1935 in science

Astronomy

• May 14 – Opening of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, California.
• 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. In February, Gerhard Domagk and others publish 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. 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.

  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.

  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 29 – Roger Payne, American biologist and zoologist.
• February 15 – Roger B. Chaffee, American astronaut.
• February 27 – Anne Treisman, née Taylor, English-born psychologist.
• April 11 – Kazys Almenas, 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, French-born American mathematician.
• June 25 – Charles Sheffield, English-born science fiction author and physicist.
• June 30 – Animesh Chakravorty, Bengali Indian academic, chemistry professor.
• 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, Ukrainian cosmonaut.
• August 26 – Karen Spärck Jones, English computer scientist.
• September 11 – Gherman Titov, Soviet cosmonaut.
• September 19 – Milan Antal , Slovak astronomer
• October 23 – JacSue Kehoe, American neuroscientist
• October 26 – Ora Mendelsohn Rosen, American biomedical researcher.
• November 11 – Magdi Yacoub, Egyptian-born cardiothoracic surgeon.
• November 20 – Michael F. Ashby, English materials engineer.
• December 27 – Stephan Tanneberger, German oncologist, chemist.

  Deaths

• March 12 – Mihajlo Pupin, Serbian American physicist.
• March 16 – John James Rickard Macleod, Scottish physician and physiologist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
• May 12 – Abraham Groves, Canadian surgeon.
• July 3 – André Citroën, French automobile manufacturer.
• September 28 – W. K. Dickson, British cinematographic pioneer.
• December 4 – Charles Richet, French physiologist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
• November 6 – Henry Fairfield Osborn, American paleontologist.
• November 21 – Agnes Pockels, German chemist.
• December 10 – Sir John Carden, 6th Baronet, English tank and vehicle designer.
• December 12 – Charles Loomis Dana, American neurologist.