1929 in science

Astronomy and space exploration

• July 17 – Robert H. Goddard tests the first rocket to carry scientific instruments.
• Edwin Hubble publishes his discovery that the speed at which galaxies recede positively correlates with their distance, which becomes known as Hubble's law, the basis for understanding that the universe is expanding.
• George Gamow proposes hydrogen fusion as the energy source for stars.
• Clyde Tombaugh discovers several asteroids: 2839 Annette, 3583 Burdett, 3824 Brendalee, 1929 VS, 1929 VD1.
• Harold Horton Sheldon writes about the serious possibility of man visiting other planets through the use of rockets.
• Konstantin Tsiolkovsky proposes the construction of multistage rockets in his book «Космические поезда».

  Aviation

• July 5 – The Curtiss-Wright corporation is founded.
• August 8–29 – The German airship Graf Zeppelin makes a round-the-world flight.
• September 24 – Jimmy Doolittle takes off, flies over a set course, and lands by flight instruments alone.
• November 29 – US Admiral Richard Byrd becomes the first person to fly over the South Pole.
• December 16 – The British airship R100 makes its maiden flight, incorporating Barnes Wallis' pioneering use of a geodetic airframe.
• December 5 – Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation is founded.

  Biochemistry

• Carl and Gerty Cori propose the Cori cycle, describing how the human body processes carbohydrates.
• Adenosine triphosphate, an important cell coenzyme, is discovered by German biochemist Karl Lohmann, and independently by Cyrus Fiske and Yellapragada Subbarow of Harvard Medical School.
• Estrogen was isolated and purified estrone, the first estrogen to be discovered by Adolf Butenandt.

  Biology

• C. B. van Niel makes the first announcement of his discovery that photosynthesis is a light-dependent redox reaction.
• Professor Frederick Gericke of the University of California, Los Angeles, demonstrates that plants can be grown soil-free all the way to maturity, the basis of hydroponics.

  Chemistry

• Sir John Lennard-Jones introduces his linear combination of atomic orbitals molecular orbital method for approximation of molecular orbitals.
• Lars Onsager publishes his reciprocal relations equations in thermodynamics, for which he will receive the 1968 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
• Linus Pauling publishes Pauling's rules, key principles for the use of X-ray crystallography to deduce molecular structure.
• Styrene-butadiene was developed by German chemist Walter Bock.

  Communications

• June 27 – The first public demonstration of color television is held by Herbert E. Ives and colleagues at AT&T's Bell Telephone Laboratories in New York. The first images are a bouquet of roses and an American flag. A mechanical system is used to transmit 50-line images to Washington.
• August 20 – First transmissions of John Logie Baird's experimental 30-line television system by the British Broadcasting Corporation.
• November – Vladimir Zworykin takes out a patent for color television.
• First practical coaxial cable patented by Lloyd Espenschied and Herman Affel of Bell Labs.
• Rudolf Hell receives a patent for the Hellschreiber, an early fax machine.

  Earth sciences

• November 18 – Grand Banks earthquake: Off the south coast of Newfoundland in the Atlantic Ocean, a Richter magnitude 7.2 submarine earthquake centered on Grand Banks, breaks 12 submarine transatlantic telegraph cables and triggers a tsunami that destroys many south coast communities in the Burin Peninsula area.

  History of science

• October 21 – Henry Ford's Edison Institute is inaugurated at Dearborn, Michigan on the 50th anniversary of the invention of the incandescent light bulb, in the presence of President of the United States Herbert Hoover, Thomas Edison, Walter Chrysler, Marie Curie, George Eastman and Orville Wright. Exhibits include the 17th century Newcomen atmospheric engine Fairbottom Bobs.
• Edwin Boring publishes A History of Experimental Psychology.

  Mathematics

• Kurt Gödel proves his completeness theorem.
• Kurt Mahler shows that the Prouhet–Thue–Morse constant is a transcendental number.
• Dimitrie Pompeiu poses the Pompeiu problem.
• Holbrook Working and Harold Hotelling devise the Working–Hotelling procedure for linear regression.

  Medicine

• Alexander Fleming publishes an article about penicillin in the British Journal of Experimental Pathology, for which he will receive the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
• Hans Berger discovers human electroencephalography.
• Ernst Gräfenberg introduces Gräfenberg's ring, an intrauterine device, in Germany.
• Clinical application of cardiac catheterization begins with German Werner Forssmann who inserts a catheter into the vein of his own forearm, guides it fluoroscopically into his right atrium, and takes an X-ray picture of it.

  Meteorology

• January 7 – Robert Bureau flies the first radiosonde using telemetry, in France.

  Paleontology

• Tilly Edinger publishes Die fossilen Gehirne, pioneering paleoneurology.

  Physics

• Robert J. Van de Graaff develops the Van de Graaff generator.
• Oskar Klein discovers the Klein paradox.
• Oskar Klein and Y. Nishina derive the Klein–Nishina cross section for high energy photon scattering by electrons.
• Sir Nevill Francis Mott derives the Mott cross section for the Coulomb scattering of relativistic electrons.
• Paul Dirac and Werner Heisenberg develop the quantum theory of ferromagnetism.
• Ernest Lawrence invents the cyclotron, for which he will receive the 1939 Nobel Prize in Physics.
• Edwin H. Land patents Polaroid polarizing film.

  Technology

• Sunglasses made from celluloid are first produced by Foster Grant for sale in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

  Awards

• Nobel Prize
• * Physics: Prince Louis-Victor Pierre Raymond de Broglie
• * Chemistry: Arthur Harden, Hans Karl August Simon von Euler-Chelpin
• * Physiology or Medicine: Christiaan Eijkman, Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins

  Births

• January 3 – Gordon Moore, American computing entrepreneur and scientific benefactor.
• January 29 – John Polanyi, German-born Canadian winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
• January 31 – Rudolf Mössbauer, German winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics.
• April 5 – Ivar Giaever, Norwegian winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics.
• April 8 – Morton B. Panish, American physical chemist.
• April 16 – Ralph Slatyer, Australian ecologist and first Chief Scientist of Australia.
• April 22 – Michael Atiyah, British mathematician.
• May 6 – Paul Lauterbur, American chemist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
• May 10 – Geoffrey Burnstock, English-born neurobiologist.
• May 29 – Peter Higgs, English theoretical physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics.
• June 3 – Werner Arber, Swiss microbiologist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
• June 10 – E. O. Wilson, American entomologist.
• July 1 – Gerald Edelman, American microbiologist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
• August 4 – Raymond Smallman, British metallurgist and academic.
• September 5 – Andrian Nikolayev, Chuvash cosmonaut.
• September 15
• * Murray Gell-Mann, American winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics.
• * Stan Kelly-Bootle, English computer programmer and folk singer-songwriter.
• October 19 – Lewis Wolpert, British developmental biologist, author and broadcaster.
• November 2 – Richard E. Taylor, Canadian American winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics.
• November 7 – Eric R. Kandel, Austrian-born neuropsychiatrist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
• November 24 – Franciszek Kokot, Polish nephrologist.
• December 31 – Võ Quý, Vietnamese zoologist

  Deaths

• February 3 – A. K. Erlang, Danish mathematician.
• March 6 – David Dunbar Buick, Scottish American automobile pioneer.
• April 4 – Karl Benz, German automotive pioneer and mechanical engineer.
• April 27 – Charles E. de M. Sajous, American endocrinologist.
• April 29 – Inez Whipple Wilder, American herpetologist and anatomist.
• June 15 – Traian Lalescu, Romanian mathematician.
• August 10
• * Pierre Fatou, French mathematician.
• * Aletta Jacobs, Dutch physician and women's suffrage activist.
• August 27 – Herman Potočnik Noordung, Slovene pioneer of astronautics and cosmonautics.
• November 17 – Herman Hollerith, American statistician, punched card data processing inventor.
• December 13 – Rosina Heikel, Finnish physician.