A TIMELINE HISTORY OF SCIENCE
Science in 3600 BC - 500 AD
(Ancient Era)
The Ancient Greeks were the first scientists. Greek philosophers
tried to explain what the world is made of and how it works. The regular
occurrence of natural events encouraged the development of some scientific
disciplines. After a period of observation and careful recordkeeping, even
some of the events perceived as random and unpredictable might begin to
display a regular pattern which initially was not immediately obvious. Eclipses
are a good example
494-434 BC Empedocles lives. He says the world is made of 4 elements,
earth, fire, water and air.
384-322 BC Aristotle lives. Many of his ideas are wrong but the dominate
science for the next 2,000 years.
276-194 BC Eratosthenes lives. He measures the circumference of the
Earth.
130-210 AD The doctor Galen lives. His ideas about the human body
dominate medicine for the next 1,500 years.
c 150 AD Ptolemy writes his book Almagest which states that the Sun and
other planets orbit the Earth
1543 Copernicus publishes his theory that the Earth orbits the Sun
1572 Tycho Brahe observes a supernova
Science in the 17th Century
(Renaissance Era)
This period in the history of Europe is known as the Scientific Revolution.
The expression is controversial, as historians are still debating when the
revolution started and finished, who were the main actors, and how it
developed [Hatch 2002-03]. Although some historians favor the figure
of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) and the heliocentric theory to mark the
beginning of the Scientific Revolution, others situate the origin in Francis
Bacon (1561-1626) and his description of the scientific method. Some other
key figures of this period were TychoBrahe (1546-1601), Rene
Descartes (1596-1650), JohannesKepler (1571-1630), Galileo Galilei (1564-
1642) and Isaac Newton (1642-1727).
1600 William Gilbert shows that the Earth is a magnet
1604 Johannes Kepler publishes a book on optics
1609 Kepler publishes 2 laws of planetary motion. Galileo observes the
Heavens with a telescope
1619 Kepler publishes a 3rd law of planetary motion
1628 William Harvey publishes his discovery of how blood circulates
around the body
1632 Galileo publishes Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World
Systems
1634 Galileo publishes a book about mechanics called Dialogue
Concerning Two New Sciences
1643 Evangelista Torricelli invents the barometer
1650 Otto von Guericke invents an air pump
1658 Jan Swammerdann observes red blood corpuscles
1661 Robert Boyle publishes The Skeptical Chemist. Marcello Malpighi
discovers capillaries
1662 The Royal Society is given a charter by Charles II
1665 Robert Hooke describes cells
1687 Isaac Newton publishes Principia Mathematica
Science in the 18th Century
(Enlightenment Era)
The Enlightenment was an intellectual movement in the eighteenth
century that emphasized reason and science. The British colonist Benjamin
Franklin gained fame on both sides of the Atlantic as a printer, publisher, and
scientist. He embodied Enlightenment ideals in the British Atlantic with his
scientific experiments and philanthropic endeavors
1704 Isaac Newton publishes a book about optics
1743-1794 French chemist Antoine Lavoisier lives
1746 Petrus van Musschenbroek invents the leyden jar
1751 Axel Cronstedt discovers nickel
1752 Benjamin Franklin proves lightning is a form of electricity
1758 Carl Linnaeus publishes his work Systema Naturae classifying living
things
1766 Henry Cavendish isolates hydrogen
1772 Daniel Rutherford discovers nitrogen
1774 Joseph Priestley discovers oxygen
1781 William Herschel discovers Uranus
1784 John Goodricke discovers variable stars
1785 James Hutton publishes Theory of the Earth
1798 Henry Cavendish measures the density of the Earth
Science in the 19th Century
(Industrial Revolution Era)
It has long been a commonsensical notion that the rise of
modern science and the Industrial Revolution were closely connected. What
science offered in the 18th century was the hope that careful observation and
experimentation might improve industrial production significantly. The science
of metallurgy permitted the tailoring of alloy steels to industrial specifications,
that the science of chemistry permitted the creation of new substances, like
the aniline dyes, of fundamental industrial importance, and that electricity and
magnetism were harnessed in the electric dynamo and motor. The Industrial
Revolution had one further important effect on the development of modern
science. The prospect of applying science to the problems of industry served
to stimulate public support for science. The first great scientific school of the
modern world, the École Polytechnique in Paris, was founded in 1794 to put
the results of science in the service of France.
1800 Allessandro Volta invents the battery
1801 The first asteroid is discovered
1808 John Dalton publishes his atomic theory
1828 Friedrich Wohler produces urea
1830 Charles Lyell publishes Principles of Geology
1831 Michael Faraday invents the dynamo
1842 The word dinosaur is coined
1846 Neptune is discovered
1847 Axel Herman von Helmholtz formulates the law of the Conservation
of Energy
1859 The Origin of Species is published by Charles Darwin
1866 Gregor Mendel discovers the law of hereditary
1873 James Clerk Maxwell shows that light is an electromagnetic wave
1895 X-rays are discovered by Wilhelm Roentgen
1896 Henri Becquerel discovers radioactivity
1897 Joseph Thomson discovers the electron
1898 Marie Curie discovers radium
Science in the 20th Century
(Progressive Era)
This ideal emerged in the Progressive Era, which lasted roughly from 1895
to 1920. The animating spirit of this period was that the human condition could
be improved and that the way to achieve this was through science and the
use of experts working together. The Progressive Era saw inventions, such as
automobiles and airplanes, telephone and radio, that required mass
production and brought people together. It also spawned many political and
legislative innovations that we now take for granted. Among these are the
Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Commerce, and the Federal
Trade Commission. Workers' compensation and other social protections were
introduced, as were city commissions; the income tax; women's suffrage; and
initiative, referendum, and recall. Medicine, for the first time, became an
effective way to treat disease as it developed a scientific foundation.
1900 Max Planck proposes quantum theory
1905 Einstein publishes his theory of Special Relativity
1910 Ernest Rutherford discovers the atomic nucleus
1915 Einstein publishes his General Theory of Relativity
1926 Arthur Eddington suggests that stars are powered by nuclear fusion
1927 Werner Heisenberg publishes his uncertainty principle
1928 Alexander Fleming invents penicillin
1930 Pluto is discovered
1932 James Chadwick discovers the neutron
1937 The first radio telescope is built
1953 Francis Crick and James Watson discover the structure of DNA
1960 The laser is invented
1963 Quasars are discovered
1964 Murray Gell-Mann and George Zweig suggest that quarks exist
1967 Pulsars are discovered
1990 The Hubble Space Telescope is launched.
