1829 in science

The year 1829 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Chemistry

• Isaac Holden produces a form of friction match.

Mathematics

• Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet publishes a memoir giving the Dirichlet conditions, showing for which functions the convergence of the Fourier series holds; introducing Dirichlet's test for the convergence of series; the Dirichlet function as an example that not any function is integrable; and, in the proof of the theorem for the Fourier series, the Dirichlet kernel and Dirichlet integral. He also introduces a general modern concept for a function.
• Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky publishes his work on hyperbolic non-Euclidean geometry.
• S. D. Poisson publishes Sur l'attraction des sphéroides.

Medicine

• Dr Benjamin Guy Babington makes the first known use of a laryngoscope.

Palaeontology

• Jules Desnoyers names the Quaternary period.
• Engis 2, part of the skull of a young child and other bones, recognised in 1936 as the first known Neanderthal fossil, is found in the Awirs cave near Engis in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands (modern-day Belgium) by Philippe-Charles Schmerling.

Technology

• May – Cyrill Demian patents a version of the accordion in Vienna.
• June 30 – Henry Robinson Palmer files a British patent application for corrugated iron for use in buildings.
• July 23 – In the United States, William Burt obtains the first patent for a form of typewriter, the typographer.
• October 6–14 – The Rainhill Trials, a steam locomotive competition, are run in England and won by Stephenson's Rocket.
• December 19 – Charles Wheatstone patents the concertina in Britain.
• William Mann invents the compound air compressor.
• Louis Braille publishes the first description of his method of embossed printing that allows the visually impaired to read.

Higher Education

• Chalmers University of Technology founded in Gothenburg, Sweden.
• Technical University of Denmark (originally named 'College of Advanced Technology') founded in Copenhagen, Denmark.
• University of Stuttgart founded in Stuttgart, Germany.
• Ecole Centrale Paris (originally named 'École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures') founded in Paris, France.

Awards

• Copley Medal: not awarded

Births

• February 2
  • Alfred Brehm (died 1884), German zoologist.
  • William Stanley (died 1909), English inventor.
• March 23 – N. R. Pogson (died 1891 in science), English-born astronomer.
• April 28 – Charles Bourseul (died 1912), Belgian-born telegraph engineer.
• April 30 – Ferdinand von Hochstetter (died 1884), German-born geologist.
• July 30 – George Rolleston (died 1881), English physician and zoologist.
• August 13 (O.S. August 1) – Ivan Sechenov (died 1905), "father of Russian physiology".
• August 23 – Moritz Cantor (died 1920), German historian of mathematics.
• August 24 - Emanuella Carlbeck (died 1901), Swedish pioneer in the education of students with intellectual disability.
• September 7 – August Kekulé (died 1896), German chemist.
• September 30
  • Franz Reuleaux (died 1905), German mechanical engineer, "father of kinematics".
  • Joseph Wolstenholme (died 1891), English mathematician.
• October 15 – Asaph Hall (died 1907), American astronomer.
• November 4 – Hanna Hammarström (died 1909), Swedish inventor.

Deaths

• March 1 – Thomas Earnshaw (born 1749), English watchmaker.
• April 6 – Niels Henrik Abel (born 1802), Norwegian mathematician.
• May 10 – Thomas Young (born 1773), English physicist.
• May 29 – Humphry Davy (born 1778), English chemist.
• June 29 – James Smithson (born 1764), English mineralogist, chemist and benefactor.
• November 14 – Louis Nicolas Vauquelin (born 1763), French chemist.
• October 10 – Maria Elizabetha Jacson (born 1755), English botanist.
• December 28 – Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (born 1744), French naturalist.
• undated – Huang Lü, Chinese scientist.