1932 in science

The year 1932 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Astronomy and space sciences

• August 10 – A 5.1 kg chondrite-type meteorite breaks into fragments and strikes earth near the town of Archie, Missouri.
• Estonian astronomer Ernst Öpik postulates that long-period comets originate in an orbiting cloud (the Öpik–Oort cloud) at the outermost edge of the Solar System.

Biology

• English geneticist C. D. Darlington publishes Recent Advances in Cytology, describing the mechanics of chromosomal crossover and its role in evolutionary science.
• English geneticist J. B. S. Haldane publishes The Causes of Evolution, unifying the findings of Mendelian genetics with those of evolutionary science.
• American physiologist Walter Bradford Cannon publishes The Wisdom of the Body, developing and popularising the concept of homeostasis.
• A flock of Soay sheep is translocated from Soay to Hirta (also in the depopulated archipelago of St Kilda, Scotland) by conservationist John Crichton-Stuart, 4th Marquess of Bute.
• The heath hen becomes extinct in North America.

Earth sciences

• Braggite is first described, the first mineral discovered with the assistance of X rays.

Mathematics

• Menger-Nöbeling theorem.
• John von Neumann makes foundational contributions to ergodic theory in a series of papers.
• Rózsa Péter presents the results of her paper on recursive function theory, "Rekursive Funktionen," to the International Congress of Mathematicians in Zurich, Switzerland.
• December – Marian Rejewski of the Polish Biuro Szyfrów applies pure mathematics – permutation group theory – to breaking the German armed forces' Enigma machine ciphers.

Medicine

• January 5 – The pathology of Cushing's syndrome is first described by Harvey Cushing.
• American gastroenterologist Burrill Bernard Crohn and colleagues describe a series of patients with "regional ileitis", inflammation of the terminal ileum, the area most commonly affected by the condition which will become known as Crohn's disease.
• Grace Medes discovers tyrosinosis, the metabolic disorder later known as Type I tyrosinemia.
• Swedish neurosurgeon Herbert Olivecrona performs the first surgical excision of an intracranial arteriovenous malformation.
• Rudolph Schindler introduces the first semi-flexible gastroscope, in Germany.
• Commencement of the 40-year Tuskegee syphilis experiment by the U.S. Public Health Service to study the natural progression of untreated syphilis in poor African-American sharecroppers in Alabama without their informed consent.
• First published use of the term Medical genetics, in an article by Madge Thurlow Macklin.
• Gerhard Domagk develops a chemotherapeutic cure for streptococcus

Pharmacology

• Albert Szent-Györgyi and Charles Glen King identify ascorbic acid as an anti-scorbutic.
• December 25 – IG Farben file a patent application in Germany for the medical application of the first sulfonamide drug, Sulfonamidochrysoidine (KI-730; which will be marketed as Prontosil), following Gerhard Domagk's laboratory demonstration of its properties as an antibiotic at the conglomerate's Bayer laboratories.

Physics

• April 14 – John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton, utilising a Cockcroft–Walton generator at the Cavendish Laboratory in the University of Cambridge (England), focus a proton beam on lithium and split its nucleus.
• May – Radio Luxembourg begins high-powered longwave test transmissions aimed directly at the British Isles which prove, inadvertently, to be the first radio modification of the ionosphere.
• May 10 – James Chadwick, working at the Cavendish Laboratory in the University of Cambridge, reports the existence of the neutron. Werner Heisenberg explains its symmetries by introducing the concept of isospin.
• August 2 – The positron is observed by Carl Anderson.
• November 1 – The Kennedy–Thorndike experiment is published, showing that measured time as well as length is affected by motion, in accordance with the theory of special relativity.
• John von Neumann rigorously establishes a mathematical framework for quantum mechanics in Mathematische Grundlagen der Quantenmechanik.
• Zero-length springs are invented, revolutionizing seismometers and gravimeters.

Awards

• Nobel Prizes
  • Physics – Werner Karl Heisenberg
  • Chemistry – Irving Langmuir
  • Medicine – Sir Charles Sherrington, Edgar Adrian

Births

• January 16 – Dian Fossey (murdered 1985), American primatologist.
• February 7 – Alfred Worden (died 2020), American astronaut.
• February 10 – Robert Taylor (died 2017), American computer scientist.
• March 10 – Udupi Ramachandra Rao (died 2017), Indian space scientist.
• March 14 – Joseph Bryan Nelson (died 2015), British ornithologist.
• March 15 – Alan Bean (died 2018), American astronaut.
• March 21 – Walter Gilbert, American chemist and Nobel laureate
• March 24 – Lodewijk van den Berg (died 2022), Dutch-born American chemical engineer and astronaut
• April 26 – Michael Smith (died 2000), English-born biochemist, recipient of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
• May 22 – Robert Spitzer (died 2015), American psychiatrist.
• July 10 – Ioan Pușcaș (died 2015), Romanian gastroenterologist.
• July 31 – John Searle, American philosopher of the mind and language.
• August 4 – Frances E. Allen (died 2020), American computer scientist, Turing Award winner.
• August 15 – Robert L. Forward (died 2002), American science fiction author and physicist.
• August 18 – Luc Montagnier (died 2022), French virologist and joint recipient of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
• September 18 – Nikolai Rukavishnikov (died 2002), Russian cosmonaut.
• September 29 – Rainer Weiss, German-born American physicist, joint recipient of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics for detection of gravitational waves.
• October 1 – Biswa Ranjan Nag (died 2004), Indian physicist.
• October 3 – Terence English, South African-born cardiac surgeon.
• October 13 – John G. Thompson, American mathematician.
• November 6 – François Englert, Belgian theoretical physicist, joint recipient of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovery of the Higgs mechanism.
• December 15 – John Meurig Thomas (died 2020), Welsh physical chemist.

Deaths

• February 29 – George Claridge Druce (born 1850), English botanist.
• March 14 – George Eastman (born 1854), American photography pioneer (suicide).
• April 3 – Wilhelm Ostwald (born 1853), Baltic German chemist.
• April 20 – Giuseppe Peano (born 1858), Italian mathematician.
• May 29 – Cuthbert Christy (born 1863), English medical investigator, zoologist and explorer.
• June 21 – Major Taylor (born 1878), African American racing cyclist.
• July 9 – King Camp Gillette (born 1855), American inventor.
• July 14 – Fran Jesenko (born 1875), Slovene botanist and plant geneticist.
• July 22 – Reginald Fessenden (born 1866), Canadian American radio broadcasting pioneer.
• August 9 – John Charles Fields (born 1863), Canadian mathematician.
• September 16 – Sir Ronald Ross (born 1857), British physiologist.
• November 12 – Sir Dugald Clerk (born 1854), Scottish-born mechanical engineer.