List of years in science  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Related e

Wikipedia
Wiktionary
Shop


Featured:

This is a list of important landmarks in the history of systematic philosophical inquiry and scientific analysis of phenomena. The list seeks to highlight important stages in the development of thoughts and analysis towards conceptualizing and understanding phenomena. This list seeks to include all major landmarks in systematic analysis of phenomena across disciplines that seeks to implement formal methods and systematic formal analysis of phenomena. Thus it seeks to list major landmarks across all scientific philosophy and methodological sciences including physical sciences, scientific philosophy, formal disciplines or pure sciences, behavioural sciences, social sciences, biological sciences, life sciences and other related disciplines.

chronological period Scientific thought notes
3rd millennium BC Sexagesimal (base 60) numeral system originated with the ancient Sumerians Mediterranean Levantine Philosophy
4th century BCE Axiomatic science based on the logico-deductive method is founded owing to Euclid's Elements Publication which is at the root of formal system.ancient Greek mathematician
3rd century BCE Eratosthenes: calculated the size of the earth and its distance to the sun and to the moonancient Greek Philosophy
150s BCE Seleucus of Seleucia: discovery of tides being caused by the moon...ancient Greek Philosophy
5th century CE Indo Arabic numerals began to be used Arab and Indian Philosophy
10th century CE Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi (Rhazes): refutation of Aristotelian classical elements and Galenic humorism; and discovery of measles and smallpox, and kerosene and distilled petroleummedieval Mediterranean-Arab physics & Philosophy
1021Ibn al-Haytham's Book of Optics medieval Mediterranean-Arab physics & Philosophy
1020sAvicenna's The Canon of Medicine Persian medicine & Philosophy
1121Al-Khazini: variation of gravitation and gravitational potential energy at a distance; the decrease of air density with altitudemedieval Mediterranean-Arab physics & Philosophy
12th centuryIbn Bajjah (Avempace): discovery of reaction (precursor to Newton's third law of motion) medieval Mediterranean-Arab physics & Philosophy
12th centuryHibat Allah Abu'l-Barakat al-Baghdaadi (Nathanel): relationship between force and acceleration (a vague foreshadowing of a fundamental law of classical mechanics and a precursor to Newton's second law of motion) medieval Mediterranean-Arab physics & Philosophy
12th centuryAverroes: relationship between force, work and kinetic energy medieval Mediterranean-Arab physics & Philosophy
1220–1235 Robert Grosseteste: rudimentals of the scientific method (see also: Roger Bacon) European Philosophy
1242 Ibn al-Nafis: pulmonary circulation and circulatory system medieval Mediterranean-Arab physics & Philosophy
13th centuryTheodoric of Freiberg: correct explanation of rainbow phenomenon European Philosophy
13th centuryWilliam of Saint-Cloud: pioneering use of camera obscura to view solar eclipses European Philosophy
Before 1327 William of Ockham: Occam's Razor European Philosophy
1494 Luca Pacioli: first codification of the Double-entry bookkeeping system, which slowly developed in previous centuries European philosophy
1543Copernicus: heliocentric model astronomy & Philosophy
1570s Tycho Brahe: detailed astronomical observations astronomy, mathematics and philosophy
1600 William Gilbert: Earth's magnetic fieldastronomy & Philosophy
1609Johannes Kepler: first two laws of planetary motionAstronomy, Mathematics & Philosophy
1610 Galileo Galilei: Sidereus Nuncius: telescopic observations philosophy, astronomy & mathematics
1614 John Napier: use of logarithms for calculation mathematical philosophy
1628 William Harvey: Blood circulation anatomy, medicine & philosophy
17th centuryRené Descartes creates Cartesian coordinate system — allowing reference to a point in space as a set of numbers, and allowing algebraic equations to be expressed as geometric shapes in a two-dimensional coordinate system (and conversely, shapes to be described as equations).philosophy
17th CenturyBaruch Spinoza – opposed Cartesian mind body dualism. He considered the nature of reality of physical and mental worlds to be the same. Spinoza was determinist and believed that even human behaviour is fully determined, with freedom being our capacity to know and accept that we are determined.Philosophy
1665 Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society first peer reviewed scientific journal published. Philosophy
1669 Nicholas Steno: Proposes that fossils are organic remains embedded in layers of sediment, basis of stratigraphyGeology, Paleontology & Philosophy
1675 Anton van Leeuwenhoek: Observes Microorganisms by MicroscopePhilosophy & beginning of modern life sciences
1675 Leibniz developed Infinitesimal calculus and its widely used mathematical notation. Later he presented the theory of Monads and developed the Binary number system which is elemental for modern digital computing. His Law of Continuity and Transcendental Law of Homogeneity found mathematical implementation only in the 20th century.Mathematical philosophy, Mathematical logic, Philosophy
1687 Newton: Laws of motion, law of universal gravitation, basis for classical physics Physics & Philosophy
1735 Carl Linnaeus published the first edition of his major work Systema Naturae. The tenth edition of this book is considered the starting point of zoological nomenclature.

In 1753 he published Species Plantarum which is the primary starting point of plant nomenclature as it exists today. ||Botany, Zoology, Philosophy, Biology

1763 Bayes' theorem named for Thomas Bayes who first suggested using the theorem to update beliefs was significantly edited and updated by Richard Price after the death of Thomas Bayes and read at the Royal Society. This would later serve as foundation of Bayesian inference in statisticsPhilosophy & statistics
1767 James Denham-Steuart: used the term supply and demand in his on economics in Inquiry into the Principles of Political economy, published in 1767. Later, Adam Smith used it in his 1776 book The Wealth of Nations, and David Ricardo titled one chapter of his 1817 work Principles of Political Economy and Taxation "On the Influence of Demand and Supply on Price". Economics, philosophy, sociology
1778 Antoine Lavoisier (and Joseph Priestley): discovery of oxygen leading to end of Phlogiston theoryChemistry & Philosophy
1796 Georges Cuvier: Establishes extinction as a factbiology, paleontology & philosophy
1800 Alessandro Volta: discovers electrochemical series and invents the batterychemistry
1805 John Dalton: Atomic Theory in (Chemistry) chemistry & philosophy
1859Charles Darwin published his theory with compelling evidence for evolution in his book On the Origin of SpeciesPhilosophy, biology, beginning of evolutionary sciences
1866Gregor Mendel published his work which demonstrated that the inheritance of certain traits in pea plants follows particular patterns, now referred to as the laws of Mendelian inheritance. Philosophy, biology, beginning of Genetics
1869 Dmitri Mendeleev: Periodic tableChemistry & philosophy
1877 Ludwig Boltzmann: Statistical definition of entropyPhysics & Philosophy
1887 Michelson–Morley experiment was performed in 1887 by Albert A. Michelson and Edward W. Morley to detect the relative motion of matter through the stationary luminiferous aether ("aether wind"). Philosophy & Physics
1890s Santiago Ramón y Cajal discovered the axonal growth cone, and provided the definitive evidence for what would later be known as "neuron theory", experimentally demonstrating that the relationship between nerve cells was not one of continuity, but rather of contiguity. "Neuron theory" stands as the foundation of modern neuroscience.Neuroscience, Philosophy, Psychology, Biology, Cognitive Science
1899–1900 Sigmund Freud developed his theory of the unconscious mind and began his works on psychodynamic theory and psychosexual development of human organism. He proposed that human thought and behavior is complex process of unconscious processes in the mindPhilosophy & Psychology
1900 Max Planck: Planck's law of black body radiation, basis for quantum theoryPhysics & philosophy
1905 Albert Einstein: theory of special relativity, explanation of Brownian motion, and photoelectric effectPhilosophy & Physics
1906 Walther Nernst: Third law of thermodynamicsPhysics & philosophy
1911 Ernest Rutherford: Atomic nucleusPhysics & Philosophy
1911 Oskar Heinroth rediscovered the phenomenon of psychological Imprinting, reported by Douglas Spalding in 1877. It was extensively worked on in the 20th century by Nikolaas Tinbergen, Karl von Frisch and Konrad Lorenz who demonstrated a "critical period" and other aspects concerning organization and elicitation of individual and social behaviour patterns in animals, earning them a Nobel prize in 1973. Ethology, Psychology, Cognitive sciences, Zoology, Philosophy, Biology
1915Albert Einstein: theory of general relativityPhysics & Philosophy
1924 Wolfgang Pauli: quantum Pauli exclusion principlePhysics & Philosophy
1925Erwin Schrödinger: Schrödinger equation (Quantum mechanics)Physics & Philosophy
1927Werner Heisenberg: Uncertainty principle (Quantum mechanics)Physics & Philosophy
1927 Georges Lemaître: Theory of the Big BangPhysics, Philosophy & Cosmology
1928 Paul Dirac: Dirac equation (Quantum mechanics)Physics & Philosophy
1929Edwin Hubble: Hubble's law of the expanding universePhysics, Cosmology & Philosophy
1930s Keynes introduced Keynesian revolution, overturning neoclassical economics that held free markets would, in the short to medium term, automatically provide full employment, as long as workers were flexible in their wage demands. Keynes instead argued that aggregate demand determined the overall level of economic activity, and that inadequate aggregate demand could lead to prolonged periods of high unemployment. Economics, Sociology, Philosophy
1931 Friedrich Hayek elaborated the "Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle". He argued that the business cycle resulted from the central bank's inflationary credit expansion and its transmission over time, leading to a capital misallocation caused by the artificially low interest rates.Economics, Sociology, Philosophy
1931 Kurt Gödel stated the incompleteness theorem which states that for any self-consistent recursive axiomatic system powerful enough to describe the arithmetic of the natural numbers (for example Peano arithmetic), there are true propositions about the naturals that cannot be proved from the axioms. Philosophy, Mathematics, Logic
1934 James Chadwick: Discovery of the neutronPhysics & Philosophy
1934 Karl Popper emphasized the idea of Falsifiability as the criterion demarcating science from non-science.Philosophy & Science
1937 Alan Turing: Introduced the mathematical concept of a Turing machinePhilosophy, mathematics, psychology & computer science
1937 Kurt Lewin: on the basis of Herbert Blumer's interactionist perspective, suggested that neither nature (inborn tendencies) nor nurture (how experiences in life shape individuals) alone can account for individuals' behavior and personalities, but rather that both nature and nurture interact to shape each person. This is expressed as Lewin's Equation for behavior B=ƒ(P,E). Earlier he coined the notion of genidentity, Psychology, philosophy, sociology, management, organizational behavior
1940s Benjamin Lee Whorf brought focus to the Principle of linguistic relativity which implies that the structure of a language affects the weltanschauung or worldview of the speakers of the language and their cognition of the world. Whorf's works tried to show that there is relationship between language and thought. The idea was introduced earlier by Humboldt and then worked on by Edward Sapir in the 1920s.Cognitive science, Psychology, Anthropology, Philosophy
1942 Joseph Schumpeter introduced the idea creative destruction, sometimes known as "Schumpeter's gale" in his work Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942), where in he described the way in which capitalist economic development arises out of the destruction of some prior economic order. Economics, Sociology, Philosophy
1943 Oswald Avery proves that DNA is the genetic material of the chromosomeBiology, Genetics & Life sciences
1943 Walter Pitts and Warren McCulloch wrote the seminal paper entitled "A Logical Calculus of Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity" (1943) and proposed the first mathematical model of a neural network. Their work also presented ideas drawn upon the work of Leibniz with later implications for cellular automata. Philosophy, Cognitive science, Artificial Intelligence & Psychology
1944 John von Neumann and Stanislaw Ulam: introduced the mathematical idea of a cellular automata. This set the foundations for the later discipline of complexity science and agent based modeling Philosophy, Mathematics, psychology, dynamical systems, computer science
1944 John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern: wrote the seminal book Theory of games and economic behavior and began the interdisciplinary research field of game theoryPhilosophy, Mathematics, psychology, economics
1947 William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain invent the first transistorelectronics & electrical engineering
1948 Claude Elwood Shannon & Warren Weaver: 'A mathematical theory of communication' a seminal paper in Information theory.Information Theory, Mathematics & Cognitive sciences
1948Norbert Wiener: introduced the concept of Cybernetics in his work Cybernetics: Or the Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine.Mathematical philosophy, artificial intelligence and beginning of cybernetics
1948 Richard Feynman, Julian Schwinger, Sin-Itiro Tomonaga and Freeman Dyson: Quantum electrodynamicsPhysics & Philosophy
1950 Ludwig von Bertalanffy began General systems theory with his publication "An Outline of General System Theory" in the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science Vol. 1 (No. 2)Systems science, Cybernetics, Mathematics & Cognitive sciences
1950s Kenneth Arrow, Gérard Debreu and Lionel W. McKenzie introduced the modern conception of general equilibrium in economics. Gerard Debreu presents this model in Theory of Value (1959). Though an earlier form of general equilibrium was presented by Leon Walras in 1874. Economics, Sociology, Philosophy
1950s Leon Festinger developed the Theory of Cognitive Dissonance and Social Comparison Theory, and discovered nature of the role of propinquity in the formation of social ties while also making other contributions to the study of social networks, psychological social psychology and sociological social psychology.Psychology, sociology, Philosophy
1951 John Bowlby developed attachment theory which states that human individuals, especially as children, needs to develop a stable and long lasting relationship with at least one primary caregiver for social and emotional development to occur normally. Relationships later in life are built on this primary foundation. The theory states that in human evolution, attachment behaviour increased the chances of survival. Psychology, Human development, sociology, philosophy, cognitive sciences
1952 Jonas Salk: developed and tested first polio vaccinemedicine, biology and vaccination
1953 Crick and Watson: helical structure of DNA, basis for molecular biologyBiology, Genetics, Life sciences and Philosophy
1953 Anatol Rapoport introduced mathematical models in the study of information transmission in human interaction and for the management of conflict and cooperation in human life Systems science, Cybernetics, & Cognitive sciences, peace and conflict studies
1953 Ludwig Wittgenstein: wrote his seminal work Philosophical Investigations in which he stated that conceptual confusions surrounding language use are at the root of most philosophical problems.Philosophy, Philosophy of science, language, mathematics and psychology
1954 Jean Piaget: elaborated on Genetic epistemology and the theory of cognitive development in his work "La construction du réel chez l'enfant" (The construction of reality in the child). Psychology, Philosophy, Cognitive sciences
1956 Frank Harary and Dorwin Cartwright mathematically formalized generalizations of Fritz Heider's psychological theory of cognitive balance to give formalization of interpersonal network patterns. This laid the foundations for micro level social network analysis and small group research and group dynamics research in sociology and sociological social psychology Philosophy, sociological social psychology, mathematical sociology
1957 Noam Chomsky: wrote Syntactic Structures which laid the foundation for the idea of transformational grammar. He also introduced the idea of poverty of the stimulus which states that natural language grammar is unlearnable given the relatively limited data available to children learning a language, and therefore that this knowledge is supplemented with some sort of innate linguistic capacity. A tenet of generative grammar. Philosophy, linguistics, cognitive science, computer science, psychology
1957 Herbert Simon: coined the term Bounded rationality in psychology as an alternative basis for the mathematical modeling of decision making, as used in economics and related disciplines which views rationality as a maximization process as described in rational choice theory. Instead, "bounded rationality" views rationality as a Satisficing process. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1978.Psychology, Management, Behavioral economics, Cognitive sciences, Philosophy
1958 William Phillips, introduced Phillips curve in economic theory. He described the observation of an inverse relationship between money wage changes and unemployment in the British economy over the period examined. In 1960 Paul Samuelson and Robert Solow took Phillips' work and made explicit the link between inflation and unemployment: when inflation was high, unemployment was low, and vice versa.Economic theory, economics, sociology, philosophy
1960s Paul Ekman conducted seminal research on the specific biological correlates of specific emotions, demonstrating the universality and discreteness of emotions in a Darwinian approach. This served as one of the basis for E. O. Wilson's works on Sociobiology in the 1970s and later helped in the emergence of the approach of Evolutionary Psychology in the 1990s through the work of Leda Cosmides and John ToobyPsychology, Anthropology, Sociology, Biology, Philosophy
1962 Thomas Kuhn stated that scientific fields undergo periodic "paradigm shifts" rather than solely progressing in continuous way; which open up new approaches to understanding that scientists would never have considered valid before; and that the notion of scientific truth, at any given moment, cannot be established solely by objective criteria but is defined by a consensus of a scientific communityPhilosophy & Science
1963Stanley Milgram first published a series of experiments now known as Milgram experiment which demonstrated how people showed obedience to orders in a social system when the orders were given by authority figures even when people were asked to perform actions against their wish and conscience. The studies were done in order to explain conformity and obedience in society as seen during the Holocaust. Psychology, Sociology, Philosophy, Social Psych, Cognitive Sciences
1963 Lawrence Morley, Fred Vine, and Drummond Matthews: Paleomagnetic stripes in ocean crust as evidence of plate tectonics (Vine-Matthews-Morley hypothesis).Geology
1964Murray Gell-Mann and George Zweig: postulate quarks leading to the standard modelPhysics & Philosophy
1968Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson 1968 experimentally demonstrated Self fulfilling prophecy in social relationships through their field experiment which showed that if teachers were led to expect enhanced performance from some children, then those children did indeed show that enhancement. This is also known as Late bloomers effectPsychology, Social Psychology, Sociology, Philosophy
1968–1970Terry Winograd made the artificial intelligence and natural language processing program SHRDLU that was concerned with the problem of providing a computer with sufficient "understanding" to be able to use natural language. Computer science, artificial intelligence, Psychology, Cognitive science
1969 German computer pioneer Konrad Zuse published his book Calculating Space, proposing that the physical laws of the universe are discrete by nature, and that the entire universe is the output of a deterministic computation on a single cellular automaton; "Zuse's Theory" became the foundation of the field of study called digital physicsMathematics, Cognitive sciences, complexity theory, digital philosophy
1969 invention of Internet Information theory, Computer science, electrical engineering
1970George Akerlof elaborated the idea of economic activity under asymmetric information. He described information asymmetry, which occurs when the seller knows more about a product than the buyer. Later, Akerlof, Michael Spence, and Joseph Stiglitz jointly received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2001 for their work on economic behavior under asymmetric information.Economics, Cognitive economics, economic psychology, Philosophy
1970John Horton Conway made the computer program Game of Life, also known simply as Life, a cellular automaton in which its evolution is determined by its initial state, requiring no further input. The game of life simulates the rise, fall and alterations of a society of living organisms.Mathematics, Computer science, agent based modeling, cognitive sciences, Philosophy
1970s Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman published series of discoveries on the psychology of human judgment and decision making describing the pervasive nature of systematic human cognitive bias and handling of risk in everyday life. Psychology, Cognitive sciences, Philosophy
1972 Paleontologists Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould published a landmark paper developing this theory and called it punctuated equilibriaPaleontology, Philosophy, Biology, genetics & evolutionary sciences
1972 Michael D. Cohen, James G. March and Johan Olsen proposed the Garbage can model of organizational decision making. They published the model along with a computer code. Earlier James G. March presented the Behavioral theory of the firm in 1963 and made a compendium of basic Organizational studies, Management science, and organizational behavior in his edition "A Handbook of Organizations" (1965). Organization Theory & science, Psychology, Sociology, Philosophy
1973 Mark Granovetter published his seminal work in modern sociology and social network theory on the spread of information in social networks known as "The Strength of Weak Ties" describing how weak ties enable reaching populations and audiences that are not accessible via strong ties. Sociology, Sociological Social Psychology, Philosophy
1977 Voyager program launched two unmanned space missions, the probes Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 to study planetary systems Cosmology, astronomy, Physics & Philosophy
1981–1984 Robert Axelrod and W. D. Hamilton described the evolution of cooperation between cognitive entities and gave a mathematical and computational model describing the phenomenaPolitical science, Psychology, Computer science
1986 David Rumelhart and James McClelland described the idea of Parallel Distributed Processing in modeling human cognition in psychology. They made mathematical and computational models of psychological information processing and described computer simulations of perception, giving testable models of neural information processing and introducing Connectionism. Psychology, Cognitive science, computer science, artificial intelligence
1987 John C. Turner and Michael Hogg along with other colleagues developed the Self categorization theory which gives a psychological theory for dynamics in group processes. It states that the self is not the foundational aspect of cognition, rather the self is a product of cognitive processes that occur in social processes. Earlier John Turner worked with Henri Tajfel (1979) on the precursor theory Social identity theory.Psychology, social psychology, Sociology, Philosophy
1988 The concept of a Quantum cellular automata was introduced thus advancing quantum computation and quantum computer Cellular automata, Computer science & Mathematics
1970s–1988 Marvin Minsky & Seymour Papert started developing what came to be called The Society of Mind theory. They state how intelligence could be a product of the interaction of non-intelligent parts. Minsky says that the biggest source of ideas about the theory came from his work in trying to create a machine that uses a robotic arm, a video camera, and a computer to build with children's blocks.Philosophy, Artificial intelligence, Cognitive science, Psychology Computer Sc
1988 Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza reconstructed human evolution and migration patterns in human history in his work in population genetics. He claimed to show a strong association between language families and genetic trees of the same populations, proposing for genetic–linguistic coevolution. Population genetics, anthropology, linguistics
1989–1990 Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web. He made a proposal for an information management system in March 1989, and on 25 December 1990, with the help of Robert Cailliau and a young student at CERN, he implemented the first successful communication between a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) client and server via the Internet. Computer science, Information theory
1996 Joshua M. Epstein along with Robert Axtell developed the first large scale agent-based computational model, the Sugarscape, to explore the role of social phenomenon such as seasonal migrations, pollution, sexual reproduction, combat, and transmission of disease and even culture. With this work Epstein laid the foundation for what he later called as Generative social science Generative science, Philosophy, Complexity science
1997 Roslin Institute: Dolly the sheep was cloned.medicine, biology, genetics and cloning
1998 Gerson Goldhaber and Saul Perlmutter observed that the expansion of the universe is acceleratingCosmology & Physics
2000 Alison Gopnik and Andrew N. Meltzoff and Patricia K. Kuhl stated that the same mechanisms used by scientists to develop scientific theories are used by children to develop causal models of their environment. They state that the cognitive development of children in early life is made possible by three factors: innate knowledge, advanced learning ability, and the evolved ability of parents to teach their offspring. Psychology, child psychology, human development, philosophy
2001 The first draft of the human genome is completed.Genetics, biology & Life sciences
2002 Ray Jackendoff published his theory of conceptual semantics a comprehensive theory on the foundations of language, in the monograph (2002): Foundations of Language. Brain, Meaning, Grammar, Evolution. Earlier he worked with Fred Lerdahl, on musical cognition, presenting a Generative theory of tonal music. Linguistics, Music cognition, music, cognitive science, psychology, philosophy
2002 Daniel Wegner published his book stating that the experience of free will is an illusion. Wegner conducted a series of experiments in which people experience an illusion of control, feeling that their free will shapes events when actually it were determined by someone else. and that it is "the mind's best trick". Psychology, Cognitive Sciences, Philosophy
2009 The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and Life Sciences Corporation completed making a draft sequencing of the genome of the closest human relative the NeanderthalAnthropology, genetics, evolutionary sciences
2010 J. Craig Venter Institute creates the first synthetic bacterial cell.Genetics, biology & life sciences
2011 a team led by Shinji Nishimoto made break through in Thought identification when they partially reconstructed visual images from only brain recordings of neural activity of volunteers who were seeing actual visual pictures or images. Neuroscience, Psychology, biology, Life sciences and philosophy
2012 Higgs Boson is discovered at CERN (confirmed to 99.999% certainty)Physics & Philosophy


See also




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "List of years in science" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

Personal tools