Timeline of scientific experiments

The timeline below shows the date of publication of major scientific experiments.

See also timeline of scientific discoveries, timeline of historic inventions, list of timelines of science and technology, list of famous experiments, timeline of the history of scientific method.

2nd century BC

240 BC – Eratosthenes measures the Earth's circumference and diameter

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8th century AD

• Jābir ibn Hayyān (Geber) introduces the experimential method and controlled experiment in chemistry

10th century

• Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi (Rhazes) introduces controlled experiment into the field of medicine and carried out the first medical experiment in order to find the most hygienic place to build a hospital

11th century

• 1020 – Avicenna (Ibn Sina) introduces experimentation and quantification into the study of medicine and physiology, including the introduction of experimental medicine and clinical trials, in The Canon of Medicine
• 1021 – Ibn al-Haytham (Alhacen) pioneers the experimental scientific method and experimental physics in his Book of Optics, where he devises the first scientific experiments on optics, including the first use of the camera obscura to prove that light travels in straight lines and the first experimental proof that visual perception is caused by light rays travelling to the eyes, which also marks the beginning of experimental psychology and psychophysics
• 1030 – Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī conducts the first elaborate experiments related to astronomical phenomena and introduces the experimental method into mechanics

12th century

• 1121 – Al-Khazini makes extensive use of the experimental method to prove his theories on mechanics in The Book of the Balance of Wisdom
• Ibn Zuhr (Avenzoar) is the first physician to carry out human postmortem dissections and autopsies. He proves that the skin disease scabies is caused by a parasite, a discovery which upsets the Hippocratic and Galenic theory of humorism

13th century

• 1200 – Abd-el-latif observes and examines a large number of skeletons, and he discovered that Galen was incorrect regarding the formation of the bones of the lower jaw and sacrum
• 1242 – Ibn al-Nafis carries out autopsies which leads him to the discovery of pulmonary circulation and the circulatory system
• Kamāl al-Dīn al-Fārisī provides the first correct explanation of the rainbow phenomenon and uses the experimental method to prove his theory
• Albertus Magnus documents that nitric acid can dissolve silver and the resulting silver nitrate solution will blacken skin

17th century

• 1609 – Galileo Galilei observes moons of Jupiter in support of the heliocentric model
• 1638 – Galileo Galilei uses rolling balls to disprove the Aristotelian theory of motion
• 1665 – Robert Hooke, using a microscope, observes cells
• 1676 – Ole Rømer measures the speed of light for the first time

18th century

• 1747 – James Lind: Conducts one of the earliest European clinical trials, showing that scurvy was cured by consuming fresh oranges and lemons, but not other tested acids or drinks
• 1774 – Charles Mason: Conducts an experiment near the Scottish mountain of Schiehallion that attempts to measure the mean density of the Earth for the first time. Known as the Schiehallion experiment
• 1798 – Henry Cavendish: Torsion bar experiment to measure the gravitational constant
• 1796 – Edward Jenner: tests the first vaccine

19th century

• 1801 – Thomas Young: double-slit experiment showing wave-particle duality
• 1820 – Hans Christian Ørsted discovers the connection of electricity and magnetism
• 1843 – James Prescott Joule measures the equivalence between mechanical work and heat, resulting in the law of conservation of energy
• 1845 – Christian Doppler demonstrates the Doppler shift
• 1851 – Léon Foucault uses Foucault pendulum is to demonstrate the rotation of the earth
• 1859 – Charles Darwin publishes The Origin of Species showing that evolution occurs by natural selection
• 1861 – Louis Pasteur disproves the theory of spontaneous generation
• 1863 – Gregor Mendel's pea plant experiments (Mendel's laws of inheritance)
• 1887 – Heinrich Hertz discovers the photoelectric effect
• 1887 – Michelson and Morley: Michelson-Morley experiment, showing that the speed of light is invariant
• 1896 – Henri Becquerel discovers radioactivity
• 1897 – J. J. Thomson discovers the electron

20th century

• 1909 – Robert Millikan: oil-drop experiment which suggests that electric charge occurs as quanta (the electron)
• 1911 – Ernest Rutherford's gold foil experiment determines the shape of the atom
• 1911 – Onnes: superconductivity
• 1919 – Arthur Eddington: Our sun as gravitational lens, a proof of the Theory of relativity
• 1920 – Otto Stern and Walter Gerlach conduct the Stern-Gerlach experiment, which demonstrates particle spin
• 1920 – John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner conduct the Little Albert experiment
• 1928 – Griffith's experiment shows that living cells can be transformed via a transforming principle, later discovered to be DNA
• 1934 – Enrico Fermi splits the atom
• 1935 – Lady tasting tea experiment by Ronald A. Fisher, foundational in statistical hypothesis testing
• 1940 – Karl von Frisch decodes the "dance" honeybees use to communicate the location of flowers
• 1944 – Barbara McClintock breeds maize plants for color, which leads to the discovery of jumping genes
• 1947 – John Bardeen and Walter Brattain fabricate the first working transistor
• 1951 – Solomon Asch shows how group pressure can persuade an individual to conform to an obviously wrong opinion
• 1952 – Alfred Hershey & Martha Chase: Hershey-Chase experiment proves that DNA is the hereditary material
• 1953 – Stanley L. Miller & Harold C. Urey: Miller-Urey experiment demonstrates that organic compounds can arise spontaneously from inorganic ones
• 1955 – Clyde L. Cowan and Frederick Reines confirm the existence of the neutrino in the neutrino experiment
• 1958 – Meselson-Stahl experiment proves that DNA replication is semiconservative
• 1960 – B.F. Skinner's demonstrations of operant conditioning
• 1961 – Crick, Brenner et al. experiment
• 1961 – Nirenberg and Matthaei experiment
• 1964 – Nirenberg and Leder experiment
• 1965 – Arno Penzias, Robert Wilson: Cosmic microwave background radiation, evidence of the Big Bang
• 1967 – Kerim Kerimov launches the Cosmos 186 and Cosmos 188 as experiments on automatic docking eventually leading to the development of space stations
• 1970 – Allan and Beatrix Gardner teach American Sign Language to the chimpanzee Washoe
• 1971 – Muhammad Yunus carries out experiments on the applications of microcredit and microfinance in rural Bangladesh
• 1974 – Stanley Milgram: Milgram experiment on obedience to authority
• 1995 – Eric A. Cornell and Carl E. Wieman synthesize Bose-Einstein condensate

21st century

• 2002 – Raymond Davis Jr. & Masatoshi Koshiba: detection of cosmic neutrinos, showing that neutrinos have a mass