Timeline of scientific discoveries

BC

* 17th century BC - Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa: first known Babylonian astronomical observations

* 360s BC - Eudoxus of Cnidus: first Greek planetary models
* 350s BC - Heraclides: rotation of Earth:
* 3rd century BC - Eratosthenes: Measured the size of the earth, distance to the sun and to the moon.

be

[edit] 13th century

* 1220-1235 - Robert Grosseteste: rudimentals of the scientific method (also: Roger Bacon)

[edit] 14th century

* Before 1327 - William of Ockham: Occam's Razor

[edit] 16th century

* 1543 - Copernicus: the earth revolves around the sun
* 1543 - Vesalius: human anatomy
* 1552 - Michael Servetus: pulmonary circulation

[edit] 17th century

* 1609 - Johannes Kepler: first two laws of planetary motion
* 1610 - Galileo Galilei: Sidereus Nuncius: telescopic observations
* 1614 - John Napier: use of logarithms for calculation [1]
* 1628 - William Harvey: Blood circulation
* 1637 - René Descartes: Scientific method
* 1643 - Evangelista Torricelli invents the mercury barometer
* 1662 - Robert Boyle: Boyle's law of ideal gas [2]
* 1665 - Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society first peer reviewed scientific journal published.
* 1669 - Nicholas Steno: Proposes that fossils are organic remains embedded in layers of sediment, basis of stratigraphy
* 1675 - Leibniz, Newton: infinitesimal calculus
* 1676 - Ole Rømer: first measurement of the speed of light
* 1687 - Newton: Laws of motion, law of universal gravitation, basis for classical physics

[edit] 18th century

* 1714 - Gabriel Fahrenheit invents the mercury thermometer
* 1745 - Ewald Jürgen Georg von Kleist first capacitor, the Leyden jar
* 1750 - Joseph Black describes latent heat
* 1751 - Benjamin Franklin: Lightning is electrical
* 1785 - William Withering: publishes the first definitive account of the use of foxglove (digitalis) for treating dropsy
* 1787 - Jacques Charles: Charles' law of ideal gas
* 1789 - Lavoisier: law of conservation of mass, basis for chemistry
* 1796 - Georges Cuvier: Establishes extinction as a fact
* 1799 - William Smith: Publishes geologic map of England, first geologic map ever, first applicaton of stratigraphy

[edit] 19th century

* 1800 - Alessandro Volta described the electric battery
* 1805 - John Dalton (scientist): Atomic Theory in (Chemistry)
* 1827 - Amedeo Avogadro: Avogadro's law (Gas laws)
* 1828 - Friedrich Wöhler synthesized urea, destroying vitalism
* 1824 - Carnot: described the Carnot cycle, the idealized heat engine
* 1827 - Georg Ohm: Ohm's law (Electricity)
* 1833 - Anselme Payen isolates first enzyme, diastase
* 1838 - Matthias Schleiden: all plants are made of cells
* 1843 - James Prescott Joule: Law of Conservation of energy (First law of thermodynamics), also 1847 - Helmholtz, Conservation of energy
* 1846 - William Morton: discovery of anesthesia
* 1848 - Lord Kelvin: absolute zero of temperature
* 1858 - Rudolf Virchow: cells can only arise from pre-existing cells
* 1859 - Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace: Theory of evolution by natural selection
* 1865 - Gregor Mendel: Mendel's laws of inheritance, basis for genetics
* 1869 - Dmitri Mendeleev: Periodic table
* 1873 - Maxwell: Theory of electromagnetism
* 1875 - William Crookes invented the Crookes tube and studied cathode rays
* 1876 - Josiah Willard Gibbs founded chemical thermodynamics, the phase rule
* 1877 - Boltzmann: Statistical definition of entropy
* 1895 - Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen discovers x-rays
* 1897 - J.J. Thomson discovers the electron in cathode rays

[edit] 20th century

* 1900 - Max Planck: Planck's law of black body radiation, basis for quantum theory
* 1905 - Albert Einstein: special theory of relativity, explanation of Brownian motion, and photoelectric effect
* 1906 - Walther Nernst: Third law of thermodynamics
* 1912 - Alfred Wegener: Continental drift
* 1912 - Max von Laue : x-ray diffraction
* 1913 - Henry Moseley: defined atomic number
* 1913 - Niels Bohr: Model of the atom
* 1915 - Albert Einstein: general theory of relativity - also David Hilbert
* 1918 - Emmy Noether: Noether's theorem - conditions under which the conservation laws are valid
* 1924 - Wolfgang Pauli: quantum Pauli exclusion principle
* 1925 - Erwin Schrödinger: Schrödinger equation (Quantum mechanics)