Chronology of Physics

The Chronology of Physics

This collection of major events in the history of physics was compiled by

George W. Goth

Skyline College

San Bruno, CA 94066

The major source was Issac Asimov's Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology.

This page last updated July 10 2002. It is maintained as a hobby. If you find a dead link or a better reference, would you please let me know at visigoth@pacbell.net.

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2980 BCE

Imhotep lives in Egypt, designs step pyramid at Sakkara. Many other achievements attributed to him.

1650 BCE

Ahmose, Egyptian scribe, writes Directions for Attaining Knowledge of All Dark Things, a text which deals with the solutions of many simple equations such as finding volumes and areas.

600 BCE

Anaximander introduces sundial to Greece, is first person to attempt to draw map of world, believes world is made of apeiron, a word meaning infinite.

Thales predicts an eclipse of the moon, generalizes Egyptian geometry, invents deductive mathematics, studies magnetism and states that fundamental material of universe is water.

535 BCE

Anaximenes believes air the fundamental element.

520 BCE

Xenophanes believes earth is the fundamental element and that the mountains were originally covered by the seas.

500 BCE

Pythagoras flourishes in Greece and southern Italy. Founds mystery cult unique in its emphasis on mathematics, including belief that the whole universe rested on numbers.

Heraclitus says the only permanent thing is change, hence fire is the fundamental element.

Hanno, a Carthaginian, is perhaps the first person to sail around Africa.

450 BCE

Anaxagoras believes earth and stars created of identical materials.

420 BCE

Democritus develops first atomic theory.

400 BCE

Zeno states that the senses are useless as a means of obtaining knowledge and presents a series of paradoxes, all based on fallacies, to prove it.

Hippocrates stresses rationalism, careful observation and honorable standards in the practice of medicine.

350 BCE

Aristotle does much work in many sciences, is most successful in biology. He argues for a spherical Earth using lunar eclipses and other observations. Many of his ideas about physics remain in fashion for almost two thousand years.

300 BCE

Aristarchus attempts to measure distances from earth to moon and to sun, but large experimental error causes him to be wrong by factor of twenty.

Euclid writes The Elements, still the standard in geometry

250 BCE

Archimedes, the greatest scientist of ancient times, develops principles of density, buoyancy, simple machines and computes pi to two decimal places using inscribed and cirumscribed polygons and the area under a parabolic segment.

240 BCE

Eratosthenes, librarian at Alexandria, determines that the Earth is a sphere with a circumference of about 25,000 miles.

200 BCE

Apollonius writes On Conic Sections and names the ellipse, parabola, and hyperbola.

150 BCE

Hipparchus invents the astrolabe and uses parallax to determine that the distance to the Moon is roughly 380,000 km.

134 BCE

Hipparchus creates the magnitude scale of stellar apparent luminosities,discovers the precession of the equinoxes and makes a detailed star map.

Hero, Greek engineer, builds first steam engine and many other devices.

150

Ptolemy places earth at center of universe with planets and sun moving around it. Publishes Megale mathematike syntaxis, generally known as the Almagest, a star catalog.

450

Ch'ung-Chih and Keng-Chih compute pi to six decimal places.

750

Geber, at height of Arab empire, adds sulfur and mercury to the list of elements.

830

Al-khwarizmi introduces zero to west.

1202

Fibonacci explains use of Arabic numerals.

1249

Bacon writes about convex lens eyeglasses for treating farsightedness

1260

Bacon calculates distance to stars as 130,000,000 miles.

1295

Polo returns to Venice after 20 years in China.

1340

William of Ockham has a close shave with the Pope, states that "Entities must not needlessly be multiplied" [that is, the simplest theory explaining facts is the correct one.]

1424

al-Kashi computes pi to sixteen decimal places using inscribed and cirumscribed polygons.

1452

da Vinci born; makes many contributions to science and art during his life.

1454

Gutenberg begins publication of the Bible, the first typeset book.

1480

da Vinci describes a workable parachute.

Behaim introduces the nautical astrolabe

1492

Columbus discovers the New World.

da Vinci describes a flying machine.

1520

Ferro develops a method for solving cubic equations.

1521

Magellan observes the Magellanic Clouds during his circumnavigating expedition.

1543

Copernicus publishes theory of heliocentric solar system.

1569

Mercator issues the first Mercator projection map

1572

Brahe observes nova, publishes De Nova Stella.

1577

Brahe observes comet, parallax studies show it is outside of atmosphere.

1581

Galileo discovers period of pendulum independent of amplitude.

1589

Galileo uses balls rolling on inclined planes to show that different weights fall with the same acceleration.

1590

Janssen invents the microscope.

1593

Galileo invents thermoscope, a crude thermometer but best until 1680's.

1596

van Ceulen computes pi to twenty decimal places using inscribed and cirumscribed polygons.

1598

Philip II of Spain announces prize for invention of accurate ship chronometer which would aid in navigation.

1600

Gilbert publishes De Magnete, shows magnet dips towards pole.

1609

Galileo uses telescope to discover mountains on moon, sunspots, satellites of Jupiter, phases of Venus and many new stars.

Kepler publishes Astronomia Nova, states that planets move in ellipses [Kepler's first law] and that a line connecting a planet to the sun will sweep out equal areas in equal times [Kepler's second law].

1610

Galileo sees Saturn's rings but does not recognize that they are rings.

Kepler uses the dark night sky to argue for a finite universe.

1611

Kepler discovers total internal reflection, a small angle refraction law, and thin lens optics

1613

Galileo uses sunspot observations to demonstrate the rotation of the Sun

1614

0.01

0.02

0.04

0.08

0.16

0.32

0.64

1.28

2.56

5.12

10.24

-4.61

-3.91

-3.22

-2.53

-1.83

-1.14

-0.45

0.25

0.94

1.631

2.33

Napier publishes first table of logarithms.

1619

Kepler publishes his third law [square of period of revolution proportional to cube of distance].

1620

Bacon publishes Novum Organum, argues that laws of science must be induced from experiment.

1621

Snell discovers that light moving from rarer to denser medium is bent towards vertical [Snell's Law].

1622

Oughtred invents the slide rule.

1632

Galileo publishes Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems, argues in favor of Copernician system.

1633

Galileo tried for heresy, renounces Copernician system, Dialogue banned by Church.

1635

Gellibrand publishes finding that compass needle drifts with time.

1637

Descartes publishes Discourse on Method, states mechanistic view of universe, introduces use of coordinate system.

1640

Bullialdus suggests an inverse-square gravitational force law.

1641

Gascoigne invents telescope cross hairs

1642

Galileo dies on January 8th.

Newton born on Dec 25th.

1643

Torricelli produces vacuum in closed cylinder partially filled with mercury, produces first barometer and shows air has "weight."

1646

Pascal confirms Torricellian view, demonstrates pressure of atmosphere decreases with altitude.

1650

Guericke constructs first air pump.

Riccioli discovers first double star.

1654

Guericke demonstrates the "power of the vacuum" with use of Magdeburg spheres.

Pascal and Fermat create the theory of probability.

1655

Cassini discovers Jupiter's great red spot.

1656

Huygens builds the first accurate pendulum clock and identifies Saturn's rings as rings and discovers Titan and the Orion Nebula.

1657

Fermat introduces the principle of least time into optics

1662

Boyle discovers that volume of gas decreases linearly with pressure.

1663

Royal Society founded.

1665

Newton discovers sunlight can be broken into spectrum by prism.

Grimaldi's work on diffraction of light publishes posthumously.

Cassini determines the rotational speeds of Jupiter, Mars, and Venus.

1666

Newton determines that force varying as 1/r^2 would cause planets to move in ellipses.

1668

Newton invents reflecting telescope.

Wallis suggests the law of conservation of momentum.

1669

Newton appointed Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge.

Bartholin discovers double refraction.

1672

Guericke reports production of static electric sparks made by rubbing rotating sulfur ball with hand.

Montanari notices that Algol's brightness varies.

1675

Romer uses the orbital mechanics of Jupiter's moons to estimate that the speed of light is about 227,000 km/s.

1676

Mariotte independently discovers Boyle's Law [P-V behavior of gases].

1678

Hooke discovers that restoring force of spring proportional to displacement from equilibrium position [Hooke's Law].

Huygens states his principle of wavefront sources.

1687

Newton publishes Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, containing the principle of inertia [Newton's First Law], the definition of of force [Newton's Second Law] and the statement that every action has an equal and opposite reaction [Newton's Third Law].

1690

Huygens argues that light is a longitudinal wave.

1693

Leibniz states law of the conservation of mechanical energy.

1699

Amontons publishes work on P-T behavior of gases.

1700

Savery invents "The Miner's Friend", first working steam engine.

1701

Halley suggests using the salinity and evaporation of the Mediterranean to determine the age of the Earth.

1704

Newton publishes Opticks.

1705

Halley demonstrates the periodicity of certain comets, predicts one will return in 1758.

1706

Machin develops a quickly converging inverse-tangent series for pi and computes pi to 100 decimal places.

1707

Lack of accurate chronometers causes British fleet to miscalculate its position and crash on rocks off Cornwall.

1712

Newcomen invents improved steam engine.

Taylor develops Taylor series.

1713

British government announces prize for construction of accurate ships' chronometer which would aid in navigation.

1714

Fahrenheit invents mercury thermometer.

1716

Halley suggests a high precision measurement of the Sun-Earth distance by timing the transit of Venus.

1728

Harrison constructs accurate chronometer, claims prize announced in 1707.

1729

Newton's Principia Mathematica published in English.

Gray discovers principle of electrical conduction.

1731

Reaumur invents water - alcohol thermometer.

1733

Du Fay studies electrical repulsion, postulates "vitreous electricity" and "resinous electricity", each of which repels itself but is attracted to the other.

Bradley measures diameter of Jupiter.

1737

Voltaire has one of his mistresses translate Newton's Principia into French and writes an appropriate introduction.

1738

Bernoulli publishes book on fluid flow, shows that as velocity of fluid increases, its pressure decreases [Bernoulli's Principle].

1742

Celsius proposes temperature scale based on one hundred degrees between freezing and boiling points of water.

1745

Leyden Jar invented at University of Leiden.

Lomonosov proposes law of conservation of mass [year approximate].

1747

Franklin invents lightning rod.

Lind discovers that citrus fruits prevent scurvy.

1752

Franklin flies kite during thunderstorm, demonstrates that lightning is a form of electricity.

1756

Canton notices effect of aurora borealis on compass needle.

1758

Dollond produces achromatic lens.

1759

Halley's comet, due to gravitational effects of Saturn and Jupiter, returns a year later than predicted.

1765

Harrison finally awarded prize for design of chronometer.

1766

Cavendish announces discovery of hydrogen.

1768

Cook observes transit of Venus from island of Tahiti.

1769

Watt invents improved steam engine.

1771

Galvani notices that muscles of dissected frogs twitch when touched by electric spark.

Messier publishes first list of nebulae.

Priestly discovers that plants convert carbon dioxide into oxygen.

1780

Lagrange and Laplace show the heat evolved in the formation of a compound from its elements equals the amount required to decompose compound into its elements.

1781

Herschel discovers the planet Uranus

1782

Goodricke notices that the brightness variations of Algol are periodic and proposes that it is partially eclipsed by a body moving around it.

1783

Watt defines the horsepower as 550 foot-pounds per second.

Montgolfier brothers launch first balloon, it goes 1500 feet upward and a mile and a half downwind in 10 minutes.

Charles constructs first hydrogen filled balloon.

1784

Blanchard sails hydrogen balloon across English Channel.

1785

Coulomb shows that electrical force varies as 1/r^2.

1786

Chladni uncovers quantitative relationships governing transmission of sound.

Galvani discovers `animal electricity' and postulates that animal bodies are storehouses of electricity.

1787

Lavoisier publishes Methods of Chemical Nomenclature.

Charles rediscovers P-T behavior of gases but fails to publish.

1788

Lagrange publishes Analytical Mechanics, uses calculus of variations to solve generalized problems in mechanics.

1789

Lavoisier publishes Elementary Treatise on Chemistry, first modern chemistry textbook.

1790

Fitch launches first practical steamship.

1791

Prevost shows that cold does not flow from cool objects to hot ones.

Faraday born.

1792

Murdock discovers coal gas.

1793

Herschel discovers double stars circle one another.

Lagrange, Laplace, Lavoisier and others appointed by rulers of French Revolution to committee for the development of new system of weights and measures.

Whitney invents cotton gin.

1794

Lavoisier is guillotined during the French Revolution.

1795

Lagrange, Laplace and other survivors announce the metric system.

Gauss invents the method of least squares while still a teenager.

1797

Garnerin demonstrates first use of a parachute.

1798

Cavendish measures value of G, the gravitational constant.

Rumford shows that mechanical energy can be converted into heat.

Whitney devises assembly line production of rifles.

1799

Laplace begins publication of Celestial Mechanics [finished in 1825].

1800

Volta invents the electric battery.

Herschel discovers infrared light.

Davy discovers nitrous oxide [laughing gas].

1801

Young announces cause of astigmatism.

Ritter discovers ultraviolet light.

Piazzi discovers the asteroid Ceres.

Jacquard invents the Jacquard punched card loom.

Fulton builds the first submarine.

1802

Gay-Lussac rediscovers P-T behavior of gases and publishes.

Wollaston finds seven dark lines in solar spectrum.

1803

Dalton first proposes modern atomic theory.

Young discovers diffraction of light by slits; proposes light is a wave.

Biot announces that stony material falling from skies are meteorites.

1804

Rumford marries widow of Lavoisier. They are divorced four years later. Rumford remarks that Lavoisier was lucky to have been guillotined.

Biot shows that earth's magnetism undiminished by altitude but panics during balloon flight.

1806

Argand associates vectors with complex numbers and studies complex number operations in geometrical term.

1807

Fulton launches the first profitable steamship.

Fourier announces that any periodic oscillation can be broken into a series of simpler regular oscillations.

Davy uses electric current to isolate potassium.

1808

Dalton publishes New System of Chemical Philosophy.

1809

Lamarck proposes an inheritance of acquired characteristics theory of evolution.

1811

Avogadro proposes that at same temperature, equal volumes of gases contain equal number of particles.

1814

Fraunhofer discovers hundreds of dark lines in solar spectrum.

Stephenson builds the first practical steam powered railroad locomotive.

1815

Biot shows that solutions of organic materials rotate polarized light.

Brewster shows reflection polarizes light.

1816

Brewster invents kaleidoscope.

1817

Young states that light is a transverse wave.

Pelletier and Caventou isolate chlorophyll.

1818

Dulong and Petit find atomic weight and specific heat inversely related.

1820

Oersted discovers electric current affects compass needle.

Ampere, one week later, announces right hand screw rule.

1821

Seebeck discovers thermoelectricity.

Faraday builds an electricity-powered motor.

1822

Niepce produces first photograph.

Fourier states that a scientific equation must involve a consistent set of units.

Mantell discovers the fossilized skeleton of an iguanodon dinosaur.

1823

Ampere postulates tiny electrical currents in iron as source of magnetism.

Faraday liquefies carbon dioxide, chlorine and other gases.

1824

Carnot publishes On the Motive Power of Fire, which defines potential energy and demonstrates the maximum efficiency of an engine depends on the temperature difference between the hottest and coldest parts.

1825

Stephenson produces first practical steam locomotive.

Faraday discovers benzene.

1826

Niepce takes the first permanent photograph.

1827

Ohm discovers current directly proportional to voltage, inversely proportional to resistance.

Babinet proposes unit of length be based on a specified wavelength of light.

1828

Nicol produces polarized light by use of double refraction.

Berzelius publishes uses modern chemical notation in table of atomic weights.

Sturgeon produces practical electromagnet.

Wohler discovers ammonium cyanate can be converted into urea.

1830

Henry, during summer vacation, begins work on magnetic induction. Not quite finished, he plans to complete it the next summer.

1831

Henry invents an electric telegraph, describes electric motor.

Schwabe discovers Jupiter's great red spot.

Faraday finds that changing magnetic field produces electric current and announces the discovery of magnetic induction.

Graham finds rate of diffusion of gas inversely proportional to square root of molar weight.

1832

Gauss devises logical system of units of magnetism.

Faraday codifies laws of electrolysis.

Henry discovers self-induction.

1833

Gauss invents an electric telegraph.

British Association for the Advancement of Science founded.

Lenz finds resistance of metals changes with temperature.

1834

Lenz generalizes law of magnetic induction.

Clapeyron presents a formulation of the second law of thermodynamics.

1835

Galileo's Dialogue removed from Index of Prohibited Books.

Henry invents electric relay.

Coriolis begins study of motion on a spinning surface (see also)

Morse develops the Morse code.

1836

Daniell invents first reliable electric battery.

1837

Wheatstone invents an electric telegraph.

Agassiz begins his glaciation studies which eventually demonstrate that the Earth has had at least one Ice Age.

1838

Bessel uses parallax method to determine distance from earth to a star - six light years or 35,000,000,000,000 miles.

1839

Grove invents electric battery utilizing hydrogen and oxygen.

Goodyear invents vulcanized rubber.

1840

Morse patents an electric telegraph using Morse code.

1842

Doppler works out relationship relating pitch to relative motion of source and observer.

Mayer presents evidence on the conservation of energy.

1843

Schwabe announces that sunspots wax and wane on eleven year cycle.

Joule experimentally finds the mechanical equivalent of heat.

1844

Bessel discovers dark companion to Sirius.

1845

Rosse discovers spiral galaxies.

Stokes begins work on flow of viscous fluids.

Leverrier observes a 35'' per century excess precession of Mercury's orbit.

1846

Weber introduces logical system of electrical units.

Adam and Leverrier independently discover Neptune.

Lassell, within a month, discovers Triton, satellite of Neptune.

Kelvin, from physical principles, calculates age of earth as somewhere between 20 and 400 million years.

1847

Boole publishes work The Calculus of Logic on symbolic logic.

Joule publishes work on the conservation of energy.

Helmholtz publishes work on the conservation of energy.(for a different view, check out this)

1848

Kelvin proposes that energy of gas is zero at -273 Celsius.

1849

Fizeau and Foucault measure the speed of light to be about 298,000 km/s.

1850

Clausius begins work on ratio of heat content to temperature.

1851

Foucault uses pendulum to show that earth rotates.

1852

Otis invents first safe elevator.

Joule and Thompson [Lord Kelvin] announce cooling of gases by expansion.

Foucault invents the gyroscope.

1855

Geissler invents mercury vacuum pump.

Balmer devises formula to predict wavelengths of light in hydrogen spectrum.

1856

Bessemer invents blast furnace.

Perkin invents the first synthetic dye.

1857

Maxwell shows that Saturn's rings must consist of small particles.

1858

Darwin and Wallace announce theory of evolution due to natural selection.

1859

Carrington discovers solar flares.

Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species by Mean of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life.

Nobel begins manufacture of nitroglycerin.

Plante invents rechargeable battery.

1860

Bunsen and Kirchoff invent optical spectroscopy, discover two elements.

Swan invents primitive electric light bulb.

Maxwell begins work on statistical thermodynamics.

1861

Graham discovers colloids.

1862

Lord Kelvin attempts to find the age of the Earth by examining its cooling time and estimates that the Earth is between 20--400 million years old.

1864

Maxwell begins work on electromagnetism, finishes in 1873.

1865

Clausius introduces the term entropy.

Mendel publishes his work on genetics in a local journal.

Pasteur announces germ theory of disease.

Kekule proposes ring structure for benzene.

1866

Field finances first trans-Atlantic cable.

Kundt studies the velocity of sound in gases.

Schiaparelli realizes that meteor showers occur when the Earth passes through the orbit of a comet that has left debris along its path.

1868

Westinghouse patents the air brake.

Janssen discovers helium on sun.

1869

Mendeleev publishes his discovery of chemical periodicity.

Miescher discovers nucleic acids in the nuclei of cells.

1870

Meyer publishes his discovery of chemical periodicity.

1871

Boltzmann begins work on statistical mechanics.

1872

van de Waals publishes work on deviation of real gases from ideal gas law.

1873

Maxwell states that light is an electromagnetic phenomenon.

1874

van't Hoff and Le Bel advance a three-dimensional stereochemical representation of organic molecules and propose a tetrahedral carbon atom.

Kelvin formally states the second law of thermodynamics.

1875

Crookes invents radiometer.

1876

Gibbs begins publication of papers on free energy and chemical potential in the Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Sciences.

Bell patents the telephone.

Otto invents four-stroke internal combustion engine.

1877

Cailetet liquefies oxygen and nitrogen.

Edison invents the phonograph.

1879

Stokes announces that radiation content of body proportional to fourth power of its absolute temperature.

Edison invents the practical light bulb.

Einstein born.

1880

Milne invents the seismograph.

1882

Stewart proposes existence of ionosphere.

Ferdinand Lindemann proves that pi is transcendental and that the circle cannot be squared with a compass and straightedge.

1883

Maxim invents the machine gun.

Amagat pressurizes gas to 3000 atmospheres.

1885

Stanley invents the alternating current transformer.

1886

Goldstein demonstrates existence of positive rays in cathode ray tubes.

Mach proposes that all matter is sensation.

1887

Michelson and Morley, using interferometry, fail to detect earth's motion through ether.

Hertz detects electromagnetic waves.

1888

Hertz discovers the photoelectric effect.

1889

Edison invents practical motion picture projector.

1891

Stoney proposes the name "electron" for carrier of negative charge.

1893

Wein finds that blackbody radiation has a peak at intermediate wavelengths but fails to find theory to predict this.

Mach states Mach's principle---first constructive attack on the idea of Newtonian absolute space.

1894

Ramsay and Raleigh discover argon.

1895

Roentgen discovers x-rays emitted from cathode ray tube.

Fitzgerald proposes objects shrink in the direction of motion.

Ramsay discovers helium in rocks containing uranium.

Curie [Pierre] discovers materials lose magnetism at certain critical temperature.

1896

Nobel dies, wills fortune to establishment of annual prize in Peace, Literature, Physiology, Chemistry and Physics.

Becquerel discovers radioactivity.

Sperry invents gyroscopic compass.

1897

Braun invents the oscilloscope.

Thomson measures e/m of electron.

1898

Dewar liquefies hydrogen.

1899

Dewar solidifies hydrogen.

Rutherford discovers that uranium radiation is composed of positively charged alpha particles and negatively charged beta particles.

1900

Freud publishes The Interpretation of Dreams.

Planck proposes that light is emitted in quanta, explains blackbody radiation.

Villard discovers radiation consists of two types which are bent in different directions by magnetic field.

Sabine uses acoustical principles to design Boston Symphony Hall.

1901

Zeeman discovers that source of light in intense magnetic fields produces several split spectral lines.

Lebedev shows light exerts pressure.

Marconi sends radio signal from England to Newfoundland.

1903

Crookes shows that alpha particles cause zinc blende to luminesce.

Wright brothers fly at Kitty Hawk.

1904

Fleming invents the rectifier.

Barkla shows x-rays are electromagnetic.

1905

Nernst announces that it is impossible to reach absolute zero [third law of thermodynamics].

Einstein publishes three papers - one on Brownian motion confirms existence of atoms, another on photoelectric effect confirms existence of photons, third announces special relativity.

1906

Fessenden demonstrates modulation of radio waves.

De Forest invents the triode.

1907

Einstein introduces the principle of equivalence of gravitation and inertia and uses it to predict the gravitational redshift.

Fischer artificially synthesizes peptide amino acid chains and thereby shows that amino acids in proteins are connected by amino group-acid group bonds.

1908

Kamerlingh-Onnes liquefies helium.

Haber discovers fixation of nitrogen which allows Germany to make explosives.

Boltwood suggests that minerals can be dated by determining Pb/U ratio.

Rutherford studies scattering of alpha particles by gold.

1909

Peary and Henson reach the North Pole.

Rutherford states that alpha particle is helium.

Einstein gets a professorship at University of Zurich.

1911

Kamerlingh-Onnes discovers liquid helium is a superconductor.

Millikan measures charge of electron.