List of famous discoveries

This is a list of famous discoveries.

Anthropology

• Historical relatedness of languages
• Extinct human ancestry
• Culture and tool use among Chimpanzees

Archeology

• Sutton Hoo
• Troy
• Viking settlement in Vinland
• Cache of royal correspondence at Amarna
• Indus Valley Civilization
• Mycenae
• Hittite civilization
• The Rosetta Stone
• Terracotta army at the tomb of Qin Shi Huang
• Ur
• Minoan civilization

Astronomy/Cosmology

• The discovery of the curvature of the Earth, its size (circumference) computed by Eratosthenes
• Heliocentrism (Earth and the planets revolves around the Sun) by Nicolaus Copernicus
• Moons of Jupiter by Galileo Galilei
• Sunspots by Johannes and David Fabricius, Christoph Scheiner and Galileo Galilei
• The outer planets, Uranus and Neptune
• Universe beyond our galaxy
• Expansion and age of the universe, based on Hubble's law
• Cosmic microwave background radiation

Biology

• Circulation of blood through the body, driven by the pumping of the heart, into the arteries and returning to the heart through the veins, by William Harvey
• Existence of microorganisms by Antony van Leeuwenhoek
• Discovery of the role of oxygen in respiration and photosynthesis by Joseph Priestly, Antoine Lavoisier and Jan Ingenhousz
• Former existence of extinct species
• Mendel's Laws of Genetics
• Discovery of the cellular composition of animals and plants, the Cell Theory by Matthias Jakob Schleiden and Theodor Schwann.
• 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 mechanism of evolution by natural selection, by Charles Darwin
• 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 restriction endonucleases, later used in genetic engineering, by Daniel Nathans and Hamilton Smith

Chemistry

• Law of Conservation of Mass by Antoine Lavoisier
• The synthesis of urea from inorganic chemicals, by Friedrich Woehler, disproving Vitalism
• 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

Engineering

• TRIZ - Theory of Inventive Problems Solving

Geography/Geology

• Great age of the Earth
• Continental drift

Physics

• Laws of motion and relativity by Galileo Galilei
• Inverse square law of Gravity, by Isaac Newton
• Kinetic energy is proportional to mass x velocity squared by Émilie du Châtelet, based on experiments by Willem 'sGravesande.
• +/- Electric charges and their conservation, by Benjamin Franklin
• Mechanical energy equivalent of heat, by Count Rumford and others.
• Phenomena of Electromagnetism, discovered by Hans Christian Ørsted and Michael Faraday
• Laws of Electromagnetism, developed by Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell
• Diffraction provides evidence for the wave theory of light
• Electromagnetic waves, predicted by James Clerk Maxwell, discovered by Heinrich Hertz
• Radioactivity by Henri Becquerel and others.
• Electron
• Photon
• Quantum theory to account for the photoelectric effect by Albert Einstein
• The Michelson-Morley experiment demonstrates that light is not carried by Aether
• The demonstration of time dilation as a real physical phenomenon

See also

• List of famous experiments
• Obsolete scientific theories.
• List of multiple independent discoveries

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