1934 in science

The year 1934 in science and technology.

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.

Physics

• Sonoluminescence is discovered at the University of Cologne.
• Ernest Lawrence and Stan Livingston invent the cyclotron.

Technology

• The 135 film cartridge was introduced, making 35mm film easy to use.

Awards

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

Births

• March 9 – Yuri Gagarin (d. 1968), cosmonaut, the first man in space.
• March 31 – Carlo Rubbia, physicist, Nobel laurette in Physics
• November 9 – Carl Sagan (d. 1996), astronomer.

Deaths

• January 29 – Fritz Haber (b. 1868), chemist.
• July 4 – Maria Skłodowska-Curie (b. 1867), physicist.