From the Copernican Revolution to superstrings, a chronology of some of the
greatest discoveries of natural philosophy.
Despite my best efforts I cannot be sure about the accuracy of all the dates
and attributions.

1269: Pierre de Maricourt, experiments with magnets
1325: Jean Buridan, physics of impetus
1450: Johann Gutenberg, first printing press in Europe
1472: Johannes Regiomontanus, observation of Halley's comet
1551: G. Cardan, studies of falling bodies
1553: Giambattista Benedetti, proposed equality of fall rates
1543: Nicolaus Copernicus, heliocentric theory
1572: Tycho Brahe, witnesses a supernova and cites it as evidence that the
          heavens are not changeless
1576: Tycho Brahe, constructs a planetary observatory
1576: Thomas Digges, illustration of an infinite universe surrounding a
          Copernican solar system
1577: Tycho Brahe, observes that a comet passes through the orbits of othe
          planets
1582: Galilei Galileo, constancy of period of pendulum
1586: Simon Stevin, statics of inclined plane
1586: Simon Stevin, verification of equality of fall rates
1584: Giordano Bruno, suggests that stars are suns with other Earth's in orbit
1589: Galilei Galileo, showed that objects fall at the same rate independent of
          mass
1592: Galilei Galileo, suggests that physical laws of the heavens are the sa
          as those on Earth
1596: Johannes Kepler, related planets to platonic solids
1600: Galilei Galileo, study of sound and vibrating strings
1600: William Gilbert, static electricity and magnetism
1604: Johannes Kepler, mirrors, lenses and vision
1608: Hans Lippershey, optical telescope
1609: Lippershey and Janssen, the compound microscope
1609: Johannes Kepler, 1st and 2nd laws of planetary motion
1609: Johannes Kepler, notion of energy
1610: Galilei Galileo, with a telescope he observed the phases of Venus, moons
          of Jupiter, craters on the moon and stars in the Milky Way
1615: S. de Caus, forces and work
1619: Johannes Kepler, 3rd law of planetary motion
1619: Rene Descartes, vision of rationalism
1620: Francis Bacon, the empirical scientific method
1620: Francis Bacon, heat is motion
1624: Galilei Galileo, theory of tides
1625: Willebrod Snell, the sine law of refraction
1629: de Cabeo, magnetism
1632: Galilei Galileo, Galilean relativity
1632: Galilei Galileo, Support for Copernicus' Heliocentric theory
1632: John Ray, water thermometer
1636: G. Pers de Roberval, gravitational forces are mutual attraction
1636: Marin Mersenne, speed of sound
1637: Rene Descartes, inertia, mechanistic physics
1642: Blaise Pascal, mechanical calculator
1644: Evangelista Torricelli, mercury barometer and artificial vacuum
1648: Francesco Grimaldi, interference and diffraction of light
1648: Blaise Pascal, explains barometer as a result of atmospheric pressure
1654: Ferdinand II, sealed thermometer
1655: Christiaan Huygens, rings of Saturn
1657: Christiaan Huygens, pendulum clock
1657: Pierre Fermat, Fermat's principle in optics
1660: Otto von Guericke, demonstration of the power of vacuum using two large
          hemispheres and 8 horses
1660: Otto von Guericke, electrostatic machine
1660: Robert Boyle, sound will not travel in a vacuum
1661: Robert Boyle, corpuscular theory of matter
1662: Robert Boyle, Boyles law for ideal gases
1663: Huygens, Wallace and Wren, laws of elastic collisions
1665: Isaac Newton, studies the principles of mechanics and gravity, mass an
          force
1665: Hooke, Huygens and Grimaldi, wave theory of light
1665: Robert Hooke, studies with a microscope
1668: Wallace, conservation of momentum
1669: Erasmus Bartholin, polarisation effects of Iceland feldspar
1669: Gottfreid Leibniz, first concepts of action
1672: Isaac Newton, studies spectrum of light
1673: Ignace Pardies, wave explanation for refraction of light
1676: Olaus Roemer, measured the speed of light by observing Jupiter's moons
1676: Robert Hook, law of elasticity and springs
1676: Edme Mariotte, Boyle's law and height of atmosphere
1678: Robert Hooke, inverse square law of gravity
1679: Christiaan Huygens, polarisation of light
1679: Christiaan Huygens, principle of Huygens
1684: Isaac Newton, inverse square law and mass dependence of gravity
1687: Isaac Newton, publishes laws of motion
1687: Isaac Newton, publishes spectral analysis of light
1687: Isaac Newton, publishes analysis of sound propagation
1688: P. Varignon, addition of forces
1692: Richard Bentley, why do stars not fall together under gravitation?
1705: Edmund Halley, noticed that three previous comets are the same and
          predicts its return in 1758
1709: Gabriel Fahrenheit, alcohol thermometer
1710: George Berkeley, idealist philosophy against materialist
1714: Gottfreid Leibniz, energy conservation
1714: Gottfreid Leibniz, rejection of absolute space and time
1714: Gabriel Fahrenheit, mercury thermometer
1721: George Berkeley, space exists because of matter in it
1724: Gabriel Fahrenheit, supercooling of water
1728: James Bradley, speed of light and stellar aberration
1731: Rene Reaumur, alcohol/water thermometer
1733: Charles Du Fay, recognises distinction between positive and negative
          electric charge
1738: Daniel Bernoulli, kinetic theory of gas
1738: Daniel Bernoulli, hydrodynamics
1743: Anders Celsius, centigrade temperature scale
1743: Jean d'Alembert, energy in Newtonian mechanics
1744: Pierre de Maupertuis, principle of least action
1744: Leonhard Euler, Euler-Lagrange equations
1745: Pieter van Musschenbroek, Leyden Jar for electric charge storage
1747: Leonhard Euler, vibrating strings
1747: Leonhard Euler, rigid body motions
1748: Mikhail Lomonosov, conservation of mass
1750: Benjamin Franklin, theory of electricity and lightning
1750: John Michell, inverse square law for magnetic fields
1752: Jean d'Alembert, viscosity
1754: Joseph Black, discovery of carbon dioxide showing that there are gases
          other than air
1755: Immanuel Kant, theory that the universe formed from a spinning nebula
1761: Joseph Black, discovery and measurements of latent and specific heats
1761: John Harison, portable chronometer
1766: Joseph Priestley, inverse square law for electric charge
1771: Luigi Galvani, electricity in animals
1772: Carl Scheele, saw air as two gases one of which encouraged combustion
1772: Joseph Lagrange, theory of Lagrange points
1774: Joseph Priestley, oxygen
1774: Nevil Maskelyne, gravitational deflection of plumb line by a mountain
1777: Antoine Lavoisier, composition of air and burning as a chemical reaction
1779: Charles Augustin de Coulomb, Coulomb's law of friction
1781: Immanuel Kant, Critique of pure reason
1781: William Herschel, discovery of Uranus
1781: Charles Messier, catalog of nebulae
1781: Heinrich Olbers, Uranus is a planet, not a comet
1782: William Herschel, catalog of double stars
1782: Antoine Lavoisier, distinction between elements and compounds
1782: William Herschel, sun's motion through space
1783: John Michell, Newtonian black hole
1783: Rene Hauy, nature of crystals
1784: Henry Cavendish, water is a compound of oxygen and hydrogen
1784: Pierre Laplace, electrostatic potential
1785: Charles Augustin de Coulomb, electric force proportional to product
          of charges and inverse square of distance
1786: Antoine Lavoisier, distinction between elements and compounds
1787: Antoine Lavoisier, system for naming chemicals
1788: Joseph Lagrange, Lagrangian mechanics
1788: John Hunter, Diffusion of heat
1789: Antoine Lavoisier, Conservation of mass in chemical reactions
1790: Definition of metric system in France
1797: Henry Cavendish, measured the gravitational constant with a torsion
          balance
1798: Benjamin Thompson, Heat generated equals work done
1798: Humphry Davy, Transmission of heat through vacuum
1798: Benjamin Rumford, experimental relation between work done and heat
          generated
1800: Alessandro Volta, Chemical batteries and voltage
1801: Johann Ritter, Ultra violet rays
1801: Johann von Solder, Newtonian bending of light by sun
1801: Giuseppe Piazzi, first asteroid Ceres
1802: Heinrich Olbers, second asteroid Pallas
1802: William Herschel, double stars are bodies in mutual orbit
1802: Thomas Young, interference and wave description of light
1802: Humphry Davy, Electrochemistry
1804: John Dalton, Law of partial pressures, Dalton's law
1807: Heinrich Olbers, third asteroid Vesta
1808: John Dalton, atomic theory of chemical reactions
1808: Etienne Malus, polarisation of reflected light
1811: Amedeo Avogadro, molecular theory of gases and Avogadro's law
1814: Joseph von Fraunhofer, spectroscope
1816: Joseph von Fraunhofer, absorption lines in sun's spectrum
1817: Young and Fresnel, transverse nature of light
1820: Hans Christian Oersted, an electric current deflects a magnetised needle
1820: Andre Ampere, force on an electric current in a magnetic field
1821: Thomas Seebeck, thermocouple and thermoelectricity
1821: Joseph von Fraunhofer, diffraction grating
1821: Michael Faraday, plotted the magnetic field around a conductor
1822: Andre Ampere, two wires with electric currents attract
1822: Charles Babbage, a prototype calculating machine
1822: Jean-Baptiste Fourier, harmonic analysis
1823: John William Herschel, suggests identification of chemical composition
          from spectrum
1823: William Sturgeon, electromagnets
1823: Heinrich Olbers, why is the sky dark?
1824: Sadi Carnot, Heat transfer goes from hot body to cold body
1827: Georg Ohm, electrical resistance and Ohm's law
1827: Robert Brown, Brownian motion
1829: Johann Wolfgang, triads of chemical elements
1831: Michael Faraday, a moving magnet induces an electric current
1833: Michael Faraday, laws of electrolysis
1833: Joseph Henry, self inductance
1834: Emile Clapeyron, entropy
1834: John Scott Russell, observed solitary waves in a canal
1834: William Hamilton, Principle of least action and Hamiltonian mechanics
1838: distance to nearest stars by parallax
1840: Joule and Helmholtz electricity is a form of energy
1842: Christian Doppler Doppler Effect
1842: Robert von Mayer Conservation of energy
1843: James Joule mechanical equivalent of heat
1843: Howard Aiken first mechanical programable calculator
1844: Ludwig Boatsman statistical mechanics and the meaning of entropy
1845: Michael Faraday, rotation of polarised light by magnetism
1846: Adams, Le Verrier, predicted position of Neptune
1846: Gustav Kirchhoff, Kirchoff's laws of electrical networks
1846: Jahanne Galle, Neptune
1847: Hermann von Helmholtz, Conservation of energy
1848: William Thomson (Kelvin), absolute temperature scale
1848: James Joule average velocity of gas molecules from kinetic theory
1849: Armand Fizeau first measurement of the velocity of light in the
          laboratory using a toothed wheel
1850: Rudolf Clausius, second law of thermodynamics
1850: Jean Foucault, light travels slower in water than in air
1851: William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), dynamical theory of heat
1851: Jean Foucault, demonstrates rotation of Earth with a pendulum
1852: Jean Foucault, first gyroscope
1854: Hermann von Helmholtz, Heat death of the universe
1857: James Clerk Maxwell, nature of Saturns rings
1858: Wallace and Darwin, natural selection of species
1859: Julius Plucker, cathode rays
1859: Bunsen and Kirchhoff, measurement of spectral line frequencies
1859: Urbane Le Verrier, anomolous perihelion shift of Mercury
1859: Gustav Kirchhoff, black body law
1862: Anders Angstrom, observed hydrogen in the sun
1864: John Newlands, chemical law of octaves
1865: Rudolf Clausius, introduction of the term entropy
1867: James Maxwell, statistical physics and thermal equilibrium
1868: Joseph Lockyer, element Helium discovered from the sun's spectrum
1869: Dmitri Mendeleyev, periodic table of elements
1873: James Maxwell, equations of electromagnetism, nature of light and
          prediction of radio waves
1874: George Stoney, named the electron and estimated its mass
1877: Ludwig Boltzmann, Boltzmann's equation for entropy
1878: Willard Gibbs, thermodynamics of chemistry and phase changes
1879: Josef Stefan, empirical discovery of radiation law, (Stefan's law)
1880: Pierre and Jacques Curie, piezoelectricity
1881: Albert Michelson, light interferometer
1883: Thomas Edison, thermionic emission
1884: Ludwig Boltzmann, Derivation of Stefan's law
1885: Johann Balmer, empirical formula for hydrogen spectral lines
1885: James Dewar, vacuum flask and liquid hydrogen
1887: Heinrich Rodolf Hertz, transmission and reception of radio waves
1887: Michelson and Morley, absence of ether drift
1887: Hertz, Hallwachs, photoelectric effect
1889: George Fitzgerald, length contraction
1889: Rolond von Eotvos, torsion balance to test equivalence of inertial and
          gravitational mass
1892: Hendrick Lorentz, theory that electricity is due to electrons
1893: Ernst Mach, influence of all the mass in the universe determines what is
          natural motion
1895: Wilhelm Roentgen, X-rays
1895: Korteweg and de Vries, Explanation of solitary waves
1895: Jean-Baptiste Perrin, Cathode rays are negative particles
1895: Pierre Curie, loss of magnetism at high temperature, (Curie point)
1895: Hendrick Lorentz, Lorentz transformation
1896: Pieter Zeeman, spectral line splitting by magnetic field
1896: Antoine Henri Becquerel, natural radioactivity in Uranium ore
1897: Joseph Thomson, the electron and measurement of its charge to mass ratio
          by deflection of cathode rays
1898: Pierre and Marie Curie, separation of radioactive elements
1899: Ernest Rutherford, alpha and beta radiation
1899: Philipp Lenard, photoelectric effect confirms mass to charge ratio of
          electron
1900: Max Planck, light quanta in black body radiation and Planck's constant
1900: Villard, gamma rays
1900: Pyotr Lebedev, radiation pressure
1903: Rutherford and Soddy, transmutation by radiation
1903: Philipp Lenard, model of atom as two separated opposite charges
1904: Albert Einstein, energy-frequency relation of light quanta
1904: Joseph Thomson, plum pudding model of the atom
1904: Hendrik Lorentz, the Lorentz transformations
1904: Hantaro Nagaoka, planetary model of the atom
1905: Albert Einstein, explains Brownian motion by kinetic theory
1905: Albert Einstein, photon theory for photoelectric effect
1905: Albert Einstein, special relativity
1905: Paul Langevin, atomic theory of paramagnetism
1905: Percival Lowell, postulates a ninth planet beyond Neptune
1906: Albert Einstein, relation of inertia and energy
1906: Albert Einstein, particle-wave duality of photons
1907: Albert Einstein, equivalence of mass and energy
1907: Albert Einstein, equivalence principle and gravitational redshift
1907: Hermann Minkowski, geometric unification of space and time
1908: Hans Geiger, Geiger counter for detecting radioactivity
1908: Ernest Rutherford, identifies alpha particles as helium nuclei
1909: Geiger and Marsden, anomolous scattering of alpha particles on gold foil
1909: Robert Millikan, measured the charge on the electron
1910: Henrietta Leavitt, measured cosmic distances using Cepheid variable stars
          in globular clusters
1910: Albert Einstein, why the sky is blue
1911: Victor Hess, cosmic rays
1911: Joseph Thomson, separation of isotopes
1911: Heike Onnes, superconductivity
1911: Ernest Rutherford, Infers the nucleus from the alpha scattering result
1912: Robert Millikan, measurement of Planck's constant
1912: Charles Wilson, cloud chamber
1912: Max Von Laue, X-rays are explained as electromagnetic radiation
          diffraction
1912: Albert Einstein, curvature of space-time
1912: Vesto Slipher, observes redshift of galaxies
1913: Niels Bohr, quantum theory of atomic orbits
1913: Niels Bohr, radioactivity as nuclear property
1913: Hans Geiger, relation of atomic number to nuclear charge
1914: Harry Moseley, used X-rays to confirm the correspondence between electric
          charge of nucleus and atomic number
1915: Albert Einstein, general relativity
1915: Albert Einstein, prediction of light bending and explanation for
          perhilion shift of mercury
1916: Albert Einstein, prediction of gravitational waves
1916: Karl Schwarzschild, singular static solution of gravitational field
         equations which describes a minimal black hole
1917: Harlow Shapley, estimates the diameter of the galaxy as 100000 light years
1917: Albert Einstein, introduction of the cosmological constant and a steady
          state model of the universe
1917: Albert Einstein, theory of stimulated emission
1917: Willem de Sitter, describes a model of an expanding universe with no
          matter
1918: Harlow Shapley, determined the size and shape of our galaxy.
1918: Reissner and Nordstrom, solution of Einstein's equations which describe a
          charged black hole
1919: Ernest Rutherford, artificial transmutation, hydrogen and oxygen from
          nitrogen
1919: Ernest Rutherford, existence of the proton in nucleus
1919: Oliver Lodge, predection of gravitational lensing
1919: Crommelin, Eddington, verification of Einstein's prediction of starlight
          deflection during an eclipse
1919: Emmy Noether, The mathematical relationships between symmetry and
          conservation laws in classical physics
1920: Ernest Rutherford, prediction of neutron
1921: Theodor Kaluza, unification of electromagnetics and gravity by
          introducing an extra dimension
1921: Shapley and Curtis, The Great Debate over the scale and structure of the
          universe
1921: James Chadwick, evidence for a strong nuclear interaction
1921: Stern and Gerlach, measurement of atomic magnetic moments
1921: Charles Bury, electronic structure at elements from their chemistry
1922: Alexsandr Friedmann, works out a model of an expanding universe with
          matter included
1923: Arthur Compton, compton effect confirms photon as particle
1923: Louise de Broglie, predicts diffraction of electrons as wave nature of
          partciles
1924: Edwin Hubble, measured the distance to other galaxies using Cepheid
          variables proving that they lie outside our own
1924: Edward Appleton, ionosphere
1924: Satyendra Bose, derivation of Planck's law
1924: Bose and Einstein, statistics of photons
1924: Wolfgang Pauli, explanation of Zeeman effect
1924: Wolfgang Pauli, the exclusion principle
1925: Robert Millikan, introduced the term cosmic rays
1925: Enrico Fermi, statistics of electrons
1925: Werner Heisenberg, matrix mechanics
1925: Goudsmit and Uhlenbeck, electron spin
1926: Oskar Klein, Kaluza-Klein theory
1926: Paul Dirac, quantum distinction between femions and bosons
1926: Erwin Schroedinger, the particle wave equation
1926: Erwin Schroedinger, equivalence of wave equation and matrix mechanics
1926: Max Born, statistical interpretation of quantum mechanics
1926: Klein, Fock and Gordon, relativistic equation for scalar particles
1926: R. Fowler, white dwarf stars are explained by the exclusion principle
1927: Werner Heisenberg, the uncertainty principle
1927: Davisson and Germer, Verification of electron diffraction
1927: Jan Oort, observation of galactic rotation
1927: Niels Bohr, complementarity
1927: Paul Dirac, quantisation of electromagnetic field
1927: Eugene Wigner, conservation of parity
1927: Georges Lemaitre, the primeval atom as origin of the universe
1927: Niels Bohr, Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Mechanics
1927: Jordan and Klein, second quantisation
1928: Condon, Gamow, Gurney, alpha emission is due to quantum tunnelling
1928: Paul Dirac, relativistic equation of the electron
1929: quartz crystal clock
1929: Ernest Lawrence, cyclotron
1929: Robert van de Graaff, Van de Graaff generator
1929: Edwin Hubble, first measurement of Hubble's constant and conclusion that
          the Universe is expanding
1930: Clyde Tombaugh, Pluto
1930: Walther Bothe, observed neutral rays later identified as neutrons
1930: Paul Dirac, prediction of anti-matter
1930: Paul Dirac, systematic canonical quantisation
1930: Hartree and Fock, multi-particle quantum mechanics
1931: Isidor Rabi, principle of population inversion
1931: Wolfgang Pauli, neutrino as explanation for missing energy and spin in
          weak nuclear decay
1931: Harold Clayton, deuterium
1931: Eugene Wigner, symmetry in quantum mechanics
1931: Paul Dirac, heavy magnetic monopoles explain quantum of charge
1932: Raman and Bhagavantam, Verification that photon is spin one
1932: James Chadwick, identified the neutron
1932: Knoll and Ruska, electron microscope
1932: Carl Anderson, positron in cosmic rays
1932: Cockroft and Walton, linear proton accelerators to 700KeV and
          verification of mass/energy equivalence
1932: Karl Jansky, first radio astronomy
1932: D. Iwanenko, Neutron as a constituent of nucleus
1932: Urey, Brickwedde, Murphy, deuteron
1932: Werner Heisenberg, Nucleus is composed of protons and neutrons
1932: Lev Davidovich Landau, proposed existence of neutron stars
1933: Paul Ehrenfest, theory of second order phase transitions
1933: Blackett and Occhialini, electron-positron creation and anihilation
1933: Esterman, Frisch and Stern, measurement of proton magnetic moment
1933: Baade and Zwicky, collapse of a white dwarf may set off a supernova and
          leave a neutron star
1934: Pavel Cherenkov, Cherenkov radiation
1934: Chadwick and Goldhaber, precise measurement of neutron mass
1934: Enrico Fermi, Fermi theory of weak interaction and beta decay
1934: Esterman and Stern, magnetic moment of neutron
1934: Fermi and Hahn, fission observed
1935: Hideki Yukawa, theory of strong nuclear force and the pi-meson
1935: Robert Oppenheimer, spin statistics
1935: Enrico Fermi, hypothesis of transuranic elements
1935: Einstein, Podolsky, Rosen, EPR Paradox of non-locality in quantum
          mechanics
1935: Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, calculation of mass limit for stellar
          collapse of a white dwarf star
1936: Anderson and Neddermeyer, muon in cosmic rays
1936: L. Brillouin, theory of wave guides
1936: Breit and Coll, isotropic spin
1936: Alan Turing, computability
1937: Peter Kapitza, superfluidity of helium
1937: Majorana, symmetric theory of electron and positron
1937: Julian Schwinger, Neutron spin is half
1937: Bloch and Nordsieck, operator normal ordering
1937: John Wheeler, S-matrix theory
1938: Oppenheimer and Serber, there is an upper mass limit for stability of
          neutron stars
1938: Bethe and Critchfield, stars are powered by nuclear fusion
1938: Isador Rabi, Magnetic Resonance
1938: Oskar Klein, new field equations from higher dimensional Kaluza-Klein
          theory
1938: Hendrick Kramers, mass renormalisation
1938: Frisch and Meitner, theory of uranium fission
1939: Oppenheimer and Snyder, a collapsing neutron star will form a black hole.
1939: Bohr, Wheeler, Khariton, Zel'dovich ..., theory of U235 fission and chain
         reaction.
1939: Bloch and Alvarez, measurement of the neutron magnetic moment
1939: Rossi, Van Norman, Hilbery, Muon decay
1939: Teller, Szilard, Einstein, warning letter to Roosevelt
1939: Peierls and Frisch, critical mass and theory of A-Bomb
1940: Mac-Millam, Abelson, Seaborg, Neptunium, plutonium, first transuranian
          elements
1941: Lev Davidovich Landau, theory of superfluids
1941: Rossi and Hall, Muon decay used to verify relativistic time dilation
1942: Enrico Fermi, the first self sustaining fission reaction
1944: Lars Onsager, general theory of phase transitions
1944: Leprince-Ringuet and Lheritier, the K+ found in cosmic rays
1945: Robert Oppenheimer, atomic bomb
1945: first electronic computer ENIAC
1947: Claude Shannon, information theory
1947: Conversi, Pancini, Piccioni, indication that the muon is not the mediator
          of the strong force
1947: Hartmut Kallman, scintillation counter
1947: Denis Gabor, theory of holograms
1947: Hans Bethe, renormalisation of Lamb shift calculation
1947: Cecil Powell, negative pion found
1947: Willis Lamb, fine structure of hydrogen spectrum, the Lamb shift
1947: Kusch and Folley, measurement of the anomolous magnetic moment of the
          electron
1948: Tomonaga, Schwinger, Feynman, renormalisation of QED
1948: Bondi, Gold, Hoyle, steady state theory of the universe
1948: Bethe and Gamow, explain big bang nucleosynthesis
1948: Alpher and Herman, prediction of cosmic background radiation
1948: Richard Feynman, path integral approach to quantum theory
1948: Bardeen, Brattain, Shockley, semi-conductors and transistors
1948: Snell and Miller, Decay of the neutron
1948: Freeman Dyson, Equivalence of Feynman and Schwinger-Tomonaga QED
1949: Leighton, Anderson, Seriff, Muon is spin half
1950: Paul Dirac, first suggestion of string theory
1950: Bjorklund, Crandall, Moyer, York, Neutral pion
1950: Albert Einstein, Einstein's failed unified theory
1951: Smith and Baade, identify a radio galaxy
1952: Courant, Livingston, Snyder, Strong focusing principle for particle
          accelerators
1952: Donald Glaser, bubble chamber
1952: Walter Baade, resolves confusion over two different types of Cepheid
          variable stars
1952: Edward Teller, hydrogen bomb
1953: Gell-Mann and Nishijima, strangeness
1953: Reines and Cowan, neutrino detection
1954: Yang and Mills, non-abelian gauge theory
1955: caesium atomic clock
1955: John Wheeler, describes the space-time foam at the Planck scale.
1955: Chamberlain, Segre and Wiegand anti-proton
1956: Cork, Lambertson, Piccioni, Wenzel, evidence for anti-neutron
1956: Lee and Yang, weak interaction could violate parity
1956: Reines and Cowan, anti-neutrino detection
1957: Burbidge, Hoyle, Fowler Formation of light elements in stars
1957: Chien-Shiung Wu, parity violation in weak decays
1957: Bardeen, Cooper, Schrieffer, BCS theory of superconductivity
1957: Hugh Everett, Many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics
1957: Feynman, Gell-Mann, Marshak, Sudarshan, V-A theory of weak interactions
1958: Townes and Schawlow, theory of laser
1958: David Finkelstein, resolves the nature of the black hole event horizon
1959: MIT, radar echo from Venus
1959: Ramsey, Kleppner, Goldenberg, hydrogen maser atomic clock
1960: Theodore Maiman, ruby laser
1960: Eugene Wigner, the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in natural
          science
1960: Pound and Rebka, measurement of gravitational red-shift
1960: Matthews and Sandage, optical identification of a quasar
1961: Sheldon Glashow, introduces neutral intermediate boson of weak
          interactions
1961: J. Goldstone, Theory of massless particles in spontaneous symmetry
          breaking (Goldstone boson)
1961: Gell-Mann and Ne'eman, The eightfold way, SU(3) octet symmetry of hadrons
1962: Gell-Mann and Ne'eman, Prediction of Omega minus particle
1962: Leith and Upatnieks, first hologram
1962: Riccardo Giacconi, detection of cosmic X-rays
1962: Brian Josephson, theory of Jesephson effect
1962: Lederman, Steinberger, Schwartz, evidence for more than one type of
          neutrino
1963: Samios et al., Baryon Omega minus
1963: Roy Kerr, solution for a rotating black hole
1963: Schmidt, Greensite, Sandage, quasars are distant
1964: Peter Higgs, Higgs mechanism of symmetry breaking
1964: Cronin and Fitch, CP violation in weak interactions
1964: Murray Gell-Mann, current algebra
1964: Gell-Mann, Zweig, quark theory of hadrons
1964: Bjorken and Glashow, prediciton of SU(4) flavour symmetry and charm
1964: Roger Penrose, black holes must contain singularities
1964: Ginzburg, Doroshkevich, Novikov, Zel'dovich, black holes have no hair
1964: Salpeter and Zel'dovich, black holes power quasars and radio galaxies
1964: John Bell, a quantum inequality which limits the possibilities for local
         hidden variable theories
1965: Greenberg, Han, Nambu, SU(3) colour symmetry to explain statistics of
          quark model
1965: Martin Kruskal, Numerical studies of solitons
1965: Penzias and Wilson, detection of the cosmic background radiation
1967: Weinberg, Salam, electro-weak unification
1967: Gerard 't Hooft, renormalisation of elctro-weak model
1967: Bell and Antony, pulsars
1967: Irwin Shapiro, radar measurment of relativistic time delays to Mercury
1968: Joseph Weber, first attempt at a gravitational wave detector
1968: Gabrielle Veneziano, Dual resonance model for strong interaction,
          beginning of string theory
1969: SLACDeep inelastic scattering experiments find structure inside protons.
1969: Hawking and Penrose, singularity theorems for the big bang
1969: Roger Penrose, conjectures that singularities are hidden by cosmic
          censorship
1969: Donald Lynden-Bell, black hole at the centre of galactic nuclei
1969: Raymond Davis, solar neutrino detector
1969: first attempts to verify solar deflection of radio waves from quasars
1970: Nambu, Nielsen, Susskind, realisation that the dual resonance model is
          string theory
1970: Glashow, Iliopoulos, Maiani, prediction of charme quark
1970: Stephen Hawking, the surface area of a black holes event horizon always
          increases
1971: Kenneth Wilson, the operator product expansion and the renormalisation
          group for the strong force
1972: Jacob Bekenstein, black hole entropy
1972: Fritsch, Gellmann, Quntum Chromodynamics
1972: Friedman, Kendall, Taylor, Verification of Bjorken scaling behaviour
1973: Wess and Zumino, supersymmetry
1973: CERN, Evidence of weak neutral currents
1973: Gross, Politzer, Wilczek, theory of asymptotic freedom in non-abelian
          gauge theories
1974: Ting and Richter, found J/psi (charmed quark)
1974: Kenneth Wilson, lattice gauge theory
1974: Taylor and Hulse, binary pulsar and relativistic effects
1974: Georgi and Glashow, SU(5) as Grand Unified Theory and prediction of
          proton life-time
1974: 't Hooft and Polyakov, magnetic monopoles in GUTs.
1974: Cygnus X-1 identified as black hole candidate
1974: Stephen Hawking, black hole radiation and thermodynamics
1975: Scherk, Schwarz interpretation of string theory as a theory of gravity
1975: Martin Perl Tau lepton
1975: Gail Hanson quark jets
1976: Ferrara, Freedman, Nieuwenhuizen Supergravity
1976: Levine and Vessot precision test of gravitational time dilation on rocket
1977: James Elliot, rings of Uranus
1977: Olive and Montenen, conjecture of elecro-magnetic duality
1977: Fermilab, bottom quark
1978: Charon, moon of Pluto
1978: Taylor and Hulse, evidence for gravitational radiation of binary pulasr
1979: Feigenbaum, universality in chaotic non-linear systems
1979: Voyager, rings of Jupiter
1979: quasar doubled by gravitational lensing
1979: DESY, evidence for gluons in hadron Jets
1980: Frederick Reines, Evidence of Neutrino oscillations
1980: DESY, measurement of gluon spin
1981: Alan Guth inflationary early universe
1982: Green and Schwarz, superstring theory
1982: Alain Aspect an experiment to confirm non-local aspects of quantum theory
1983: van de Meer, Rubia, W and Z bosons at CERN
1984: Green and Schwarz, anomaly cancellations in superstring theory
1985: Gross, Harvey, Martinec, Rohm, heterotic string theory
1986: Bednorz and Mueller, high temperature superconductivity
1986: Abhay Ashtekar, new variables for canonical quantum gravity
1987: Masatoshi Koshibas, detection of neutrinos from a supernova
1988: Smolin and Rovelli, loop representation of quantum gravity
1989: SLAC, Number of light neutrinos is 3 from Z width
1990: John Mather, black body spectrum of cosmic background radiation from COBE
1990: Mather and Smoot, angular fluctuations in cosmic background radiation
         with COBE
1994: Fermilab, Top Quark
1994: Seiberg and Witten, Electro-magnetic duality in supersymmetric gauge
          theory
1994: Hubble, Evidence for black hole at the centre of galaxy M87
1995: Direct evidence for neutrino oscillations
1995: Witten and Townsend, M-Theory
1995: Joseph Polchinski, D-Branes
1995: Cornell, Wieman, Anderson Bose-Einstein condensate
1995: CERN, Anti-hydrogen
1995: Mayor and Queloz, first extra-solar planet
1996: Strominger, Vafa, D-branes and black-holes
1996: Cumrun Vafa, F-theory
1996: Steven Lamoreaux, measurement of Casimir force
1996: Darnstadt element 112
1996: Banks, Fischler, Shenker, Susskind, M-theory as a matrix model
1997: BepoSAX, location of Gamma Ray Bursts demonstrates that they are extragalactic
1997: Juan Maldacena, AdS/CFT duality
1997: SLAC, photon-photon scattering produces electron-positron pairs
1998: Perlmutter, Garnavich et al, supernovae observations suggest that the expansion of the universe is accelerating
1998: Super-Kamiokande, neutrino oscillation demonstrated
1998: CERN, Fermilab, time reversal assymetry observed for K meson decay
2000: Fermilab, tau neutrino observed