The year 1932 in science and technology had many significant events, including those listed below.

Biology

• Geneticist J. B. S. Haldane publishes The Causes of Evolution and thereby unifies the findings of Mendelian genetics with those of evolutionary science.

Physics

• The Kennedy-Thorndike experiment shows that measured time as well as length are affected by motion, in accordance with the theory of special relativity.
• Chadwick discovers the neutron (Nature 129, 312, 1932).

Awards

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

Births

• January 16 - Dian Fossey (d. 1985), zoologist.
• April 26 - Michael Smith (d. 2000), chemist, 1993 Nobel Prize winner.
• August 15 - Robert Lull Forward (d. 2002), science fiction author and physicist.
• September 18 - Nikolai Rukavishnikov (d. 2002), cosmonaut.

Deaths

• March 14 - George Eastman (b. 1854), photography pioneer.
• April 3 - Wilhelm Ostwald (b. 1853), chemist.
• April 20 - Giuseppe Peano (b. 1858), Italian mathematician.
• July 9 - King Camp Gillette (b. 1855), inventor.