1829 in science

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.
• Philippe-Charles Schmerling discovers a Neandertal fossil, the partial cranium of a small child.

  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 the concertina in Britain.
• 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 founded in Copenhagen, Denmark.
• University of Stuttgart founded in Stuttgart, Germany.
• Ecole Centrale Paris founded in Paris, France.

  Awards

• Copley Medal: not awarded

  Births

• February 2
• * Alfred Brehm, German zoologist.
• * William Stanley, English inventor.
• March 23 – N. R. Pogson, English-born astronomer.
• April 28 – Charles Bourseul, Belgian-born telegraph engineer.
• April 30 – Ferdinand von Hochstetter, German-born geologist.
• August 13 – Ivan Sechenov, "the father of Russian physiology".
• August 23 – Moritz Cantor, German historian of mathematics.
• August 24 - Emanuella Carlbeck, Swedish pioneer in the education of students with intellectual disability.
• September 7 – August Kekulé, German chemist.
• September 30
• * Franz Reuleaux, German mechanical engineer.
• * Joseph Wolstenholme, English mathematician.
• October 15 - Asaph Hall, American astronomer.
• November 4 - Hanna Hammarström, Swedish inventor.

  Deaths

• March 1 – Thomas Earnshaw, watchmaker.
• April 6 – Niels Henrik Abel, mathematician.
• May 10 – Thomas Young, physicist.
• May 29 – Humphry Davy, chemist.
• June 29 – James Smithson, mineralogist, chemist and benefactor.
• November 14 – Louis Nicolas Vauquelin, chemist.
• October 10 – Maria Elizabetha Jacson, botanist.
• December 28 – Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, naturalist.
• undated - Huang Lü, Chinese scientist.