Timeline of scientific discoveries

The Timeline below shows the date of publication of major scientific theories. In many cases, the discovery spanned several years.

BC

• 350s BC - Hereclides : rotation of Earth :

1500s

• 1543 - Copernicus: the earth orbits the sun

1600s

• 16?? - John Napier: Logarithm
• 16?? - Robert Boyle: Boyle's law of ideal gas
• 1609 - Johannes Kepler: Laws of planetary motion
• 1628 - William Harvey: Blood circulation
• 1637 - Descartes: Scientific method (also: Roger Bacon)
• 1675 - Leibniz, Newton: infinitesimal calculus
• 1687 - Newton: Laws of motion, law of universal gravitation, basis for classical physics

1700s

• 1751 - Benjamin Franklin: Lightning is electrical
• 1787 - Jacques Charles: Charles' law of ideal gas
• 1789 - Lavoisier: law of conservation of mass, basis for chemistry

1800s

• 1824 - Carnot: 2nd law of thermodynamics
• 1827 - Georg Ohm: Ohm's law (Electricity)
• 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
• 1848 - Lord Kelvin: absolute zero of temperature
• 1858 - Rudolf Virchow: cells can only arise from pre-existing cells
• 1859 - Charles Darwin: 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
• 1877 - Boltzmann: Statistical definition of entropy

1900s

• 1900 - 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
• 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)
• 1927 - Werner Heisenberg: Uncertainty principle (Quantum mechanics)
• 1927 - Georges Lemaître: Theory of the Big Bang
• 1928 - Paul Dirac: Dirac equation (Quantum mechanics)
• 1929 - Edwin Hubble: Hubble's law of the expanding universe
• 1929 - Lars Onsager's reciprocal relations: also called Fourth law of thermodynamics
• 1953 - Crick and Watson: helical structure of DNA, basis for molecular biology
• 1964 - Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson: confirming experimental evidence for the Big Bang
• 1965 - Richard Feynman: Quantum electrodynamics

2000s

• 2001 - The human genome is completely mapped

See also

• List of timelines of Science and Technology
• Timeline of scientific experiments
• Timeline of technological discoveries
• Obsolete scientific theories