List of discoveries

This article presents a list of discoveries and includes famous observations. Discovery observations form acts of detecting and learning something. Discovery observations are acts in which something is found and given a productive insight. The observation assimilates the knowledge of a phenomenon or the recording of data using instruments.

Anthropology

Century of discovery and item

• 19th century : Historical relatedness of languages
• 19th century : Extinct human ancestry
• 20th century : Culture and tool use among chimpanzees
• 20th century : Mitochondrial Eve

Astronomy/Cosmology

Century of discovery, item and discoverer

• 3rd century B.C. : Heliocentrism (Earth and the planets revolving around the Sun) by Aristarchus of Samos
• 3rd century B.C. : The calculation of the circumference of the Earth by Eratosthenes
• 2nd century B.C. : Discovery of tides being caused by the Moon, by Seleucus of Seleucia
• 16th century : Explicit heliocentric model by Nicolaus Copernicus
• 17th century : Moons of Jupiter by Galileo Galilei
• 17th century : Sunspots by Johannes and David Fabricius, Christoph Scheiner and Galileo Galilei
• 17th century: Titan is discovered by Christiaan Huygens
• 17th century : Discovery of four satellites of Saturn, by Giovanni Domenico Cassini
• 18th and 19th century : The outer planets, Uranus and Neptune discovered.
• 19th century: Ceres, first asteroid discovered by Giuseppe Piazzi
• 20th century: Pluto is discovered by Clyde Tombaugh
• 20th century : Universe beyond our galaxy
• 20th century : Expansion and age of the universe, based on Hubble's law
• 20th century : Cosmic microwave background radiation
• 20th century: Accelerating universe
• 20th century: confirmed existence of exoplanets

Biology

• Systemic circulation of blood and double circulatory system by William Harvey, student of Harissh
• Observation of microorganisms by Antony van Leeuwenhoek
• Discovery of the role of oxygen in respiration and photosynthesis by Joseph Priestley, Antoine Lavoisier and Jan Ingenhousz
• Former existence of extinct species
• Discovery of evidence for the evolution of species in the fossil record and DNA sequences
• Chromosomes in the cell nucleus bear a definite linear arrangement of genes - the Chromosome Theory of Inheritance.
• Discovery of the essential minerals, nutrients and vitamins in foodstuffs
• Discovery of the link between arteries and veins by Marcello Malpighi
• Discovery of the animal reproduction by Lazzaro Spallanzani
• Discovery of the animal electricity by Luigi Galvani
• The role of microorganisms in causing infectious disease, by Louis Pasteur and Joseph Lister
• The nervous system acts via electrical impulses
• Discovery of the structure and function of DNA and RNA
• Discovery of the structure and function of enzymes and other proteins
• Discovery of Nerve growth factor by Rita Levi-Montalcini and Stanley Cohen
• Discovery of restriction endonucleases, later used in genetic engineering, by Daniel Nathans and Hamilton Smith
• Discovery of the Impermanence of Sexual Phenotypes as to the conclusive statement, by Isidro A. T. Savillo

Chemistry

• Methane by Alessandro Volta
• The synthesis of urea from inorganic chemicals, by Friedrich Woehler, disproving Vitalism
• Law of conservation of mass by Antoine Lavoisier
• Chirality or handedness of asymmetrical molecules, by Louis Pasteur
• Periodicity of the elements by Dmitri Mendeleev
• Practical synthesis of ammonia, by Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch
• X-ray crystallography, allowing for the determination of molecular structures
• Synthesis of Neoprene and Nylon by Wallace Carothers and colleagues
• Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy for the rapid determination of molecular structures in solution.
• Chromatography for the efficient separation and purification of chemicals.
• Dideoxy method of DNA sequencing, by Fred Sanger

Geography/Geology

• 12th century : Discovery of Lake Victoria by Muhammad al-Idrisi
• 16th century : Continental drift, put forward by Flemish geographer Abraham Ortelius
• 20th century : Geologic time scale, proposed by British geologist Arthur Holmes
• 20th century : Great age of the Earth, finally discovered by C. C. Patterson

Physics

• 17th century : Principle of relativity by Galileo Galilei
• 17th century : Pendulum clock by Christiaan Huygens
• 17th century : The wave theory of light, published in the Treatise on Light by Christiaan Huygens
• 17th century : Newton's laws of motion by Galileo Galilei, Christiaan Huygens and Isaac Newton
• 17th century : Classical mechanics and inverse square law of gravity (Newton's law of universal gravitation) by Isaac Newton
• 18th century : Kinetic energy is proportional to mass × velocity squared by Émilie du Châtelet, based on experiments by Willem 'sGravesande.
• 18th century : +/- Electric charges and their conservation, by Benjamin Franklin
• 18th century : Mechanical energy equivalent of heat, by Count Rumford and others.
• 19th century : Phenomena of Electromagnetism, discovered by Hans Christian Ørsted and Michael Faraday
• 19th century : Laws of Electromagnetism, developed by Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell
• 19th century : Experiments on Diffraction done by Augustin-Jean Fresnel provide evidence for the wave theory of light
• 19th century : Electromagnetic waves, predicted by James Clerk Maxwell, discovered by Heinrich Hertz
• 19th century : The Michelson–Morley experiment demonstrates that light is not carried by Aether
• 19th century : Radioactivity by Henri Becquerel and others.
• 19th century : Electron, discovered by J. J. Thomson and his team
• 20th century : The theory of electrons and the Lorentz ether theory by Hendrik Lorentz
• 20th century : The discovery of the Zeeman effect by Pieter Zeeman
• 20th century : Photon, theoretically proven by Albert Einstein
• 20th century : Quantum theory to account for the photoelectric effect by Enrico Fermi, Max Planck, Niels Bohr, Albert Einstein, and others.
• 20th century : The discovery of superconductivity by Heike Kamerlingh Onnes
• 20th century : Transuranium element by Enrico Fermi.
• 20th century : Technetium, discovered by Emilio G. Segrè
• 20th century : The theories of special and general relativity by Albert Einstein
• 20th century : The demonstration of time dilation as a real physical phenomenon by Albert Einstein
• 20th century : Ultra short radio waves by J. C. Bose

See also

• History of science
• List of famous experiments
• List of multiple independent discoveries
• Obsolete scientific theories
• Timeline of historic inventions