250 BCE: Archimedes: Archimedes' principle states that the upward buoyant force that is exerted on a

body immersed in a fluid, whether fully or partially submerged, is equal to the weight of the fluid that
the body displaces and acts in the upward direction at the center of mass of the displaced fluid.

1514: Nicholas Copernicus: Heliocentrism is the astronomical model in which the Earth and planets
revolve around the Sun at the center of the Solar System. Historically, Heliocentrism was opposed to
geocentrism, which placed the Earth at the center. The notion that the Earth revolves around the Sun
had been proposed as early as the 3rd century BC by Aristarchus of Samos, but at least in the medieval
world, Aristarchus's Heliocentrism attracted little attention—possibly because of the loss of scientific
works of the Hellenistic Era.

1589: Galileo Galilei: Galileo's Leaning Tower of Pisa experiment where dropped two spheres of
different masses from the Leaning Tower of Pisa to demonstrate that their time of descent was
independent of their mass, according to a biography by Galileo's pupil Vincenzo Viviani, composed in
1654 and published in 1717. Via this experiment, Galileo supposedly discovered that the objects fell with
the same acceleration, proving his prediction true, while at the same time disproving Aristotle's theory
of gravity (which states that objects fall at speed proportional to their mass).

1613: Galileo Galilei: Inertia is the resistance of any physical object to any change in its position and
state of motion. This includes changes to the object's speed, direction, or state of rest.

1621: Willebrord Snellius: Snell's law (also known as Snell–Descartes law and the law of refraction) is a
formula used to describe the relationship between the angles of incidence and refraction, when
referring to light or other waves passing through a boundary between two different isotropic media,
such as water, glass, or air. Snell's law states that the ratio of the sines of the angles of incidence and
refraction is equivalent to the ratio of phase velocities in the two media, or equivalent to the reciprocal
of the ratio of the indices of refraction:

with each θ as the angle measured from the normal of the boundary, v as the velocity of light in the
respective medium (SI units are meters per second, or m/s), λ as the wavelength of light in the
respective medium and n as the refractive index (which is unitless) of the respective medium.

1660: Blaise Pascal: Pascal's law is a principle in fluid mechanics that states that a pressure change
occurring anywhere in a confined incompressible fluid is transmitted throughout the fluid such that the
same change occurs everywhere.

1660: Robert Hooke: Hooke's law is a principle of physics that states that the force (F) needed to extend
or compress a spring by some distance X scales linearly with respect to that distance. That is: F = kX,
where k is a constant factor characteristic of the spring: its stiffness, and X is small compared to the total
possible deformation of the spring.

1656: Ole Rømer: Rømer's determination of the speed of light was the demonstration in 1676 that light
has a finite speed, and so does not travel instantaneously. By timing the eclipses of the Jupiter moon Io,
Rømer estimated that light would take about 22 minutes to travel a distance equal to the diameter of
Earth's orbit around the Sun. This would give light a velocity of about 220,000 kilometres per second in
SI units, about 26% lower than the true value of 299,792.458 km/s.

1687: Isaac Newton: a. Newton's laws of motion

First law: In an inertial frame of reference, an object either remains at rest or continues to move at a
constant velocity, unless acted upon by a force.[2][3]
Second In an inertial reference frame, the vector sum of the forces F on an object is equal to the mass m
law: of that object multiplied by the acceleration a of the object: F = ma. (It is assumed here that the
mass m is constant)
Third When one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force
law: equal in magnitude and opposite in direction on the first body.
 b. Newton's law of universal gravitation states that a particle attracts every other particle in the
universe with a force which is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely
proportional to the square of the distance between their centers.

c. Calculus

1782: Antoine Lavoisier: The law of conservation of mass or principle of mass conservation states that
for any system closed to all transfers of matter and energy, the mass of the system must remain
constant over time, as system's mass cannot change, so quantity cannot be added nor removed. Hence,
the quantity of mass is conserved over time.

1785: Charles-Augustin de Coulomb: Inverse square law for electric charges confirmed.

The inverse-square law, in physics, is any physical law stating that a specified physical quantity
or intensity is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the source of that physical
quantity. The fundamental cause for this can be understood as geometric dilution corresponding to
point-source radiation into three-dimensional space (see diagram).

S represents the light source, while r represents the measured points. The lines represent the flux
emanating from the source. The total number of flux lines depends on the strength of the source and is
constant with increasing distance, where a greater density of flux lines (lines per unit area) means a
stronger field. The density of flux lines is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the
source because the surface area of a sphere increases with the square of the radius. Thus the strength
of the field is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the source.

1801: Thomas Young: Wave Theory of Light

1803: John Dalton: Atomic theory is a scientific theory of the nature of matter, which states that matter
is composed of discrete units called atoms.

1806: Thomas Young: Kinetic Energy

Young defined energy as:

1814: Augustin-Jean Fresnel: Wave Theory of Light, interference

1820: André-Marie Ampère, Jean-Baptiste Biot, Félix Savart: Evidence for electromagnetic interactions

1827: George Simon Ohm: Electrical resistance, etc.

1831: Michael Faraday: Electromagnetic or magnetic induction is the production of an electromotive
force (i.e., voltage) across an electrical conductor in a changing magnetic field.
1838: Michael Faraday: Lines of Force, Fields
1838: Wilhelm Eduard Weber and Carl Friedrich Gauss: Earth’s magnetic field.
1843: Julius Robert von Mayer, William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin: Law of conservation of energy
states that the total energy of an isolated system remains constant, it is said to be conserved
over time. This law means that energy can neither be created nor destroyed; rather, it can only
be transformed from one form to another.
1845: Michael Faraday: Faraday effect or Faraday rotation is a magneto-optical phenomenon—that is,
an interaction between light and a magnetic field in a medium. The Faraday effect causes a
rotation of the plane of polarization which is linearly proportional to the component of the
magnetic field in the direction of propagation.
1847: James Prescott Joule, Hermann von Helmholtz: Law of conservation of energy 2, which in turn
led to the development of the first law of thermodynamics.
1851: Rudolf Clausius, William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin: Second Law of Thermodynamics

1859 Kinetic theory: James Clerk Maxwell

1861 Black body: Gustav Kirchhoff
1863 Entropy: Rudolf Clausius
1864 A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field: James Clerk Maxwell
1867 Dynamic Theory of Gases, James Clerk Maxwell
1871–
Statistical Mechanics: Ludwig Boltzmann, Josiah Willard Gibbs
89
1884 Boltzmann derives Stefan's radiation law
1887 Michelson–Morley experiment
1887 Electromagnetic Waves: Heinrich Rudolf Hertz
1893 Radiation Law: Wilhelm Wien
1895 X-Rays discovered: Wilhelm Röntgen
1896 Radioactivity: Henri Becquerel
1897 Electron discovered: J. J. Thomson
Formula for Black-Body Radiation: Max Planck
1900
Quantum Hypothesis: Max Planck
Special Relativity: Albert Einstein
1905 Photoelectric Effect: Albert Einstein
Brownian Motion: Albert Einstein
Equivalence Principle: Albert Einstein
1911 Discovery of the Atomic Nucleus: Ernest Rutherford
Superconductivity: Kamerlingh Onnes
1913 Bohr Model of the atom: Niels Bohr
1916 General Relativity: Albert Einstein
Stern–Gerlach experiment
1923 Matter waves: Louis de Broglie
Galaxies: Edwin Hubble
1925 Matrix Mechanics: Werner Heisenberg
1926 Schrödinger Equation: Erwin Schrödinger
1927 Big Bang: Georges Lemaître
1927 Uncertainty Principle: Werner Heisenberg
1928 Antimatter predicted: Paul Dirac
1929 Expansion of the Universe Confirmed: Edwin Hubble
Antimatter discovered: Carl David Anderson
1932
Neutron discovered: James Chadwick
1937 Muon discovered: Carl David Anderson & Seth Neddermeyer
Superfluidity discovered: Pyotr Kapitsa
1938
Nuclear Fission discovered: Otto Hahn
1947 Pion discovered: C.F. Powell, Giuseppe Occhialini, César Lattes
1948 Quantum Electrodynamics: Richard Feynman
1956 Electron neutrino discovered
1957 Parity violation discovered
1957 Theory of Superconductivity
Theory of strong interactions
1962
Muon neutrino discovered
1964 Bell's Theorem initiates quantitative study of quantum entanglement
Theory of Weak interaction
1967
Pulsars discovered
1974 Charmed quark discovered
1975 Tau lepton discovered
1977 Bottom quark discovered
1980 Quantum Hall effect discovered
1980 Richard Feynman proposes quantum computing
Theory of cosmic inflation
1981
Fractional quantum Hall effect discovered
1984 W and Z bosons directly observed
1984 First laboratory implementation of quantum cryptography
shor's algorithm discovered, initiating the serious study of quantum
1994
computation.
1995 Top quark discovered
1998 Accelerating universe discovered
1998 Atmospheric neutrino oscillation established
2000 Tau neutrino discovered
2012 Higgs Boson discovered
2015 Gravitational waves detected