This chronology of twentieth-century science is taken from A Century of Nature: Twenty-One Discoveries that Changed Science and the World. The twenty-one discoveries discussed in the book are highlighted in color. A Century of Nature reprints twenty-one seminal contributions from Nature and adds commentary by leading scientists.
"Nature's eminence attracts papers of revolutionary import, making this volume of twenty-one articles of wide interest. This anthology's aura of discovery will absorb avid science fans."—Booklist
Chronology of twentieth-century science
from A Century of Nature: Twenty-One Discoveries that Changed Science and the World
Laura Garwin and Tim Lincoln, editors
| 1900 | Quantum theory proposed / Planck |
| 1901 | Discovery of human blood groups / Landsteiner |
| 1905 | Wave-particle duality of light / Einstein |
| 1905 | Special theory of relativity / Einstein |
| 1906 | Existence of vitamins proposed / Hopkins |
| 1906 | Evidence that Earth has a core / Oldham |
| 1908 | Synthesis of ammonia from its elements / Haber |
| 1909 | Idea of genetic disease introduced / Garrod |
| 1909 | Boundary between Earth's crust and mantle identified / Mohorovicic |
| 1909 | Discovery of Burgess Shale: ancient invertebrate fossils / Walcott |
| 1910 | First mapping of a gene to a chromosome / Morgan and others |
| 1911 | Discovery of the atomic nucleus / Rutherford |
| 1911 | Superconductivity discovered / Onnes |
| 1912 | Discovery of cosmic rays / Hess |
| 1912 | Idea of continental drift presented / Wegener |
| 1914 | First steps in elucidating chemical transmission of nerve impulses: neurotransmitters / Dale; Barger; Loewi |
| 1914 | Astronomical theory of climate change / Milankovitch |
| 1915 | General theory of relativity / Einstein |
| 1918 onward | Synthesis of genetics with the theory of evolution by natural selection [neodarwinism] / Fisher; Haldane; Wright |
| 1921 | Isolation of insulin / Banting & Best |
| 1923 | Nature of galaxies discovered / Hubble |
| 1925 | Description of Australopithecus africanus / Dart |
| 1925-26 | Matrix and wave formulations of quantum mechanics / Heisenberg; Schrödinger |
| 1927 | Matter is proved to be wavelike / Davisson & Germer |
| 1928 | Discovery of penicillin / Fleming |
| 1929 | Expansion of the Universe established / Hubble |
| 1929 | First suggestion that Earth's magnetic field reverses / Matuyama |
| 1930 | First absolute geological timescale / Holmes |
| 1930s | Theory of chemical bonds developed / Pauling |
| 1930s onward | Establishment of the scientific study of animal behavior / von Frisch; Lorenz; Tinbergen |
| 1931 | Birth of radioastronomy / Jansky |
| 1931 | First electron microscope / Ruska |
| 1932 | Discovery of the neutron / Chadwick |
| 1932 | Discovery of the positron, first antimatter particle / Anderson |
| 1935 | Magnitude scale for earthquakes / Richter |
| 1935 | Theory of the nuclear force / Yukawa |
| 1937 | Discovery of the citric acid cycle / Krebs |
| 1938 | Nuclear reactions in stars / Bethe; von Weizsäcker |
| 1938 | First observation of superfluidity / Kapitza |
| 1939 | Discovery of nuclear fission / Meitner & Frisch |
| 1943 | Mutations in bacteria identified / Luria & Delbrück |
| 1944 | Evidence in bacteria that DNA is the genetic material / Avery, MacLeod, and McCarty |
| 1944 | Start of Mexican wheat improvement program, leading to the "green revolution" / Borlaug |
| 1945 | Formulation of the one-gene, one-enzyme hypothesis / Beadle & Tatum |
| 1946 | Radiocarbon dating / Libby |
| 1946 | Initial elucidation of the reactions involved in photosynthesis / Calvin |
| 1947 | Invention of the transistor / Shockley, Bardeen, and Brattain |
| 1948 | Big Bang theory for origin of the Universe / Gamow, Alpher, and Herman |
| 1948 | Quantum electrodynamics / Feynman; Schwinger; Tomonaga |
| 1949 | Immunological tolerance hypothesis proposed / Burnet |
| 1951 | Presentation of the idea of gene transposition: "jumping genes" / McClintock |
| 1952 | First polio vaccine / Salk |
| 1952 | Theory of nerve-cell excitation announced / Hodgkin & Huxley |
| 1953 | Production of amino acids in "early Earth" conditions / Miller & Urey |
| 1953 | First determination of the amino-acid sequence of a protein / Sanger et al. |
| 1953 | Structure of DNA: the double helix / Watson & Crick |
| 1956 | Discovery of the neutrino / Cowan & Reines |
| 1957 | Superconductivity explained / Bardeen, Cooper, and Schrieffer |
| 1958 | Quantum tunneling of electrons in semiconductors / Esaki |
| 1958 | First three-dimensional protein structure published / Kendrew et al. |
| 1960 | First laser / Maiman |
| 1960 onward | Discoveries of fossils of early Homo in East Africa / Leakeys and others |
| 1961 | Nature of the genetic / triplet code proposed / Crick et al. |
| 1963 | Deterministic chaos: the butterfly effect / Lorenz |
| 1963 | Discovery of quasars / Schmidt |
| 1963 | Explanation for magnetic stripes on the sea floor: seafloor spreading / Vine & Matthews |
| 1964 | Existence of quarks proposed / Gell-Mann; Zweig |
| 1964 | Genetic explanations proposed for animal social behavior / Hamilton |
| 1965 | Discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation / Penzias & Wilson |
| 1967 | First warning of an anthropogenic "greenhouse effect" / Manabe & Wetherald |
| 1967 | Theory of plate tectonics / McKenzie & Parker; Morgan |
| 1967 | Electroweak theory, first unification of fundamental forces / Weinberg; Glashow; Salam |
| 1967 | Proposal that certain cell organelles are descended from free-living bacteria / Margulis |
| 1968 | Pulsars discovered / Hewish et al. |
| 1968 | Theory of random molecular evolution / the neutral theory proposed / Kimura |
| 1970 | Reverse transcriptase discovered / Baltimore; Temin & Mizutani |
| 1973 | Gamma-ray bursts from outer space / Klebesadel, Strong, and Olsen |
| 1973 | Advent of genetic engineering techniques / Cohen, Boyer, and Berg |
| 1973 | Invention of magnetic resonance imaging / Lauterbur |
| 1974 | Identification of CFCs as threat to ozone layer / Molina & Rowland |
| 1974 | Principles of cell-mediated immunity unveiled / Zinkernagel & Doherty |
| 1974 | Discovery of "Lucy," Australopithecus afarensis / Johanson & Taieb |
| 1974 | First Grand Unified Theory of particle physics / Georgi & Glashow |
| 1975 | Monoclonal antibodies created / Köhler & Milstein |
| 1976 | Patch-clamp technique for studying single ion channels / Neher & Sakmann |
| 1977 | First complete DNA sequence of an organism / Sanger et al. |
| 1977 | Discovery of deep-sea hydrothermal vents / Corliss et al. |
| 1978 | Observation of astronomical dark matter / Rubin |
| 1980 | Unveiling of genetic controls on animal body-plan development / Nüsslein-Volhard & Wieschaus |
| 1980 | First human oncogene / "cancer gene" identified / Weinberg |
| 1980 | Impact hypothesis for extinctions at the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary / Alvarez et al. |
| 1981 | Superstring theory / Green & Schwarz |
| 1982 | Prion hypothesis proposed / Prusiner |
| 1983 | AIDS virus identified / Barré-Sinoussi et al. |
| 1985 | Genetic fingerprinting invented / Jeffreys |
| 1985 | Ozone hole discovered / Farman et al. |
| 1985 | Discovery of buckminsterfullerene / Kroto et al. |
| 1986 | First high-temperature superconductor / Bednorz & Müller |
| 1987 | Formulation of the "Out of Africa" hypothesis of human evolution using molecular data / Cann, Stoneking, and Wilson |
| 1995 | Bose-Einstein condensation of trapped atoms / Cornell & Wieman |
| 1995 | First extrasolar planet identified / Mayor & Queloz |
| 1997 | Dolly the sheep created by cloning / Wilmut et al. |
| 2001 | Publication of near-complete sequences of the human genome / International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium; Venter et al. |
Copyright notice: Excerpted from pages xv-xviii of A Century of Nature: Twenty-One Discoveries that Changed Science and the World edited by Laura Garwin and Tim Lincoln, published by the University of Chicago Press. ©2003 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of U.S. copyright law, and it may be archived and redistributed in electronic form, provided that this entire notice, including copyright information, is carried and provided that the University of Chicago Press is notified and no fee is charged for access. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the consent of the University of Chicago Press and of the author.Laura Garwin and Tim Lincoln, editors
A Century of Nature: Twenty-One Discoveries that Changed Science and the World
With a Foreword by Steven Weinberg
©2003, 380 pages, 7 halftones, 23 line drawings
Cloth $75.00 ISBN: 0-226-28413-1
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