2000 BCE — Babylonian priests conduct systematic observations of the sky
Babylonian observation tables underlay many later astronomical systems, including the Greek one.
Babylonian priests kept continuous astronomical records spanning centuries.
Physics, chemistry, astronomy, biology, medicine and mathematics — from Babylonian tablets to the Higgs boson. Each of the 200 events has a title and two facts on click. All lanes are on by default. Click a chip to hide a discipline; click again to bring it back. “All disciplines” turns every lane on. Zoom in (the + / − buttons, or Ctrl + mouse wheel) and event names appear on the lanes.
Babylonian observation tables underlay many later astronomical systems, including the Greek one.
Babylonian priests kept continuous astronomical records spanning centuries.
Plimpton 322 shows the Babylonians knew the Pythagorean theorem over a thousand years before Pythagoras.
The tablet is held at Columbia University, purchased by collector George Plimpton in 1922.
The Ebers Papyrus contains over 700 remedies and formulas, including descriptions of tumors.
The papyrus was acquired by German Egyptologist Georg Ebers in 1873 from a local dealer in Luxor.
The Rhind Papyrus is essentially the oldest known math textbook, complete with problems and solutions.
The papyrus is held at the British Museum and contains 84 mathematical problems with solutions.
The word 'electricity' comes from the Greek name for amber, which Thales experimented with.
Thales is also credited with correctly predicting the year of a solar eclipse in 585 BCE using Babylonian astronomical records.
Legend holds the eclipse prediction halted a battle between the Lydians and the Medes.
Thales used the Babylonian saros cycle, an eclipse repetition period of about 18 years.
Thales is said to have proven that an angle inscribed in a semicircle is a right angle.
Thales is also credited with calculating the height of the Egyptian pyramids from the length of their shadows.
The Pythagoreans believed the entire universe was structured on numerical ratios.
The Pythagoreans kept their discoveries secret and, by legend, executed a student who revealed the existence of irrational numbers.
The word 'atom' comes from the Greek for 'indivisible' — exactly how Democritus imagined the smallest particle of matter.
Democritus's ideas were nearly forgotten for two millennia and only revived in the modern era.
Hippocrates is credited with the oath that, in modified form, medical graduates still take today.
Humoral theory explained disease as an imbalance of four bodily fluids and dominated medicine for centuries.
Aristotle's geocentric model dominated European science for nearly two millennia.
Aristotle regarded celestial bodies as perfect spheres moving in perfect circular orbits.
Alexandrian alchemy combined Greek natural philosophy with the practical skills of Egyptian metallurgists.
The word 'alchemy' likely derives from the Arabic name for Egypt.
Aristotle's work describes and classifies more than 500 animal species.
Aristotle also introduced an early classification of animals into 'with blood' and 'without blood' — a forerunner of vertebrates and invertebrates.
Theophrastus is often called the 'father of botany' — he described over 500 plant species.
Theophrastus was a student of Aristotle and headed his philosophical school after his teacher's death.
Euclid's 'Elements' remained a model of mathematical proof and one of the most published books in history for over two thousand years.
'Elements' comprises 13 books and contains 465 theorems derived from a handful of axioms.
Legend holds Archimedes made the discovery in a bath and ran outside shouting 'Eureka!'
Archimedes was killed by a Roman soldier during the sack of Syracuse, despite orders to spare the scholar.
Archimedes calculated pi to several decimal digits without a decimal number system.
Archimedes also calculated the volume and surface area of a sphere, which he considered his greatest achievement.
Eratosthenes's calculation differs from the modern value by only a few percent.
Eratosthenes calculated the Earth's circumference by comparing shadow lengths in two Egyptian cities on the same day.
Hipparchus's catalog listed over 800 stars along with their brightness.
Hipparchus also discovered the precession of the equinoxes by comparing his observations with earlier records.
The 'Almagest' remained Europe and the Arab world's chief astronomical text for over 1,400 years.
Ptolemy's system used more than 40 different circles just to describe the motion of the planets alone.
The 'Almagest' remained Europe and the Islamic world's leading astronomical work for over 1,400 years.
The title comes from the Arabic word for 'greatest,' via an Arabic translation later rendered into Latin.
Galen's works remained Europe's chief medical authority for over 1,300 years, despite numerous errors.
Galen conducted his anatomical studies on animals, since dissecting human bodies was banned in Rome.
Diophantus's 'Arithmetica' later inspired Fermat to formulate his famous Last Theorem.
The term 'Diophantine equations' — equations solved only in integers — derives from his name.
Indian astronomy developed largely independently of the Greek and Arab traditions.
Aryabhata also calculated the value of pi to several decimal places.
Brahmagupta was among the first mathematicians to give a rigorous definition of operations with zero.
Brahmagupta also proposed a formula for the area of a quadrilateral inscribed in a circle.
In the West Jabir ibn Hayyan was known as Geber, and the term 'gibberish' is said to derive from his name.
Jabir described distillation and crystallization processes still used in chemistry today.
The word 'algebra' itself comes from the title of his treatise, 'al-jabr.'
Al-Khwarizmi's own Latinized name also gave rise to the term 'algorithm.'
Zero as a distinct digit reached Europe specifically through this numeral system.
The system is often called 'Arabic numerals,' though Arab mathematicians themselves called it 'Indian numerals.'
Al-Sufi's observations of nebulae anticipated telescopic discoveries by almost seven centuries.
Al-Sufi compiled one of the first detailed star atlases with drawings of constellations.
Ibn al-Haytham was the son of a book merchant and worked briefly as a civil engineer before turning to science.
Ibn al-Haytham spent several years under house arrest, feigning madness to avoid execution.
Ibn Sina's 'Canon' remained a required textbook in European universities until the 17th century.
Known in the West as Avicenna, Ibn Sina also served as vizier and statesman at several Persian courts.
The remnant of the 1054 supernova is known today as the Crab Nebula.
The supernova was so bright it remained visible in daylight for three weeks.
Fibonacci introduced Hindu-Arabic numerals to Europe through a book mainly devoted to practical trade problems.
Fibonacci also described the number sequence bearing his name, using the example of breeding rabbits.
Albertus Magnus was likely among the first to isolate pure arsenic as a distinct substance.
He was the teacher of Thomas Aquinas and pursued both theology and natural science.
Ulugh Beg's observatory allowed star positions to be measured with precision unmatched for centuries.
The observatory housed a giant sextant over 40 meters in radius, partly carved into a hillside.
Copernicus's work was published only shortly before his death to avoid church pressure during his lifetime.
Copernicus trained as a canon and physician, and pursued astronomy in his spare time.
Copernicus's work was published shortly before his death and initially provoked little church opposition.
Copernicus dedicated the work to Pope Paul III, hoping for the church's support.
Vesalius's work corrected many anatomical errors inherited from Galen.
Vesalius compiled his anatomical tables by personally dissecting the bodies of executed criminals.
Cardano partly borrowed the cubic-equation formula from another mathematician, sparking one of the first major disputes over scientific priority.
Cardano was also a noted astrologer and physician, reportedly casting a horoscope for Jesus Christ.
Tycho Brahe's observation proved the heavens were not unchanging, as had been believed since Aristotle.
Tycho Brahe wore a prosthetic nose of gold and silver after losing his own in a duel.
The experiments likely took place on inclined planes rather than a tower, closer to the scientific method of the era.
Galileo was later summoned before the Inquisition specifically for defending conclusions drawn from these experiments.
The telescope's inventor is not definitively known — Hans Lippershey was first to file a patent.
The patent was ultimately denied, as the design was deemed too simple to protect.
Kepler derived his laws by working through Tycho Brahe's massive set of observational data on Mars.
Kepler served as court mathematician to Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II.
Kepler's laws were the first to accurately describe elliptical, rather than circular, planetary orbits.
Kepler's third law was published a full decade after the first two.
Jupiter's moons first showed that not all celestial bodies orbit the Earth.
The moons were later named the 'Galilean moons' in his honor.
These discoveries gave the first observational evidence supporting the heliocentric system.
Galileo published his observations just months after first looking through a telescope.
Napier's logarithms greatly simplified complex calculations long before calculators existed.
Napier himself coined the word 'logarithm,' combining Greek words for 'ratio' and 'number.'
Harvey calculated that the heart pumps too much blood a day for it to simply be 'burned up,' as previously believed.
Harvey's discovery met fierce resistance from a medical establishment steeped in Galen's teachings.
Descartes's analytic geometry first linked algebra and geometry through a coordinate system named after him.
Legend holds Descartes invented the coordinate system while watching a fly crawl across his ceiling.
The book was written after Galileo's condemnation by the Inquisition and published in Protestant Holland.
The book was dictated by Galileo to his students after he had gone blind.
The correspondence arose from a practical question — how to fairly divide stakes in an interrupted game of chance.
The Pascal-Fermat letters are considered the birth of probability theory as an independent mathematical discipline.
Huygens spotted Saturn's rings thanks to a more powerful telescope he built himself.
Huygens also invented the pendulum clock, greatly improving the accuracy of timekeeping.
The book's title literally means 'The Chemist Who Is Skeptical [of Old Theories].'
Boyle formulated the first scientific definition of a chemical element, distinct from alchemical notions.
Boyle's law was one of the first precise quantitative laws in the history of physics.
Boyle is also considered one of the founders of the modern scientific method in chemistry.
Hooke was the first to use the word 'cell,' comparing the structures he saw to monks' quarters.
Hooke chose the word 'cell' because the cork's empty chambers reminded him of monastery cells.
Newton developed most of calculus during a forced isolation from the plague epidemic at Cambridge.
Newton called his method 'fluxions'; today's familiar notation was introduced later by Leibniz.
Redi's experiment with sealed and open meat jars became one of the first examples of a controlled scientific experiment.
Redi's experiment disproved a belief dating back to Aristotle that living creatures could arise spontaneously from non-living matter.
Leeuwenhoek discovered bacteria two centuries before scientists linked microbes to disease.
Leeuwenhoek had no scientific training and shared his findings via letters to the Royal Society in London rather than formal papers.
The priority dispute between Newton and Leibniz over calculus lasted decades and split British and continental mathematicians.
Leibniz also invented one of the first mechanical calculators capable of all four arithmetic operations.
Leeuwenhoek was the first person in history to see single-celled organisms under a microscope, calling them 'animalcules.'
Leeuwenhoek was a cloth merchant who ground lenses as a hobby, not a professional scientist.
A letter from astronomer Edmund Halley asking about planetary orbits helped prompt Newton to write the book.
Newton wrote the 'Principia' in Latin in seclusion, fearing scientific disputes and criticism.
Newton's law of gravity explained planetary motion using the same principles as an apple falling to Earth.
Newton derived the law partly by building on Kepler's laws of planetary motion.
Today's calculus notation (dx, dy, the integral sign) comes from Leibniz's system, not Newton's.
Newton's work is considered one of the most influential scientific books ever written.
In this book, Newton described in detail how a prism splits white light into a spectrum.
'Opticks' was published in English rather than Latin, unusual for scientific works of the time.
Linnaeus's system, including today's familiar genus-species division, is still used by biologists almost unchanged.
Linnaeus devised binomial nomenclature for species, still used by biologists today.
The Königsberg bridge problem launched an entire field of mathematics, graph theory.
Euler proved it was impossible to cross each bridge exactly once in a single walk.
Bernoulli's principle explains why an airplane wing generates lift.
Daniel Bernoulli came from a family that produced eight generations of outstanding mathematicians.
Lind found that citrus fruits cured scurvy, long before vitamin C itself was discovered.
Lind's experiment used 12 sailors split into groups given different treatments, an early clinical trial.
Carbon dioxide became the first distinct 'kind of air' isolated and described in chemistry.
Joseph Black also introduced the concepts of latent and specific heat into science.
The comet named after Halley returns to Earth's vicinity roughly every 76 years.
Halley himself did not live to see the comet's return, though he predicted it decades in advance.
Priestley and Scheele made the discovery almost simultaneously and independently, common in 18th-century science.
Priestley later emigrated to the US, fleeing persecution for his political views at home.
Phlogiston theory had dominated chemistry for nearly a century before being finally disproven.
Lavoisier was executed by guillotine during the French Revolution as a former tax collector.
The discovery of Uranus was the first to extend the Solar System beyond the planets known since antiquity.
Herschel initially wanted to name the new planet after King George III.
Coulomb's law is mathematically similar to Newton's law of gravity but describes electric charges.
Coulomb measured the force between charges using a torsion balance of his own invention.
Lavoisier's law is often cited as the beginning of modern scientific chemistry.
Lavoisier systematized chemical nomenclature, introducing many substance names still used today.
The word 'vaccine' comes from the Latin for 'cow' — Jenner used the cowpox virus.
Jenner was inspired by the observation that milkmaids who caught cowpox never contracted smallpox.
Cavendish's torsion-balance experiment allowed the first calculation of the Earth's mass.
Cavendish was famously shy and published almost none of the results of his many experiments.
Gauss proved the theorem in his doctoral dissertation, at just 21 years old.
Gauss turned down several prestigious foreign job offers, choosing to remain in his native Göttingen.
The battery grew out of Volta's dispute with Luigi Galvani over the nature of 'animal electricity.'
The unit of electrical voltage, the volt, is named after the battery's inventor.
Gauss is called the 'Prince of Mathematicians' — legend has it he instantly summed the numbers 1 to 100 as a child.
'Disquisitiones Arithmeticae' was written in Latin and is considered one of the most important mathematical works of the modern era.
The term 'biology' was coined independently by several European scientists at once.
The term was proposed almost simultaneously by a German and a French scientist unaware of each other.
Dalton derived atomic theory by studying the proportions in which elements combine.
Dalton was among the first to describe his own vision defect, later named color blindness in his honor.
Lamarck mistakenly believed that traits acquired during an organism's life could be passed to offspring.
The full name of Lamarck's theory is the 'inheritance of acquired characteristics.'
Avogadro's law explained why equal volumes of different gases under the same conditions contain equal numbers of molecules.
Avogadro's ideas were long ignored by the scientific community and only recognized after his death.
The word 'stethoscope' comes from Greek words meaning 'chest' and 'to view.'
Laennec invented the stethoscope from a rolled paper tube, too embarrassed to press his ear directly to a female patient's chest.
Döbereiner's work anticipated the periodic system by half a century before Mendeleev.
Döbereiner is also known for inventing a lighter based on platinum's catalytic properties.
Ørsted noticed the compass needle deflect by chance, during a lecture to students.
The unit of magnetic induction, the oersted, is named after the discoverer of the electricity-magnetism link.
Non-Euclidean geometry showed that Euclid's parallel postulate was not the only possibility.
Lobachevsky called his geometry 'imaginary' and published it before Bolyai, though recognition came to him later.
The synthesis of urea is seen as the moment organic chemistry ceased to be considered beyond laboratory reach.
Wöhler obtained urea by accident, while trying to synthesize an entirely different compound, ammonium cyanate.
Faraday's discovery underlies the operation of electric generators and motors.
Faraday was self-taught, starting his career as a simple bookbinder's apprentice in a London workshop.
The laws of electrolysis underpin modern electrochemistry and industrial metal production.
Faraday introduced the terms 'anode,' 'cathode,' and 'ion,' still used today.
Bessel's parallax method first allowed astronomers to measure real distances to stars.
Bessel measured the parallax of the star 61 Cygni, determining its distance in light-years.
Cell theory holds that all living organisms are made of cells, the basic units of life.
Theodor Schwann also discovered pepsin, the first digestive enzyme of animal origin ever identified.
Before anesthesia, operations were performed on conscious patients, often held down by physical force.
The first public demonstration of ether anesthesia took place at a Boston hospital, on the so-called 'Ether Day.'
The word 'ozone' comes from the Greek for 'smelling' — the gas has a distinctive sharp odor.
Schönbein discovered ozone by its characteristic smell during experiments on the electrolysis of water.
Neptune was discovered mathematically before it was ever seen through a telescope.
Neptune was found within a single night after astronomers received precise coordinates from mathematicians.
Semmelweis was mocked by his contemporaries, and his idea was only accepted after his death.
Semmelweis died in a psychiatric hospital, never seeing his ideas vindicated in his lifetime.
Clausius introduced the concept of entropy as a measure of the irreversibility of heat processes.
Clausius was the first to formulate the idea of the 'heat death of the universe' as a consequence of the second law.
Snow traced the epidemic's source by mapping cases across London, an early example of medical statistics.
Snow persuaded authorities to remove the handle of the Broad Street pump, sharply halting the outbreak.
Boolean algebra underlies the binary logic on which all modern computers are built.
Boole published his work in 1854 under the title 'An Investigation of the Laws of Thought.'
Perkin's dye was discovered by accident, during a failed attempt to synthesize a malaria drug.
Perkin was only 18 at the time of the discovery, and the dye itself was named 'mauveine.'
Mendel worked in a monastery garden, crossbreeding more than 28,000 pea plants.
Mendel kept precise statistical records of his crossbreeding results over eight years of experiments.
Spectral analysis first allowed scientists to determine the chemical makeup of stars, including the Sun.
The method later led to the discovery of several new chemical elements, including cesium and rubidium.
Spectral analysis of stars showed they are made of the same chemical elements as Earth.
Kirchhoff formulated three laws of spectroscopy still used in astrophysics today.
Darwin delayed publishing his theory for nearly 20 years, fearing public reaction.
The book's full title is 'On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.'
The Riemann Hypothesis remains one of the most important unsolved problems in modern mathematics.
Riemann formulated the hypothesis in the only paper he ever published on number theory.
Pasteur's experiments finally buried the idea of spontaneous generation, believed for millennia.
Pasteur conducted his famous experiment with swan-necked flasks, which let air in but kept microbes out.
Maxwell's equations predicted the existence of electromagnetic waves before Hertz confirmed them experimentally.
Maxwell died of cancer at 48, before living to see experimental confirmation of his equations.
During Mendel's lifetime, his work went almost completely unnoticed by the scientific community.
Mendel published his results in an obscure journal of a provincial natural history society.
Lister developed antisepsis independent of whether he knew of Pasteur's germ theory at the time.
Lister used carbolic acid to treat wounds and sterilize surgical instruments.
Mendeleev left gaps in the table and predicted the properties of undiscovered elements — the predictions came true.
Mendeleev arranged elements by increasing atomic weight, leaving spaces for elements not yet discovered.
Miescher isolated DNA from the nuclei of cells in pus-soaked surgical bandages.
Miescher's discovery was long considered minor — scientists of the time believed proteins carried heredity.
Cantor's set theory provoked such fierce resistance from colleagues that it may have affected his mental health.
Cantor introduced the aleph symbol to denote different 'sizes' of infinity.
Koch formulated criteria for proving that a specific microorganism causes a specific disease.
Koch also developed methods for staining bacteria and growing them on solid culture media.
Pasteur tested the vaccine on a boy bitten by a rabid dog, though he himself had no medical degree.
Pasteur personally risked his reputation testing an unproven vaccine on a living patient, against the medical norms of the era.
The negative result made physicists doubt the existence of the luminiferous ether.
The experiment was conducted in a basement, using a massive stone slab floating on mercury to dampen vibrations.
Röntgen named the radiation 'X-rays' because its nature was unknown at the time.
Röntgen refused to patent his discovery, believing it should freely serve humanity.
Röntgen made history's first medical X-ray image — of his own wife's hand.
Röntgen received the first-ever Nobel Prize in Physics, in 1901, for the discovery.
The discovery of the electron shattered the idea of the atom as an indivisible particle.
Thomson proposed a 'plum pudding' model of the atom, later disproven by Rutherford's experiments.
Marie Curie became the first person to win Nobel Prizes in two different scientific fields.
The Curies worked in a converted shed because the university had no suitable laboratory available.
Planck introduced the quantum reluctantly, considering it more a mathematical device than physical reality.
Planck received the Nobel Prize in Physics only in 1918, nearly two decades after the discovery.
Mendel's work was rediscovered by three scientists working independently, in the very same year.
One of the three scientists who rediscovered Mendel's laws was Dutch botanist Hugo de Vries.
Of Hilbert's 23 problems, some have been solved while others remain open to this day.
Hilbert presented the list at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris in 1900.
Landsteiner won the Nobel Prize for a discovery that made blood transfusion a safe procedure.
Landsteiner also helped discover the Rh blood factor several decades later.
That same year, 1905, Einstein also explained the photoelectric effect, for which he later won the Nobel Prize.
Einstein's relativity paper contained not a single citation to other researchers' work, unusual for a scientific publication.
The word 'genetics' comes from a Greek root meaning 'origin.'
The term was proposed by British biologist William Bateson.
Leavitt's relationship became the basis for measuring distances to far-off galaxies.
Henrietta Leavitt worked at the observatory as a lowly 'computer' and had no access to a telescope.
The Haber process enabled cheap fertilizer production, but the same method was also used to make explosives.
The Haber process is credited with dramatically boosting food production, feeding billions in the 20th century.
Morgan experimented on fruit flies, which remain a key model organism in biology to this day.
Morgan received the Nobel Prize in 1933 for discovering the chromosome theory of heredity.
Rutherford compared his discovery to firing a cannonball at tissue paper and having it bounce back.
Rutherford led a laboratory where several future Nobel laureates would later work.
Moseley's work explained anomalies in Mendeleev's table, which was based only on atomic weight.
Moseley died on the front lines of World War I at age 27, before he could receive a Nobel Prize.
General relativity was experimentally confirmed as early as 1919, during a solar eclipse.
Einstein worked on the equations of general relativity for over a decade, changing his approach several times.
This was an effect absent from Newtonian physics entirely.
Einstein predicted the amount by which the Sun's gravity would bend starlight as early as 1911, years before it was tested.
Lewis's theory introduced the now-familiar 'dots' used to represent electron pairs in chemical formulas.
Lewis never won the Nobel Prize, despite being nominated dozens of times.
The eclipse expedition was led by Arthur Eddington, who made Einstein's theory world-famous.
Expeditions to test the theory were sent to two separate locations, Brazil and the island of Príncipe.
Before insulin, a diagnosis of type 1 diabetes almost always meant death within a few years.
Banting shared the Nobel Prize with a colleague but, according to legend, gave half his own share to his assistant Best.
Before Hubble's discovery, the entire visible universe was thought confined to the Milky Way.
Before Hubble's work, the Andromeda nebula was thought to be simply a cloud of gas within the Milky Way.
The uncertainty principle states a fundamental limit on how precisely position and momentum can be known simultaneously.
Heisenberg formulated the principle while on the secluded island of Helgoland, recovering from hay fever.
Griffith's experiment first showed that some substance could transfer hereditary traits between bacteria.
Griffith himself died in a London bombing raid in 1941, never learning the full significance of his discovery.
Fleming noticed penicillin's effect by accident, on a mold-contaminated petri dish that had ruined an experiment.
Fleming did not immediately grasp the discovery's significance — it took other scientists a decade to bring penicillin to practical use.
The discovery of cosmic expansion underlies the Big Bang theory.
Hubble's law was later renamed the Hubble–Lemaître law, honoring the Belgian scientist who reached the same conclusion independently.
Gödel's theorems showed that in any sufficiently complex mathematical system, some statements can be neither proved nor disproved.
Gödel was only 25 years old when he published the incompleteness theorems.
The discovery of the neutron explained why atomic nuclei are heavier than the combined mass of their protons.
Chadwick received the Nobel Prize in Physics just three years after discovering the neutron, an unusually short gap.
Deuterium is nearly twice as heavy as ordinary hydrogen due to an extra neutron in its nucleus.
Deuterium was discovered by analyzing the residue left after evaporating a large volume of liquid hydrogen.
The concept of the ecosystem unified living organisms and their environment into a single system of study.
The term 'ecosystem' was proposed by British ecologist Arthur Tansley.
The 'Turing machine' is a theoretical model underlying computability theory and modern computers.
Turing also played a decisive role in breaking the German Enigma cipher during World War II.
Nylon became the first fully synthetic fiber produced on an industrial scale.
Nylon was first mass-used not in clothing but in parachutes and toothbrush bristles.
The term 'molecular biology' was coined by a physicist, not a biologist — Warren Weaver.
Molecular biology combined methods from physics, chemistry, and genetics to study living systems at the molecular level.
The discovery of uranium fission happened by chance, during experiments bombarding uranium with neutrons.
Otto Hahn won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this discovery, though his colleague Lise Meitner played a key role.
Kolff's device was assembled from improvised materials, including tin cans and a washing machine.
Built in Nazi-occupied Netherlands, the machine only saved its first patient after dozens of failed attempts.
Avery experimentally proved DNA, not protein as previously believed, was the carrier of heredity.
Avery's discovery was long met with skepticism — many scientists resisted the idea that so simple a molecule stored heredity.
The transistor replaced bulky vacuum tubes, making the miniaturization of electronics possible.
The transistor's inventors, Bardeen, Brattain, and Shockley, shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics.
The WHO was created as a specialized agency of the newly formed United Nations.
The WHO was officially founded on April 7, a date now marked as World Health Day.
Shannon's information theory introduced the 'bit' as a unit of measuring information.
Shannon worked at Bell Labs, where he laid the groundwork for all modern digital communication.
The image was made using field ion microscopy, a technique invented by German physicist Erwin Müller in the 1950s.
The image predates the invention of the scanning tunneling microscope by decades.
The Salk vaccine was tested in the largest medical trial in US history up to that point.
Salk deliberately refused to patent the vaccine, famously asking, 'Could you patent the sun?'
The double helix model relied heavily on Rosalind Franklin's X-ray images.
Watson and Crick celebrated the discovery at a local pub, announcing they had found the 'secret of life.'
The double helix model was built largely thanks to Rosalind Franklin's X-ray images.
Watson, Crick, and Wilkins received the Nobel Prize for the discovery in 1962.
The first kidney transplant was performed between identical twins, sidestepping the problem of organ rejection.
The surgeon who performed the transplant later won a Nobel Prize for his work in the field.
The satellite's launch marked the start of the space age and the space race.
Sputnik-1 transmitted simple radio signals that could even be picked up by amateur radio operators worldwide.
Deciphering the genetic code showed it is nearly universal across all life on Earth.
Nirenberg's experiment using synthetic RNA played a key role in cracking the genetic code.
The book is considered one of the main catalysts for the modern environmental movement.
Publication of the book led to the US ban on the pesticide DDT in agriculture.
The particle was jokingly nicknamed the 'God particle,' though Higgs himself disliked the label.
The Higgs boson was independently predicted by several groups of physicists in 1964.
The radiation was discovered by accident — engineers initially mistook the signal for interference from pigeon droppings in their antenna.
Penzias and Wilson received the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery.
Barnard's first heart transplant patient survived just 18 days after the operation.
The nearly nine-hour operation took place at a hospital in Cape Town, South Africa.
Astronauts of the Apollo 11 mission were the first to walk on the Moon, in 1969.
Neil Armstrong delivered his famous 'small step for man' line the moment he stepped onto the lunar surface.
Mass spectrometry determines a substance's composition by the mass and charge of individual ions.
Modern mass spectrometers can detect chemical composition in samples as small as a billionth of a gram.
The discovery of restriction enzymes gave scientists 'molecular scissors' for working with DNA.
The scientists behind the discovery received the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
The first recombinant DNA combined genes from entirely different species.
The first recombinant DNA was created by Paul Berg, Herbert Boyer, and Stanley Cohen.
At Asilomar, scientists voluntarily paused certain experiments until safety guidelines were developed.
The Asilomar Conference is considered one of the earliest examples of scientific self-regulation.
Proving the four color theorem required a computer to check thousands of cases — many mathematicians initially refused to accept such a proof as 'real.'
The computer proof took roughly 1,200 hours of computation.
Sanger's method remained the primary way to sequence DNA for nearly 30 years.
Frederick Sanger became one of the few people ever to win two Nobel Prizes in Chemistry.
The birth of the first 'test-tube baby' sparked intense ethical debate that continues in various forms today.
Louise Brown, the first 'test-tube baby,' later gave birth to children of her own naturally.
Smallpox remains the only human infectious disease ever fully eradicated by medicine.
The last naturally occurring smallpox case was recorded in Somalia in 1977, three years before the official declaration.
The first AIDS cases were described as a rare cluster of unusual infections in a handful of patients.
The virus that causes AIDS was precisely identified only two years after the first cases were described.
Mullis said the idea for the method came to him during a nighttime drive on a California highway.
Mullis won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for inventing PCR in 1993.
Fullerenes are named after architect Buckminster Fuller, for their resemblance to his geodesic domes.
The discovery of fullerenes was recognized with the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Despite a mirror flaw at launch, Hubble became one of the most productive telescopes in history after repair.
Hubble orbits Earth at an altitude of about 540 kilometers, completing an orbit every 95 minutes.
The Human Genome Project united scientists from six countries and cost several billion dollars.
The project was originally planned for completion in 2005 but finished two years ahead of schedule.
The first approved gene therapy protocol was used on a four-year-old girl with a rare immune disorder.
Early gene therapy trials in the 1990s suffered serious setbacks that slowed the field's progress for years.
Carbon nanotubes are many times stronger than steel at a fraction of the density.
Carbon nanotubes are used today in ultralight bicycle frames and sporting equipment.
Wiles worked on the proof in secret for nearly seven years before presenting it publicly.
Wiles's first version of the proof contained an error, which he corrected only after another year of intense work.
The antihydrogen atom existed for only a fraction of a second before annihilating.
Synthesizing antimatter requires enormous energy and is only done in a handful of labs worldwide.
Since 1995, scientists have confirmed the existence of thousands of exoplanets.
The first confirmed exoplanet was found orbiting the star 51 Pegasi using the radial velocity method.
Dolly lived just six and a half years, shorter than the average lifespan for her breed.
Dolly was named after singer Dolly Parton, because the cell used was taken from mammary tissue.
Combination therapy for the first time turned HIV infection from a death sentence into a manageable chronic condition.
The therapy is often called a 'cocktail' because it combines several drugs taken at once.
Sequencing the human genome took over a decade of international collaborative work.
The cost of sequencing the first human genome exceeded $2.7 billion.
Full sequencing took several years longer and cost far more than originally expected.
Completion was announced simultaneously by two competing efforts — one public, one private.
SARS stands for 'severe acute respiratory syndrome.'
The SARS outbreak was brought under control in under a year thanks to unprecedented international cooperation.
Perelman was awarded a million-dollar prize for solving the Poincaré conjecture, which he declined.
Perelman also declined the Fields Medal, mathematics' highest honor.
Graphene is a material one carbon atom thick with record strength and electrical conductivity.
Graphene was first isolated using ordinary adhesive tape to peel away layers of graphite.
Confirming the Higgs boson's existence capped nearly half a century of searching for the last missing piece of the Standard Model.
The search for the Higgs boson took about 40 years and required building the largest particle accelerator in the world.
CRISPR was discovered as part of the bacterial immune system that defends against viruses.
Charpentier and Doudna won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing the CRISPR method.
The discovery confirmed the last major untested prediction of Einstein's general relativity.
The detected waves came from the merger of two black holes that occurred 1.3 billion years ago.
Synthesized superheavy elements exist for only fractions of a second before decaying.
Names for new superheavy elements are approved by the international chemistry body IUPAC.
The image was produced by combining data from telescopes worldwide into a single virtual Earth-sized telescope.
The imaged black hole belongs to galaxy M87, roughly 55 million light-years away.
COVID-19 became the first pandemic of this scale in the era of global air travel.
The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11, 2020.
mRNA vaccines were developed faster than any vaccine in medical history, thanks to decades of prior research into the technology.
The first mRNA vaccines received emergency authorization in under a year from the pandemic's start.
The 2022 final genome version filled in previously 'gap' regions of DNA that had been hard to read.
The final sequence involved a consortium of scientists from more than 30 organizations worldwide.
AI systems already help mathematicians find counterexamples and suggest directions for new proofs.
One of the first AI systems helped mathematicians find new examples in knot theory and combinatorics.