The History of Physics

A timeline to outline the greatest contributions to the study of Physics. Click on each event for more information.

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0120-04-23 00:00:00

Geocentrism and Epicycles

While he was entirely incorrect, Ptolemy's theories on Earth being at the center of the universe and the existence of epicycles provoked later scientists to observe the night skies and discover the truth.

0226 BC-08-30 22:28:18

the Law of the Lever

Archimedes developed the law of the lever, which helped lay the foundation for the science of mechanics

0234 BC-05-20 00:00:00

Archimedes' Principle

Hydrostatics: Archimedes' Principle states that buoyant force is equal to the weight of the displaced water. The principle applies to both floating and completely immersed bodies and to all fluids, including liquids and gases. It explains not only the buoyancy of objects in water but also the rise of a balloon in the air and why objects submerged in water seem to become lighter.

0240 BC-08-18 00:00:00

Measuring the Earth

Eratosthenes measured the circumference of the Earth as well as the tilt of Earth's axis.

0249 BC-08-01 00:00:00

Archimedes' Screw

A machine used to lift water to higher levels, invented by Archimedes. Archimedes' screw is still being used today.

1514-08-18 00:00:00

Retrograde Motion

Nicolaus Copernicus replaced the geocentric universe of Ptolemy with one that was centered on the Sun (heliocentric), with only the Moon orbiting the Earth. His model was still based on circular orbits (and therefore still required further refinement), but it was able to achieve greater precision than the Ptolemaic model without the need for epicycles or other complications. The explanation for retrograde motion in this system arises from the fact that the planets further from the sun are moving more slowly in their orbits than those closer to the sun.

1572-08-18 00:00:00

Planetary Motion-Observations

Tycho Brahe compiled extensive data on the planet Mars, which would later prove crucial to Kepler in his formulation of the laws of planetary motion because it would be sufficiently precise to demonstrate that the orbit of Mars was not a circle but an ellipse.

1577-04-30 00:00:00

Comet Parallax

Tycho Brahe made careful observations of a comet. By measuring the parallax for the comet, he was able to show that the comet was further away than the Moon.

1604-08-18 00:00:00

Camera Obscura Explained

Johannes Kepler offered the first correct mathematical theory of the camera obscura--a dark room with a small hole in a wall allowing light to project an image of the outside world (upside down) on the opposite wall.

1604-08-18 00:00:00

Law of Falling Bodies

Galileo Galilei formulated the basic law of falling bodies, which states that the rate of fall caused by gravity is the same for all objects, independent of weight and density.

1619-08-18 00:00:00

Kepler's 3 Laws of Planetary Motion

Johannes Kepler introduced the three laws of planetary motion: 1) the Law of Ellipses-the paths of the planets are elliptical around the sun with the center of the sun at one focus. 2) the Law of Equal Areas-An imaginary line drawn from the center of the sun to the center of the planet will sweep out equal areas in equal intervals of time. 3) the Law of Harmonies-The ratio of the squares of the periods of any two planets is equal to the ratio of the cubes of their average distances from the sun.

1621-08-18 00:00:00

Snell's Law

Willebrord van Roijen Snell discovered the law of refraction (Snell's Law), which describes the relationship between the angles of incidence and refraction and the indices of refraction of the two media the light is crossing.Snell's law applies to the refraction of light in any situation, regardless of what the two media are.

1653-08-18 00:00:00

Pascal's Law of Pressure

Blaise Pascal discovered that pressure applied to an enclosed fluid is transmitted undiminished to every part of the fluid and to the walls of its container. This principle is often considered the final law of hydrostatics.

1662-08-18 00:00:00

Boyle's Law

Robert Boyle observed that the product of the pressure and volume for a gas is a constant for a fixed amount of gas at a fixed temperature. A common use of this law is to predict how a change in pressure will alter the volume of the gas or vice versa. Boyle also proved that air is necessary for transmission of sound, life, and the burning of a flame.

1665-11-15 00:00:00

Conical Pendulum

Invented by Robert Hooke, a conical pendulum is a weight fixed on the end of a string suspended from a pivot. Its construction is similar to an ordinary pendulum; however, instead of rocking back and forth, the bob of a conical pendulum moves at a constant speed in a circle with the string tracing out a cone. The conical pendulum was first studied as a model for the orbital motion of planets.

1666-08-18 00:00:00

Measuring Gravity with a Pendulum

Robert Hooke proposed that gravity can be measured using a pendulum

1666-08-18 00:00:00

Newton's Laws of Motion

Isaac Newton's 3 laws of motion are as follows: 1) The Law of Inertia: An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an outside force. 2) The acceleration of an object as produced by a net force is directly proportional to the magnitude of the net force, in the same direction as the net force, and inversely proportional to the mass of the object. 3) For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

1670-08-18 00:00:00

Light Proposed as a Spectrum

Isaac Newton argued that white light is really a mixture of many different types of rays, which are refracted at slightly different angles; each different type produces a different color.

1678-08-18 00:00:00

Hooke's Law of Elasticity

Robert Hooke discovered that the stress imposed on a solid is directly proportional to the strain produced, within the elastic limit.

1687-08-18 00:00:00

Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation

Isaac Newton discovered that every mass exerts an attractive force on every other mass. If the two masses are m1 and m2 and the distance between them is r, the magnitude of the force (F) is F=(Gm1m2)/r^2 This equation allows you to figure the gravitational force between any two masses.

1734-04-23 00:00:00

Bernoulli's Principle

Daniel Bernoulli developed the fundamental relationship of fluid flow in hydrodynamics.

1745-08-25 00:00:00

The Action of Pointed Bodies

Benjamin Franklin discovered that a grounded pointed conductor could cause a charged, insulated conducting body to lose its charge when the point was six to eight inches away; but a blunt conductor would not produce such a discharge until it was an inch or so away, and then there would be an accompanying spark.

1747-08-25 00:00:00

The Law of Conservation of Charge

Benjamin Franklin characterized two kinds of electric charge, which he named "positive" and "negative." The net charge of an isolated system remains constant. The only way to change the net charge of a system is to bring in charge from elsewhere, or remove charge from the system. Charge can be created and destroyed, but only in positive-negative pairs. This quantitative principle is still fundamental to all science, from microphysics to the electrification of gross bodies.

1752-07-12 00:00:00

Benjamin Franklin's Kite Experiment

Benjamin Franklin began to develop the theory of the identity of lightning and electricity and performed his famous kite experiment, drawing down electricity from the clouds and charging a Leyden jar from the key at the end of the string.

1781-11-15 00:00:00

The Science of Friction

Charles de Coulomb developed a series of 2-term equations (one constant and one varying with time, normal force, velocity, or other parameters). He is said to have created the science of friction (both static and dynamic).

1783-11-15 00:00:00

First Flight in a Hydrogen Balloon

Jacques-Alexandre Charles flew almost 2 miles in altitude and invented most of the equipment used in the balloon.

1785-11-15 00:00:00

Coulomb's Law

Charles de Coulomb developed a theory of attraction and repulsion between bodies of the same and opposite charges. Charles de Coulomb discovered that the force between two electrical charges is proportional to the product of the charges and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.

1787-11-15 00:00:00

Charles' Law

Jacques-Alexander Charles presented a law on the thermal expansion of gases that stated that the volume occupied by a fixed amount of gas is directly proportional to its absolute temperature, if the pressure remains constant.

1798-11-15 00:00:00

The Universal Gravitational Constant

Henry Cavendish found the value of Newton's gravitational constant G and used it to calculate the mass and density of Earth.

1800-05-24 00:00:00

The First Electric Battery

Alessandro Volta pioneered in the study of electricity and invented the first electric battery. The standard unit of electromotive force, the Volt, was named after Volta in honor of his achievements.

1801-05-24 00:00:00

The Double-Slit Experiment

Thomas Young's famous experiment, used to demonstrate the interference of light waves. This experiment also successfully proved that light was a wave, not a particle. Young used the data from his experiment to calculate the wavelengths of different colors of light, coming very close to modern values.

1817-05-24 00:00:00

Light Proposed as a Transverse Wave

Thomas Young proposed that light waves are transverse (vibrating at right angles to the direction of travel), rather than longitudinal (vibrating in the direction of travel) as had long been assumed, and thus explained polarization, the alignment of light waves to vibrate in the same plane.

1820-04-24 00:00:00

The Basis for Electromagnetism

Hans Christian Oersted discovered that electric currents can produce magnetic effects. This discovery served as a precursor to the field of electromagnetism.

1826-04-24 00:00:00

Founding of Electromagnetism

André Ampère coined this new science and theorized the existence of an "electrodynamic molecule," which became the forerunner for the idea of the electron. The "ampere" became a standard unit of electrical measurement.

1826-12-24 00:00:00

Ampère's Law

André Ampère's law states that the mutual action of two lengths of current-carrying wire is proportional to their lengths and to the intensities of their currents. Ampère applied this same principle to magnetism, showing the harmony between his law and French physicist Charles Augustin de Coulomb’s law of magnetic action.

1827-09-16 00:00:00

Ohm's Law

Georg Ohm discovered that current flow through a conductor is proportional to potential difference (voltage) and inversely proportional to resistance. The physical unit of electrical resistance was named after him.

1831-07-22 00:00:00

Electromagnetic Induction

Michael Faraday expressed the electric current induced in the wire in terms of the number of lines of force that are cut by the wire. The principle of induction was a landmark in applied science, for it made possible the dynamo, or generator, which produces electricity by mechanical means.

1840-07-22 00:00:00

Joule's Law

James Joule stated a law that established the relationship between the flow of a current through a resistance and the heat dissipated. He stated that heat is produced in an electrical conductor.

1840-07-22 00:00:00

The Law of the Conservation of Energy

James Joule's findings and the results of his experiments laid the foundation for the theory of conservation of energy. The theory later influenced the first law of thermodynamics

1842-07-22 00:00:00

Magnetostriction

James Joule was the first scientist to identify magnetostriction--a property of ferromagnetic materials that makes them modify their shapes when exposed to a magnetic field.

1842-07-22 00:00:00

Doppler Effect

Christian Doppler experimented with sound waves and derived an expression for the apparent change in wavelength of a wave due to relative motion between the source and observer.

1843-07-22 00:00:00

The Mechanical Equivalent of Heat

Joule calculated the amount of mechanical work needed to produce an equivalent amount of heat.

1845-07-22 00:00:00

Kirchhoff's Laws

Gustav Kirchhoff considered an electrical network consisting of circuits joined at nodes of the network and gave laws that reduce the calculation of the currents in each loop to the solution of algebraic equations. 1) the sum of the currents into a given node equals the sum of the currents out of that node. 2) the sum of electromotive forces in a loop in the network equals the sum of potential drops, or voltages across each of the resistances, in the loop.

1845-07-22 00:00:00

Velocity in Electrical Currents

Gustav Kirchhoff discovered that the velocity of the current was independent of the nature of the wire and was almost exactly equal to the velocity of light, which led to Maxwell's inference that light is an electromagnetic phenomenon 5 years later.

1845-09-16 00:00:00

The Faraday Effect

Michael Faraday discovered that a magnetic field can rotate a light beam's plane of polarization. This phenomenon has been used to explain/clarify molecular structure and has yielded information about galactic magnetic fields.

1845-09-16 00:00:00

Diamagnetism

Michael Faraday discovered that many materials exhibit a weak repulsion from a magnetic field: a phenomenon he called diamagnetism.

1847-01-28 08:16:30

The Absolute Temperature Scale

Lord Kelvin proposed an absolute temperature scale in which a unit of heat descending from a body A to a body B at the would give out the same mechanical effect, whatever be the number. Such a scale would be quite independent of the physical properties of any specific substance.

1848-07-22 00:00:00

Velocity of a Gas Molecule

Joule was the first to calculate the velocity of a gas molecule. His work would lead to the kinetic theory of gases by James Clerk Maxwell later on.

1850-04-23 00:00:00

2 Laws of Thermodynamics

Rudolf Gottlieb was the first to argue that the assumptions of the caloric theory were false; he, along with Lord Kelvin, gave 2 laws of thermodynamics to replace incorrect assumptions. 1) Whenever work is done by heat, an equivalent amount of heat is consumed. dQ=dU+dW 2) Heat tends to flow from hot to cold bodies

1850-07-22 00:00:00

The Joule

James Joule derived the unit of energy, or work. This unit is called a Joule, named after him.

The History of Physics

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