Science

Albert Einstein derived E=mc² in 1905 as part of his Special Theory of Relativity. The equation means a tiny amount of mass contains enormous energy — forming the basis of nuclear physics.

The Human Genome Project (completed 2003) and Craig Venter's parallel effort decoded the human genome. It cost $2.7 billion and took 13 years. Today, sequencing a genome costs about $100 and takes hours.

Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928, the world first true antibiotic, after noticing mold killing bacteria in a petri dish.

James Watson and Francis Crick described DNA's double helix in 1953, crucially aided by Rosalind Franklin's X-ray images.

Isaac Newton formulated the three laws of motion and the law of universal gravitation, laying the foundation of classical physics in 1687.

Edward Jenner created the first vaccine in 1796, using cowpox to protect against smallpox. Smallpox was declared eradicated worldwide in 1980.

Galileo Galilei used an improved telescope in 1609–1610 to discover Jupiter's moons and mountains on the Moon, revolutionizing our view of the cosmos.

Thomas Edison developed a practical light bulb and power systems, while Nikola Tesla pioneered the alternating current (AC) that powers modern grids.

Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell unified electricity, magnetism, and light into four elegant equations in the 1860s — a foundation of modern physics.

Marie Curie pioneered research on radioactivity, discovered polonium and radium, and became the first person to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences.

Isaac Newton first described gravity mathematically in 1687, showing that the same force pulls apples down and holds the Moon in orbit.

Thomas Edison developed the first commercially practical incandescent light bulb in 1879, though many inventors contributed to the idea.

Henri Becquerel discovered radioactivity in 1896, and Marie and Pierre Curie went on to explain and expand the field.

Albert Einstein transformed physics with his theories of special relativity in 1905 and general relativity in 1915.

Charles Babbage designed early mechanical computers, and Ada Lovelace wrote what is often called the first computer program.

Jonas Salk developed the first effective polio vaccine in 1955, and Albert Sabin later created an oral version.

Nicolaus Copernicus proposed that the Earth orbits the Sun in 1543, overturning the ancient Earth-centred view of the cosmos.

James Watson and Francis Crick described DNA double helix in 1953, drawing crucially on Rosalind Franklin X-ray images.

Charles Darwin explained evolution by natural selection in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species.

Florence Nightingale founded modern nursing during the Crimean War, proving that hygiene dramatically cut death rates.

Norman Borlaug "Green Revolution" in the 1960s-70s introduced high-yield crop varieties that saved an estimated one billion lives from famine.

Robert Hooke first described cells in 1665 using a compound microscope, while Antonie van Leeuwenhoek discovered microorganisms with his superior single-lens instruments.

Alfred Wegener proposed the theory of continental drift in 1912, suggesting that continents were once joined and have since moved apart.

Alexander von Humboldt and Aime Bonpland explored and scientifically documented the Amazon and Orinoco basins (1799-1804), proving the Casiquiare canal connected the two river systems — transforming European understanding of South American geography.

Charles Darwin proposed natural selection, with Alfred Russel Wallace independently reaching the same idea.

Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928 when mould killed bacteria in his lab.

Johannes Kepler formulated the three laws of planetary motion in the early 1600s.

The Celsius scale is named after Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius, who proposed it in 1742.

Albert Einstein derived E equals mc squared, showing mass and energy are equivalent.

Gregor Mendel founded genetics through his pea-plant experiments in the 1800s.

Galileo Galileis telescope observations provided strong evidence that the Earth orbits the Sun.

Edward Jenner created the first smallpox vaccine in 1796 using cowpox.

Benjamin Franklin is famous for demonstrating that lightning is a form of electricity, most notably through his proposed kite experiment in 1752.

Ohm law, formulated by German physicist Georg Ohm in 1827, describes the relationship between voltage, current, and resistance in an electrical circuit.

Isaac Newton three laws of motion, published in 1687, describe how forces act on objects and form the foundation of classical mechanics.

The Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev created the first widely recognised periodic table in 1869, arranging the elements by properties and even predicting undiscovered ones.

Albert Einstein general theory of relativity, published in 1915, explained gravity not as a force but as the curving of spacetime by mass and energy.

The double helix structure of DNA was described in 1953 by James Watson and Francis Crick, building crucially on the X-ray images produced by Rosalind Franklin.

The electron was discovered in 1897 by the British physicist J. J. Thomson through his experiments with cathode ray tubes.

The neutron was discovered in 1932 by the British physicist James Chadwick, who identified a neutral particle inside the atomic nucleus.

Ole Romer made the first estimate of the speed of light in 1676 from the moons of Jupiter, and Albert Michelson later measured it very precisely in the late 1800s.

The Italian scientist Evangelista Torricelli demonstrated air pressure in 1643 with the barometer, and Otto von Guericke dramatically showed its force with the Magdeburg hemispheres.

Isaac Newton described gravity with his law of universal gravitation in 1687, and Albert Einstein later gave a deeper description with general relativity in 1915.

The first true battery was invented around 1800 by the Italian physicist Alessandro Volta, who created the voltaic pile.

Ohm law, formulated by the German physicist Georg Ohm in 1827, describes the relationship between voltage, current, and resistance in an electric circuit.

Boyle law, described by the Anglo-Irish scientist Robert Boyle in 1662, states that the pressure and volume of a gas are inversely related at constant temperature.

Niels Bohr proposed an influential model of the atom in 1913, building on Ernest Rutherford discovery of the nucleus.

Arthur Eddington observations during the total solar eclipse of 1919 confirmed a key prediction of Einstein general relativity, that gravity bends light.

Albert Einstein explained the photoelectric effect in 1905 by proposing that light comes in tiny packets of energy called photons, work that won him the Nobel Prize.

Charles law, credited to the French scientist Jacques Charles in the 1780s, states that the volume of a gas increases in proportion to its temperature at constant pressure.

The atomic nucleus was first artificially split in 1932 by John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton, working under Ernest Rutherford in Cambridge.

Insulin was discovered in 1921 and 1922 at the University of Toronto by Frederick Banting and Charles Best, with support from John Macleod and James Collip.

James Clerk Maxwell unified electricity and magnetism into a single theory of electromagnetism in the 1860s, showing that light is an electromagnetic wave.

Swedish chemist and inventor Alfred Nobel created the prizes in his 1895 will, leaving most of his fortune to reward those who confer “the greatest benefit to humankind”.

Oxygen was discovered independently by Carl Wilhelm Scheele around 1772 and Joseph Priestley in 1774, while Antoine Lavoisier recognised it as an element and named it.

English physician William Harvey showed in 1628 that the heart pumps blood around the body in a continuous circuit.

German-born British astronomer William Herschel discovered Uranus on 13 March 1781, the first planet found with a telescope.

Belgian priest and physicist Georges Lemaître first proposed in 1927–1931 that the universe began from a single “primeval atom”, the idea now called the Big Bang.

Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier developed CRISPR-Cas9 as a gene-editing tool in 2012.

Alfred Wegener proposed continental drift in 1912; seafloor spreading evidence confirmed it in the 1960s.

Alfred Nobel invented dynamite in 1867.

Zacharias Janssen is traditionally credited with inventing the compound microscope around 1590.

Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859) presented the theory of evolution by natural selection.

Nikola Tesla demonstrated artificial lightning with his Tesla coil and Wardenclyffe experiments.

Peter Higgs predicted the particle in 1964; CERN confirmed its discovery on 4 July 2012.

Casimir Funk coined the term "vitamine" in 1912 and identified the first vitamins.

Edmond Halley predicted that the comet of 1682 would return in 1758, and it did.

Robert Edwards and Patrick Steptoe pioneered IVF, leading to the birth of Louise Brown in 1978.

Louis Pasteur's experiments in the 1860s proved the germ theory of disease.

Gregor Mendel's pea plant experiments in the 1850s–60s established the laws of inheritance.

Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus proposed the Sun-centred model in his book On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, published in 1543.

Austrian scientist Karl Landsteiner discovered the ABO blood groups in 1901, making safe blood transfusions possible.

The Fahrenheit scale is named after physicist Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit, who proposed it in 1724.

The kelvin is named after William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, who proposed an absolute temperature scale in 1848.

Charles Darwin developed the theory of evolution by natural selection. He set out the idea in 1859 in On the Origin of Species.

The structure of insulin was determined by Frederick Sanger. He published the insulin amino-acid sequence in 1955, a breakthrough that earned him the 1958 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Alfred Wegener proposed the theory of continental drift. He presented it in 1912 and expanded it in his 1915 book The Origin of Continents and Oceans.

William Harvey explained the circulation of the blood. He published his findings in 1628 in Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus.

Amedeo Avogadro proposed this principle, known as Avogadro's law. It was first stated in 1811.

Dmitri Mendeleev created the first widely accepted periodic table. He published it in 1869 and even predicted undiscovered elements.

Henri Becquerel discovered radioactivity in 1896. He found that uranium salts could expose photographic plates without sunlight.

Jonas Salk created the first widely used successful polio vaccine. It was announced in 1955.

Albert Einstein formulated general relativity. He completed the theory in 1915, replacing Newtonian gravity with curved spacetime.

Ian Wilmut led the team that created Dolly the sheep. Dolly was born in 1996 and announced in 1997.

Albert Einstein’s 1905 equation E = mc² shows that mass can be converted into energy. It is one of the most famous formulas in physics.

Ernest Rutherford proposed the nuclear model of the atom in 1911. He showed that atoms are mostly empty space with a small dense nucleus.

Ian Wilmut and his team created Dolly the sheep in 1996 at the Roslin Institute in Scotland. Dolly was the first mammal cloned from an adult somatic cell.

Marie Curie won Nobel Prizes in Physics in 1903 and Chemistry in 1911. She was honored for pioneering research on radioactivity.

James Clerk Maxwell formulated the equations of electromagnetism in the 1860s. They unified electricity, magnetism and light.

Henri Becquerel discovered radioactivity, but the decay law is most closely associated with Ernest Rutherford and Frederick Soddy. Their work showed radioactive substances decrease at a predictable exponential rate.

Ernest Rutherford is credited with discovering the nuclear structure of the atom in 1911. He showed that atoms have a tiny, dense nucleus.

Frederick Banting, working with Charles Best in 1921, helped develop the first successful insulin treatment. The breakthrough transformed diabetes from a fatal disease into a manageable one.

Thomas Hunt Morgan’s work on fruit flies showed that genes are carried on chromosomes. His experiments helped establish modern genetics.

Johannes Kepler’s laws of planetary motion describe how planets move around the Sun. They were published between 1609 and 1619.

Edwin Hubble’s observations in the 1920s showed that distant galaxies are moving away from us. This became evidence that the universe is expanding.

Benjamin Franklin is associated with the kite experiment of 1752, which showed lightning is electrical in nature. It became one of the most famous experiments in science history.

Galileo Galilei discovered the four largest moons of Jupiter in 1610. They were the first moons found orbiting another planet.

Edwin Hubble showed in 1924 that the Andromeda “nebula” was a separate galaxy. This proved the universe is much larger than the Milky Way.

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen discovered X-rays in 1895. His discovery quickly revolutionized medical imaging.

Ian Wilmut and Keith Campbell led the team that created Dolly the sheep in 1996 at the Roslin Institute in Scotland. Dolly was the first mammal cloned from an adult somatic cell.

Gregor Mendel’s experiments with pea plants established the basic laws of heredity. His work was published in 1866 and rediscovered around 1900.

Jonas Salk developed the first widely used polio vaccine, licensed in 1955. It helped drive polio cases down dramatically around the world.

J. Tuzo Wilson was one of the key scientists who helped establish plate tectonics. His work on transform faults and hotspots explained how the moving plates behave.

Ernest Rutherford and Frederick Soddy developed the theory of radioactive decay. It explains how unstable atoms change over time.

X-rays were discovered by Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen in 1895. His work led to the first Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901.

The mitochondrion’s internal structure was revealed through electron microscopy pioneered by scientists including George E. Palade and later refined by many cell biologists. The organelle’s inner membrane folds, called cristae, became visible in the mid-20th century.

William Harvey described the circulation of blood in 1628. He showed that the heart acts as a pump and that blood moves in a closed loop.

Benjamin Franklin is associated with the famous kite experiment of 1752. It demonstrated the electrical nature of lightning, though the dangerous test may not have been performed exactly as later retellings suggest.

Nicolaus Copernicus proposed the Sun-centered model in the 16th century. His book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium was published in 1543.

Barry Marshall and Robin Warren identified Helicobacter pylori as a major cause of peptic ulcers in the 1980s. Marshall famously drank the bacterium to prove it could cause disease.

Gregor Mendel established the basic laws of heredity through experiments on pea plants in the 1860s. His work was recognized as foundational only decades later.

Isaac Newton’s three laws of motion, first published in 1687, underpin classical mechanics. They describe how forces affect the motion of bodies.

Henri Becquerel first discovered radioactivity in 1896. He found that uranium salts could fog photographic plates without sunlight.

Dmitri Mendeleev created the first widely accepted periodic table in 1869. He arranged elements by repeating chemical properties and even predicted undiscovered ones.

Gregor Mendel established the basic laws of heredity through experiments on pea plants in the 1860s. His work explained how traits are inherited in predictable ratios.

Jonas Salk led the team that produced the first successful polio vaccine, licensed in 1955. It used an inactivated poliovirus.

Albert A. Michelson measured the speed of light with great precision and pioneered techniques that helped astronomy. His work on interferometry also supported later tests of planetary motion and relativity.

Charles Darwin explained evolution by natural selection in On the Origin of Species, published in 1859. Alfred Russel Wallace independently reached a similar idea.

Marie Curie’s research on radioactivity helped open the way to radiometric dating and modern nuclear science. She shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics and won a second Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911.

Edward Jenner developed the first smallpox vaccine in 1796. He used cowpox to protect against smallpox.

The double-helix structure of DNA was discovered by James Watson and Francis Crick in 1953, with crucial contributions from Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins. Their model explained how genetic information is stored and copied.

Charles’s law describes how a gas expands when heated and contracts when cooled, at constant pressure. It is named after Jacques Charles.

William Harvey described the circulation of the blood in 1628.

Marie Tharp’s mapping of the ocean floor helped prove that continents move as part of plate tectonics.

Benzene’s ring structure is most closely associated with August Kekulé, who proposed the hexagonal model in 1865. His idea became a cornerstone of organic chemistry.

The modern periodic table is credited to Dmitri Mendeleev, who published his first version in 1869. He arranged the elements by recurring properties and predicted elements not yet discovered.

Gregor Mendel is credited with establishing the basic laws of heredity through experiments on pea plants in the 1860s. His results were not widely recognized until decades later.

Alfred Wegener proposed continental drift in 1912, but the full theory of plate tectonics emerged later in the 1960s. Wegener is still remembered as the pioneer of the idea.

The double-helix structure of DNA is most closely associated with James Watson and Francis Crick, who published their model in 1953. Their work relied heavily on data from Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins.

Edward Jenner developed the first successful smallpox vaccine in 1796. His work used cowpox to protect against smallpox and launched the field of immunization.

Oxygen’s discovery is usually credited to Joseph Priestley and Carl Wilhelm Scheele, with Priestley isolating it in 1774. Antoine Lavoisier later correctly named it and explained its role in combustion.

The first cloned mammal, Dolly the sheep, was created from work led by Ian Wilmut and his team at the Roslin Institute. Dolly was born in 1996 and announced in 1997.

The ring structure of benzene is credited to August Kekulé, who proposed it in 1865. His model explained benzene’s unusual chemistry.

The first successful polio vaccine was developed by Jonas Salk and introduced in 1955. It used an inactivated poliovirus.

The structure of insulin was determined by Frederick Sanger, who completed the work in 1955. He was awarded the 1958 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Evolution by natural selection was explained by Charles Darwin, especially in On the Origin of Species in 1859. Alfred Russel Wallace independently developed similar ideas.

Boyle’s law is named after Robert Boyle, who published it in 1662. It describes how gas pressure rises when volume falls, if temperature stays constant.

Avogadro’s law is named after Amedeo Avogadro. It says that at the same temperature and pressure, equal gas volumes contain equal numbers of particles.

Archimedes’ principle is named after Archimedes of Syracuse. It says a body immersed in a fluid is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the fluid displaced.

Galileo’s work on falling bodies is credited to Galileo Galilei. He showed that, without air resistance, objects fall with the same acceleration regardless of mass.

Mendel’s laws are named after Gregor Mendel. His pea plant experiments in the 1860s revealed patterns of inheritance that became the foundation of genetics.

Copernicus proposed the heliocentric model. Nicolaus Copernicus argued in the 16th century that Earth and the planets orbit the Sun.

Galileo Galilei is credited with discovering Jupiter’s four largest moons in 1610. They are now called the Galilean moons.

Edwin Hubble is credited with showing that distant galaxies are moving away from us. His 1929 work helped establish the expanding universe.

Henri Becquerel discovered radioactivity in 1896. He found that uranium salts emitted invisible rays without needing sunlight.

Rutherford’s nuclear model is credited to Ernest Rutherford. His 1911 gold foil experiment showed that atoms have a tiny, dense nucleus.

Bohr’s model is credited to Niels Bohr. Introduced in 1913, it explained atomic spectra using electrons in quantized orbits.

W. C. Röntgen discovered X-rays in 1895. He called them X-rays because their nature was unknown at the time.

Archimedes. His principle says an object in a fluid experiences an upward buoyant force equal to the weight of the fluid it displaces.

Newton’s third law. It is one of Isaac Newton’s three laws of motion.

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen. He discovered X-rays in 1895 and quickly produced the first famous medical radiographs.

Pierre Louis Maupertuis. In the 18th century he helped show Earth is slightly flattened at the poles.

Dmitri Mendeleev. In 1869 he arranged the elements by recurring chemical properties and even predicted elements yet to be discovered.

Henri Becquerel. In 1896 he found that uranium salts emitted radiation without needing sunlight.

Gay-Lussac’s law, named after Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac. It states that gas pressure rises as temperature rises when volume stays fixed.

Ernest Rutherford proposed the nuclear model of the atom in 1911. He showed that atoms have a tiny, dense nucleus with electrons outside it.

Henri Becquerel discovered radioactivity in 1896. He found that uranium salts could fog photographic plates without sunlight.

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen discovered X-rays in 1895. His discovery quickly changed medical imaging worldwide.

Karl Landsteiner discovered the ABO blood groups in 1901. His work made modern blood transfusion much safer.

Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection explained how species change over time. He published it in 1859 in On the Origin of Species.

Isaac Newton formulated the law of universal gravitation. He published it in Principia in 1687.

Dmitri Mendeleev created the first widely accepted periodic table in 1869. He arranged the elements by atomic weight and predicted missing ones.

Ernest Rutherford proposed the nuclear model of the atom after the gold foil experiment. His model was published in 1911.

Edward Jenner developed the first successful smallpox vaccine in 1796. He used material from cowpox to protect against smallpox.

Edwin Hubble provided the key evidence that the universe is expanding. In 1929, he found that distant galaxies are moving away from us.

Henri Becquerel discovered natural radioactivity in 1896. He found that uranium salts could fog photographic plates without sunlight.

William Harvey demonstrated that blood circulates through the body in a closed system. He published his findings in 1628.

Karl Landsteiner discovered the ABO blood group system. He identified the major blood types in 1900 and 1901.

Jonas Salk developed the first successful polio vaccine. It was announced in 1955.

Albert Einstein's general relativity predicted the possibility of black holes. The mathematical idea appeared after his 1915 theory.

Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier turned CRISPR-Cas9 into a gene-editing tool. Their landmark paper was published in 2012.

Alfred Wegener proposed continental drift in 1912. He argued that continents were once joined together in a supercontinent.

Harry Hess helped develop the theory of seafloor spreading. His work in the 1960s supported plate tectonics.

Early limnologists such as François-Alphonse Forel studied lake mixing and stratification in the 19th century. Forel is often called the father of limnology.

J. William Powell and later geomorphologists developed ideas about how rivers erode, deposit sediment, and change course. Meanders and oxbow lakes result from that evolving river flow.

Captain Henry L. Abbot and later U.S. engineers made early scientific measurements of major U.S. rivers, including the Mississippi. River discharge became a key part of hydraulic engineering.

Geologists studying river erosion showed that waterfalls retreat upstream through erosion and plunge-pool undercutting. No single person owns the idea, but it became a standard geomorphology principle.

François-Alphonse Forel’s lake studies laid the groundwork for understanding seasonal lake turnover. He showed that temperature layering controls how lakes mix.

Charles Darwin’s 1842 work on coral reefs explained their formation in relation to sinking islands. He connected reef growth to changes in sea level and volcanic islands.

Scientists studying hypersaline lakes explained that their colors can come from microorganisms and salt conditions. There is no single inventor, but the phenomenon is well established in modern lake science.

Joseph Fourier first proposed in 1824 that Earth’s atmosphere traps heat, laying the groundwork for the greenhouse effect.

John Tyndall showed in the 1850s that gases like carbon dioxide and water vapor absorb infrared radiation.