Timeline of scientific discoveries - Definition and Overview

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

See also Timeline of scientific experiments, Timeline of technological discoveries, List of timelines of Science and Technology, Obsolete scientific theories.

• 350s BC - Hereclides: rotation of Earth:

• 1543 - Copernicus: the earth orbits the sun

• 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

• 1787 - Jacques Charles: Charles' law of ideal gas
• 1789 - Lavoisier: law of conservation of mass, basis for chemistry

• 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)
• 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

• 1900 - Planck: Planck's law of black body radiation, basis for quantum theory
• 1905 - Albert Einstein: special theory of relativity
• 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
• 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

• 1953 - Crick and Watson: helical structure of DNA, basis for molecular biology
• 1965 - Richard Feynman: Quantum electrodynamics

• 2001 - The human genome is completely mapped