – Lev Dyomin (died 1998), Soviet Russian cosmonaut.
• January 29 – Abdus Salam (died 1996), Punjabi theoretical physicist.{{cite journal|last1=Kibble|first1=T. W. B.|title=Muhammad Abdus Salam, K. B. E.. 29 January 1926-21 November 1996|journal=Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society|volume=44|pages=387–401|language=en|doi=10.1098/rsbm.1998.0025|date=1 November 1998|doi-access=}}
• 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.{{cite web |title=Virgil I. Grissom {{!}} American astronaut |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Virgil-I-Grissom |website=Encyclopedia Britannica |access-date=19 January 2021 |language=en}}
• 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.
• August 19 – George Daniels (died 2011), English horologist.
• 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.

• 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.

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Category:20th century in science

Category:1920s in science