Papers
Historical Timeline: Astronomy
What follows is a compilation of dates of historical events related to
astronomy, physics, and other important phenomena. Every attempt has been made
to be as accurate as possible. See what trends you can find in this list.
BC Dates
1000
1200
1400
1500
1600
1700
1800
1900
2000
2000 BC: Stonehendge Construction begins. Ends 1800 BC
1054: Crab Nebula supernova witnessed in China and North America
1269: Pierre de Maricourt, experiments with magnets
1450: Johann Gutenberg, first printing press in Europe
1472: Johannes Regiomontanus, observation of Halley's comet
1551: G. Cardan, studies of falling bodies
1553: Giambattista Benedetti, proposed equality of fall rates
1543: Nicolaus Copernicus, heliocentric theory
1572: Tycho Brahe, witnesses a supernova and cites it as evidence that the heavens are not changeless
1576: Tycho Brahe, constructs a planetary observatory
1576: Thomas Digges, illustration of an infinite universe surrounding a Copernican solar system
1577: Tycho Brahe, observes that a comet passes through the orbits of other planets
1582: Galilei Galileo, constancy of period of pendulum
1586: Simon Stevin, verification of equality of fall rates
1584: Giordano Bruno, suggests that stars are suns with other Earth's in orbit
1589: Galilei Galileo, showed that objects fall at the same rate independent of mass
1592: Galilei Galileo, suggests that physical laws of the heavens are the same as those on Earth
1596: David Fabricius, observes variable star Mira
1596: Johannes Kepler, related planets to platonic solids
1600: William Gilbert, static electricity and magnetism
1608: Hans Lippershey, optical telescope
1609: Johannes Kepler, 1st and 2nd laws of planetary motion
1609: Johannes Kepler, notion of energy
1610: Galilei Galileo, with a telescope he observed the phases of Venus, moons of Jupiter, craters on the moon and stars in the Milky Way
1615: S. de Caus, forces and work
1619: Johannes Kepler, 3rd law of planetary motion
1619: Rene Descartes, vision of rationalism
1620: Francis Bacon, the empirical scientific method
1620: Francis Bacon, heat is motion
1621: Willebrod Snell, the sine law of refraction
1629: de Cabeo, magnetism
1624: Galilei Galileo, theory of tides
1632: Galilei Galileo, Galilean relativity
1632: Galilei Galileo, Support for Copernicus' Heliocentric theory
1632: John Ray, water thermometer
1636: Roberval, forces
1636: Marin Mersenne, speed of sound
1637: Rene Descartes, inertia, mechanistic physics
1642: Blaise Pascal, mechanical calculator
1644: Evangelista Torricelli, mercury barometer and artificial vacuum
1648: Francesco Grimaldi, interference and diffraction of light
1648: Blaise Pascal, explains barometer as a result of atmospheric pressure
1654: Ferdinand II, sealed thermometer
1660: Otto von Guericke, demonstration of the power of vacuum using two large hemispheres and 8 horses
1655: Christiaan Huygens, rings of Saturn
1657: Christiaan Huygens, pendulum clock
1660: Otto von Guericke, electrostatic machine
1661: Robert Boyle, corpuscular theory of matter
1662: Robert Boyle, Boyles law for ideal gases
1665: Isaac Newton, studies the principles of mechanics and gravity, mass and force
1665: Francesco Grimaldi, diffraction
1665: Christiaan Huygens, principle of Huygens
1665: Huygens and Grimaldi, wave theory of light
1665: Robert Hooke, studies with a microscope
1668: Wallace, conservation of momentum
1672: Isaac Newton, studies spectrum of light
1676: Olaus Roemer, measured the speed of light by observing Jupiter's moons
1676: Edme Mariotte, Boyle's law and height of atmosphere
1678: Robert Hooke, inverse square law of gravity
1678: Christiaan Huygens, polarisation of light
1684: Isaac Newton, inverse square law and mass dependence of gravity
1687: Isaac Newton, publishes laws of motion
1687: Isaac Newton, publishes spectral analysis
1688: P. Varignon, addition of forces
1692: Richard Bentley, why do stars not fall together under gravitation?
1705: Edmund Halley, noticed that three previous comets are the same and predicts its return in 1758
1709: Gabriel Fahrenheit, alcohol thermometer
1710: George Berkeley, idealist philosophy against materialist
1714: Gottfreid Leibnitz, energy conservation
1714: Gottfreid Leibnitz, rejection of absolute space and time
1714: Gabriel Fahrenheit, mercury thermometer
1721: George Berkeley, space exists because of matter in it
1724: Gabriel Fahrenheit, supercooling of water
1728: James Bradley, speed of light and stellar aberration
1731: Rene Reaumur, alcohol/water thermometer
1733: Charles Du Fay, recognises distinction between positive and negative electric charge
1743: Jean d'Alembert, energy in Newtonian mechanics
1745: Pieter van Musschenbroek, Leyden Jar for electric charge storage
1747: Leonhard Euler, rigid body motions
1748: Mikhail Lomonosov, conservation of mass
1750: Benjamin Franklin, theory of electricity and lightning
1750: John Michell, inverse square law for magnetic fields
1752: Jean d'Alembert, viscosity
1754: Joseph Black, discovery of carbon dioxide showing that there are gases other than air
1755: Immanuel Kant, theory that the universe formed from a spinning nebula
1761: Joseph Black, discovery and measurements of latent and specific heats
1761: John Harison, portable chronometer
1766: Joseph Priestley, inverse square law for electric charge
1771: Luigi Galvani, electricity in animals
1772: Carl Scheele, saw air as two gases one of which encouraged combustion
1772: Joseph Lagrange, theory of Lagrange points
1774: Joseph Priestley, oxygen
1777: Antoine Lavoisier, composition of air and burning as a chemical reaction
1779: Charles Augustin de Coulomb, Coulomb's law of friction
1781: Immanuel Kant, Critique of pure reason
1781: William Herschel, discovery of Uranus
1781: Charles Messier, catalog of nebulae
1781: Heinrich Olbers, Uranus is a planet, not a comet
1782: William Herschel, catalog of double stars
1782: Antoine Lavoisier, distinction between elements and compounds
1782: William Herschel, sun's motion through space
1783: John Michell, Newtonian black hole
1783: Rene Hauy, nature of crystals
1784: Henry Cavendish, water is a compound of oxygen and hydrogen
1784: Pierre Laplace, electrostatic potential
1785: Charles Augustin de Coulomb, electric force proportional to product of charges and inverse square of distance
1786: Antoine Lavoisier, distinction between elements and compounds
1787: Antoine Lavoisier, system for naming chemicals
1788: Joseph Lagrange, Lagrangian mechanics
1788: John Hunter, Diffusion of heat
1789: Antoine Lavoisier, Conservation of mass in chemical reactions
1790: Definition of metric system in France
1798: Benjamin Thompson, Heat generated equals work done
1798: Humphry Davy, Transmission of heat through vacuum
1798: Henry Cavendish, measured the gravitational constant with a torsion balance
1798: Benjamin Rumford, experimental relation between work done and heat generated
1800: Alessandro Volta, Chemical batteries and voltage
1801: Johann Ritter, Ultra violet rays
1801: Johann von Solder, Newtonian bending of light by sun
1801: Giuseppe Piazzi, first asteroid Ceres
1802: Heinrich Olbers, second asteroid Pallas
1802: William Herschel, double stars are bodies in mutual orbit
1802: Thomas Young, interference and wave description of light
1802: Humphry Davy, Electrochemistry
1804: John Dalton, Law of partial pressures, Dalton's law
1807: Heinrich Olbers, third asteroid Vesta
1808: John Dalton, atomic theory of chemical reactions
1808: Etienne Malus, polarisation of reflected light
1811: Amedeo Avogadro, molecular theory of gases and Avogadro's law
1814: Joseph von Fraunhofer, spectroscope
1816: Joseph von Fraunhofer, absorption lines in sun's spectrum
1817: Young and Fresnel, transverse nature of light
1820: Hans Christian Oersted, an electric current deflects a magnetised needle
1820: Andre Ampere, force on an electric current in a magnetic field
1821: Thomas Seebeck, thermocouple and thermoelectricity
1821: Joseph von Fraunhofer, diffraction grating
1821: Michael Faraday, plotted the magnetic field around a conductor
1822: Andre Ampere, two wires with electric currents attract
1822: Charles Babbage, a prototype calculating machine
1823: John William Herschel, suggests identification of chemical composition from spectrum
1823: William Sturgeon, electromagnets
1823: Heinrich Olbers, why is the sky dark?
1824: Sadi Carnot, Heat transfer goes from hot body to cold body
1827: Georg Ohm, electrical resistance and Ohm's law
1827: Robert Brown, Brownian motion
1829: Johann Wolfgang, triads of chemical elements
1831: Michael Faraday, a moving magnet induces an electric current
1833: Michael Faraday, laws of electrolysis
1833: Joseph Henry, self inductance
1834: Emile Clapeyron, entropy
1834: John Scott Russell, observed solitary waves in a canal
1834: William Hamilton, Principle of least action and Hamiltonian mechanics
1838: distance to nearest stars by parallax
1840: Joule and Helmholtz electricity is a form of energy
1842: Christian Doppler Doppler Effect
1843: Howard Aiken first mechanical programable calculator
1844: Ludwig Boatsman statistical mechanics and the meaning of entropy
1845: Michael Faraday, rotation of polarised light by magnetism
1846: Adams, Le Verrier, predicted position of Neptune
1846: Gustav Kirchhoff, Kirchoff's laws of electrical networks
1846: Jahanne Galle, Neptune
1847: Hermann von Helmholtz, Conservation of energy
1848: William Thomson (Kelvin), absolute temperature scale
1848: James Joule average velocity of gas molecules from kinetic theory
1849: Armand Fizeau first measurement of the velocity of light in the laboratory using a toothed wheel
1850: Rudolf Clausius, second law of thermodynamics
1850: Jean Foucault, light travels slower in water than in air
1851: William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), dynamical theory of heat
1851: Jean Foucault, demonstrates rotation of Earth with a pendulum
1852: Jean Foucault, first gyroscope
1854: Hermann von Helmholtz, Heat death of the universe
1857: James Clerk Maxwell, nature of Saturns rings
1858: Wallace and Darwin, natural selection of species
1859: Julius Plucker, cathode rays
1859: Bunsen and Kirchhoff, measurement of spectral line frequencies
1859: Urbane Le Verrier, anomolous perihelion shift of Mercury
1859: Gustav Kirchhoff, black body law
1862: Anders Angstrom, observed hydrogen in the sun
1864: John Newlands, chemical law of octaves
1865: Rudolf Clausius, introduction of the term entropy
1867: James Maxwell, statistical physics and thermal equilibrium
1868: Joseph Lockyer, element Helium discovered from the sun's spectrum
1869: Dmitri Mendeleyev, periodic table of elements
1873: James Maxwell, equations of electromagnetism, nature of light and prediction of radio waves
1874: George Stoney, named the electron and estimated its mass
1877: Ludwig Boltzmann, Boltzmann's equation for entropy
1881: Albert Michelson, light interferometer
1883: Thomas Edison, thermionic emission
1885: Johann Balmer, empirical formula for hydrogen spectral lines
1885: James Dewar, vacuum flask and liquid hydrogen
1887: Heinrich Rodolf Hertz, transmission and reception of radio waves
1887: Michelson and Morley, absence of ether drift
1887: Hertz, Hallwachs, photoelectric effect
1889: George Fitzgerald, length contraction
1889: Rolond von Eotvos, torsion balance to test equivalence of inertial and gravitational mass
1892: Hendrick Lorentz, theory that electricity is due to electrons
1893: Ernst Mach, influence of all the mass in the universe determines what is natural motion
1895: Wilhelm Roentgen, X-rays
1895: Korteweg and de Vries, Explanation of solitary waves
1895: Jean-Baptiste Perrin, Cathode rays are negative particles
1895: Pierre Curie, loss of magnetism at high temperature, (Curie point)
1895: Hendrick Lorentz, Lorentz transformation
1896: Pieter Zeeman, spectral line splitting by magnetic field
1896: Antoine Henri Becquerel, natural radioactivity in Uranium ore
1897: Joseph Thomson, the electron and measurement of its charge to mass ratio by deflection of cathode rays
1898: Pierre and Marie Curie, separation of radioactive elements
1899: Ernest Rutherford, alpha and beta radiation
1899: Philipp Lenard, photoelectric effect confirms mass to charge ratio of electron
1900: Max Planck, light quanta in black body radiation and Planck's constant
1900: Villard, gamma rays
1900: Pyotr Lebedev, radiation pressure
1903: Rutherford and Soddy, transmutation by radiation
1903: Philipp Lenard, model of atom as two separated opposite charges
1904: Albert Einstein, energy-frequency relation of light quanta
1904: Joseph Thomson, plum pudding model of the atom
1904: Hendrik Lorentz, the Lorentz transformations
1904: Hantaro Nagaoka, planetary model of the atom
1905: Albert Einstein, explains Brownian motion by kinetic theory
1905: Albert Einstein, photon theory for photoelectric effect
1905: Albert Einstein, special relativity
1905: Paul Langevin, atomic theory of paramagnetism
1905: Percival Lowell, postulates a ninth planet beyond Neptune
1906: Albert Einstein, relation of inertia and energy
1906: Albert Einstein, particle-wave duality of photons
1907: Albert Einstein, equivalence of mass and energy
1907: Albert Einstein, equivalence principle and gravitational redshift
1907: Hermann Minkowski, geometric unification of space and time
1908: Siberian Explosion in Tunguska
1908: Hans Geiger, Geiger counter for detecting radioactivity
1908: Ernest Rutherford, identifies alpha particles as helium nuclei
1909: Geiger and Marsden, anomolous scattering of alpha particles on gold foil
1909: Robert Millikan, measured the charge on the electron
1910: Henrietta Leavitt, measured cosmic distances using Cepheid variable stars in globular clusters
1910: Albert Einstein, why the sky is blue
1911: Victor Hess, cosmic rays
1911: Joseph Thomson, separation of isotopes
1911: Heike Onnes, superconductivity
1911: Ernest Rutherford, Infers the nucleus from the alpha scattering result
1912: Robert Millikan, measurement of Planck's constant
1912: Charles Wilson, cloud chamber
1912: Max Von Laue, X-rays are explained as electromagnetic radiation by diffraction
1912: Albert Einstein, curvature of space-time
1912: Vesto Slipher, observes redshift of galaxies
1913: Niels Bohr, quantum theory of atomic orbits
1913: Niels Bohr, radioactivity as nuclear property
1913: Hans Geiger, relation of atomic number to nuclear charge
1914: Harry Moseley, used X-rays to confirm the correspondence between electric charge of nucleus and atomic number
1915: Albert Einstein, general relativity
1915: Albert Einstein, prediction of light bending and explanation for perhilion shift of mercury
1916: Albert Einstein, prediction of gravitational waves
1916: Karl Schwarzschild, singular static solution of gravitational field equations which describes a minimal black hole
1917: Harlow Shapley, estimates the diameter of the galaxy as 100000 light years
1917: Albert Einstein, introduction of the cosmological constant and a steady state model of the universe
1917: Albert Einstein, theory of stimulated emission
1917: Willem de Sitter, describes a model of an expanding universe with no matter
1918: Harlow Shapley, determined the size and shape of our galaxy.
1918: Reissner and Nordstrom, solution of Einstein's equations which describe a charged black hole
1919: Ernest Rutherford, artificial transmutation, hydrogen and oxygen from nitrogen
1919: Ernest Rutherford, existence of the proton in nucleus
1919: Oliver Lodge, predection of gravitational lensing
1919: Crommelin, Eddington, verification of Einstein's prediction of starlight deflection during an eclipse
1919: Emmy Noether, The mathematical relationships between symmetry and conservation laws in classical physics
1920: Ernest Rutherford, prediction of neutron
1921: Theodor Kaluza, unification of electromagnetics and gravity by introducing an extra dimension
1921: Shapley and Curtis, The Great Debate over the scale and structure of the universe
1921: James Chadwick, evidence for a strong nuclear interaction
1921: Stern and Gerlach, measurement of atomic magnetic moments
1921: Charles Bury, electronic structure at elements from their chemistry
1922: Alexsandr Friedmann, works out a model of an expanding universe with matter included
1923: Arthur Compton, compton effect confirms photon as particle
1923: Louise de Broglie, predicts diffraction of electrons as wave nature of partciles
1924: Edwin Hubble, measured the distance to other galaxies using Cepheid variables proving that they lie outside our own
1924: Edward Appleton, ionosphere
1924: Satyendra Bose, derivation of Planck's law
1924: Bose and Einstein, statistics of photons
1924: Wolfgang Pauli, explanation of Zeeman effect
1924: Wolfgang Pauli, the exclusion principle
1925: Robert Millikan, introduced the term cosmic rays
1925: Enrico Fermi, statistics of electrons
1925: Werner Heisenberg, matrix mechanics
1925: Goudsmit and Uhlenbeck, electron spin
1926: Oskar Klein, Kaluza-Klein theory
1926: Paul Dirac, quantum distinction between femions and bosons
1926: Erwin Schroedinger, the particle wave equation
1926: Erwin Schroedinger, equivalence of wave equation and matrix mechanics
1926: Max Born, statistical interpretation of quantum mechanics
1926: Klein, Fock and Gordon, relativistic equation for scalar particles
1926: R. Fowler, white dwarf stars are explained by the exclusion principle
1927: Werner Heisenberg, the uncertainty principle
1927: Davisson and Germer, Verification of electron diffraction
1927: Jan Oort, observation of galactic rotation
1927: Niels Bohr, complementarity
1927: Paul Dirac, quantisation of electromagnetic field
1927: Eugene Wigner, conservation of parity
1927: Georges Lemaitre, the primeval atom as origin of the universe
1927: Niels Bohr, Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Mechanics
1928: Condon, Gamow, Gurney, alpha emission is due to quantum tunnelling
1928: Paul Dirac, relativistic equation of the electron
1929: quartz crystal clock
1929: Ernest Lawrence, cyclotron
1929: Robert van de Graaff, Van de Graaff generator
1929: Edwin Hubble, first measurement of Hubble's constant and conclusion that the Universe is expanding
1930: Clyde Tombaugh, Pluto
1930: Walther Bothe, observed neutral rays later identified as neutrons
1930: Paul Dirac, prediction of anti-matter
1930: Paul Dirac, systematic canonical quantisation
1930: Hartree and Fock, multi-particle quantum mechanics
1931: Isidor Rabi, principle of population inversion
1931: Wolfgang Pauli, neutrino as explanation for missing momentum in weak nuclear decay
1931: Harold Clayton, deuterium
1931: Eugene Wigner, symmetry in quantum mechanics
1931: Paul Dirac, heavy magnetic monopoles explain quantum of charge
1932: Raman and Bhagavantam, Verification that photon is spin one
1932: James Chadwick, identified the neutron
1932: Knoll and Ruska, electron microscope
1932: Carl Anderson, positron in cosmic rays
1932: Karl Jansky, first radio astronomy
1932: D. Iwanenko, Neutron as a constituent of nucleus
1932: Urey, Brickwedde, Murphy, deuteron
1932: Werner Heisenberg, Nucleus is composed of protons and neutrons
1932: Lev Davidovich Landau, proposed existence of neutron stars
1933: Paul Ehrenfest, theory of second order phase transitions
1933: Blackett and Occhialini, electron-positron creation and anihilation
1933: Esterman, Frisch and Stern, measurement of proton magnetic moment
1933: Baade and Zwicky, collapse of a white dwarf may set off a supernova and leave a neutron star
1934: Pavel Cherenkov, Cherenkov radiation
1934: Chadwick and Goldhaber, precise measurement of neutron mass
1934: Enrico Fermi, Fermi theory of weak interaction and beta decay
1934: Esterman and Stern, magnetic moment of neutron
1934: Fermi and Hahn, fission observed
1935: Hideki Yukawa, theory of strong nuclear force and the pi-meson
1935: Robert Oppenheimer, spin statistics
1935: Enrico Fermi, hypothesis of transuranic elements
1935: Einstein, Podolsky, Rosen, EPR Paradox of non-locality in quantum mechanics
1935: Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, calculation of mass limit for stellar collapse of a white dwarf star
1936: Anderson and Neddermeyer, muon in cosmic rays
1936: L. Brillouin, theory of wave guides
1936: Breit and Coll, isotropic spin
1936: Alan Turing, computability
1937: Peter Kapitza, superfluidity of helium
1937: Majorana, symmetric theory of electron and positron
1937: Julian Schwinger, Neutron spin is half
1938: Oppenheimer and Serber, there is an upper mass limit for stability of neutron stars
1938: Bethe and Critchfield, stars are powered by nuclear fusion
1938: Isador Rabi, Magnetic Resonance
1938: Oskar Klein, new field equations from higher dimensional Kaluza-Klein theory
1938: H. Kramers, mass renormalisation
1938: Frisch and Meitner, theory of uranium fission
1939: Oppenheimer and Snyder, a collapsing neutron star will form a black hole.
1939: Bohr, Wheeler, Khariton, Zel'dovich ...et al, theory of U235 fission and chain reaction.
1939: Bloch and Alvarez, measurement of the neutron magnetic moment
1939: Rossi, Van Norman, Hilbery, Muon decay
1939: Teller, Szilard, Einstein, warning letter to Roosevelt
1939: Peierls and Frisch, critical mass and theory of A-Bomb
1940: Mac-Millam, Abelson, Seaborg, Neptunium, plutonium, first transuranian elements
1941: Lev Davidovich Landau, theory of superfluids
1941: Rossi and Hall, Muon decay used to verify relativistic time dilation
1942: Enrico Fermi, the first self sustaining fission reaction
1944: Lars Onsager, general theory of phase transitions
1944: Leprince-Ringuet and Lheritier, the K+ found in cosmic rays
1945: Robert Oppenheimer, atomic bomb
1945: first electronic computer ENIAC
1947: Claude Shannon, information theory
1947: Conversi, Pancini, Piccioni, indication that the muon is not the mediator of the strong force
1947: Hartmut Kallman, scintillation counter
1947: Denis Gabor, theory of holograms
1947: Hans Bethe, renormalisation of Lamb shift calculation
1947: Cecil Powell, negative pion found
1947: Willis Lamb, fine structure of hydrogen spectrum, the Lamb shift
1947: Kusch and Folley, measurement of the anomolous magnetic moment of the electron
1948: Tomonaga, Schwinger, Feynman, renormalisation of QED
1948: Bondi, Gold, Hoyle, steady state theory of the universe
1948: Bethe and Gamow, explains big bang nucleosynthesis
1948: Alpher and Herman, prediction of cosmic background radiation
1948: Richard Feynman, path integral approach to quantum theory
1948: Bardeen, Brattain, Shockley, semi-conductors and transistors
1948: Snell and Miller, Decay of the neutron
1949: Leighton, Anderson, Seriff, Muon is spin half
1950: Paul Dirac, first suggestion of string theory
1950: Bjorklund, Crandall, Moyer, York, Neutral pion
1950: Albert Einstein, Einstein's failed unified theory
1951: Smith and Baade, identify a radio galaxy
1952: Courant, Livingston, Snyder, Strong focusing principle for particle accelerators
1952: Donald Glaser, bubble chamber
1952: Walter Baade, resolves confusion over two different types of Cepheid variable stars
1952: Edward Teller, hydrogen bomb
1953: Gell-Mann and Nishijima, strangeness
1953: Reines and Cowan, neutrino detection
1954: Yang and Mills, non-abelian gauge theory
1955: caesium atomic clock
1955: John Wheeler, describes the space-time foam at the Planck scale.
1955: Chamberlain, Segre and Wiegand anti-proton
1956: Cork, Lambertson, Piccioni, Wenzel, evidence for anti-neutron
1956: Lee and Yang, weak interaction could violate parity
1956: Reines and Cowan, anti-neutrino detection
1957: Burbidge, Hoyle, Fowler Formation of light elements in stars
1957: Chien-Shiung Wu, parity violation in weak decays
1957: Bardeen, Cooper, Schrieffer, BCS theory of superconductivity
1957: Hugh Everett, Many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics
1958: Townes and Schawlow, theory of laser
1958: David Finkelstein, resolves the nature of the black hole event horizon
1959: MIT, radar echo from Venus
1959: Ramsey, Kleppner, Goldenberg, hydrogen maser atomic clock
1960: Theodore Maiman, ruby laser
1960: Eugene Wigner, the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in natural science
1960: Pound and Rebka, measurement of gravitational red-shift
1960: Matthews and Sandage, optical identification of a quasar
1961: Sheldon Glashow, introduces neutral intermediate boson of weak interactions
1961: J. Goldstone, Theory of massless particles in spontaneous symmetry breaking (Goldstone boson)
1962: Gell-Mann and Ne'eman, Prediction of Omega minus particle
1962: Leith and Upatnieks, first hologram
1962: Riccardo Giacconi, detection of cosmic X-rays
1962: Lederman, Steinberger, Schwartz, evidence for more than one type of neutrino
1963: Samios et al., Baryon Omega minus
1963: Roy Kerr, solution for a rotating black hole
1963: Schmidt, Greensite, Sandage, quasars are distant
1964: Peter Higgs, Higgs mechanism of symmetry breaking
1964: Cronin and Fitch, CP violation in weak interactions
1964: Murray Gell-Mann, current algebra
1964: Gell-Mann, Zweig, quark theory of hadrons
1964: Bjorken and Glashow, prediciton of SU(4) flavour symmetry and charm
1964: Roger Penrose, black holes must contain singularities
1964: Ginzburg, Doroshkevich, Novikov, Zel'dovich, black holes have no hair
1964: Salpeter and Zel'dovich, black holes power quasars and radio galaxies
1964: John Bell, a quantum inequality which limits the possibilities for local hidden variable theories
1965: Greenberg, Han, Nambu, SU(3) colour symmetry to explain statistics of quark model
1965: Martin Kruskal, Numerical studies of solitons
1965: Penzias and Wilson, detection of the cosmic background radiation
1967: Weinberg, Salam, electro-weak unification
1967: Gerard 't Hooft, renormalisation of elctro-weak model
1967: Bell and Antony, pulsars
1967: Irwin Shapiro, radar measurment of relativistic time delays to Mercury
1968: Joseph Weber, first attempt at a gravitational wave detector
1968: Gabrielle Veneziano, Dual resonance model for strong interaction, beginning of string theory
1969: SLACDeep inelastic scattering experiments find structure inside protons.
1969: Hawking and Penrose, singularity theorems for the big bang
1969: Roger Penrose, conjectures that singularities are hidden by cosmic censorship
1969: Donald Lynden-Bell, black hole at the centre of galactic nuclei
1969: Raymond Davis, solar neutrino detector
1969: first attempts to verify solar deflection of radio waves from quasars
1970: Nambu, Nielsen, Susskind, realisation that the dual resonance model is string theory
1970: Glashow, Iliopoulos, Maiani, prediction of charme quark
1970: Stephen Hawking, the surface area of a black holes event horizon always increases
1971: Kenneth Wilson, the operator product expansion and the renormalisation group for the strong force
1972: Jacob Bekenstein, black hole entropy
1972: Fritsch, Gellmann, Quntum Chromodynamics
1972: Friedman, Kendall, Taylor, Verification of Bjorken scaling behaviour
1973: Wess and Zumino, supersymmetry
1973: CERN, Evidence of weak neutral currents
1974: Ting and Richter, found J/psi (charmed quark)
1974: Kenneth Wilson, lattice gauge theory
1974: Taylor and Hulse, binary pulsar and relativistic effects
1974: Georgi and Glashow, SU(5) as Grand Unified Theory and prediction of proton life-time
1974: 't Hooft and Polyakov, magnetic monopoles in GUTs.
1974: Cygnus X-1 identified as black hole candidate
1974: Stephen Hawking, black hole radiation and thermodynamics
1975: Scherk, Schwarz interpretation of string theory as a theory of gravity
1975: Martin Perl Tau lepton
1976: Ferrara, Freedman, Nieuwenhuizen Supergravity
1976: Levine and Vessot precision test of gravitational time dilation on rocket
1977: James Elliot, rings of Uranus
1977: Olive and Montenen, conjecture of elecro-magnetic duality
1977: Fermilab, bottom quark
1978: Charon, moon of Pluto
1978: Taylor and Hulse, evidence for gravitational radiation of binary pulasr
1979: Feigenbaum, universality in chaotic non-linear systems
1979: Voyager, rings of Jupiter
1979: quasar doubled by gravitational lensing
1979: DESY, evidence for gluons in hadron Jets
1980: Frederick Reines, Evidence of Neutrino oscillations
1980: DESY, measurement of gluon spin
1981: Alan Guth inflationary early universe
1982: Green and Schwarz, superstring theory
1982: Alain Aspect an experiment to confirm non-local aspects of quantum theory
1983: van de Meer, Rubia, W and Z bosons at CERN
1984: Green and Schwarz, anomaly cancellations in superstring theory
1985: Gross, Harvey, Martinec, Rohm, heterotic string theory
1986: Bednorz and Mueller, high temperature superconductivity
1986: Abhay Ashtekar, new variables for canonical quantum gravity
1987: Masatoshi Koshibas, detection of neutrinos from a supernova
1988: Smolin and Rovelli, loop representation of quantum gravity
1989: SLAC, Number of light neutrinos is 3 from Z width
1990: John Mather, black body spectrum of cosmic background radiation from COBE
1990: George Smoot, angular fluctuations in cosmic background radiation with COBE
1994: Fermilab, Top Quark
1994: Seiberg and Witten, Electro-magnetic duality in supersymmetric gauge theory
1994: Hubble Space Telescope finds Evidence for black hole at the centre of galaxy M87
1995: Direct evidence for neutrino oscillations
1995: Witten and Townsend, M-Theory
1995: Joseph Polchinski, D-Branes
1995: Cornell, Wieman, Anderson Bose-Einstein condensate
1995: CERN, Anti-hydrogen
1995: Mayor and Queloz, first extra-solar planet
1996: Hubble Space Telescope used to see furthest galaxies to date
1997: Comet Hale-Bopp becomes one of the brightest and well seen comets in history.
1997: Visual identification of Gamma Ray Bursters discovered.
1997: NASA Pathfinder probe lands successfully on Mars: First robotic rover on Mars.
1997: NASA Mars Global Surveyor Arrives at Mars. First spacecraft aerobrake procedure use.
1997: NASA Cassini space probe launched to Saturn. Arrival in 2004.
2001: Russian MIR spacestation returns to Earth in a meteoric burnup.
Last Modified: 3/19/03 8:55p
This page:© Copyright 2005 by John A. Blackwell