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In 1789, Antoine Lavoisier discovered and named the element oxygen.
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In 1793, Joseph Proust developed Proust's Law, which is also known as the law of definite proportions. This law states that the relative quantities of any given pure element remain invariant regardless of their original source.
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John Dalton proposed that atoms of different elements could be distinguished based on differences in weight. Though he made many great contributions to science, he never won a Nobel Prize.
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In an experiment with light particles, Thomas Young explained polarity and developed the principle of interference of light.
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Between the years of 1885 and 1889, Heinrich Hertz was the first to broadcast and receive radio waves and measure their length and velocity.
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In 1897, J.J. Thompson discovered the electron.
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Marie and Pierre Curie discovered the elements radium and polonium. Marie also coined the term "radioactivity".
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In 1900, Max Planck developed the quantum theory.
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Throughout 1905, Albert Einstein published papers on the special and general theories of relativity, which he developed and explained.
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In 1906, J.J. Thomson won a Nobel Prize for Physics. Two years later, he was also knighted in his homeland of Great Britain.
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In 1908, Ernest Rutherford won a Nobel Prize for Physics, not because of his later gold foil experiment, but because of his feats in the field of radioactivity.
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In 1909, Ernst Marsden performed experiments on gold particles that were bombarded with fast-moving, alpha particles that supported Bohr's Theory.
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In 1909, Ernest Rutherford conducted the "gold foil" experiment.
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Niels Bohr developed the Bohr model in 1913 as an improvement over the Rutherford model that was previously used.
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Max Planck's development of the quantum theory won him a Nobel Prize for Physics in 1918.
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Albert Einstein won a Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921.
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Niels Bohr won a Nobel Prize for Physics in 1922 for his achievements in physics, including his development of the Bohr's model, his studies in quantum physics, and his founding of Bohr's Institute for Theoretical Physics.
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Arthur Compton developed and explained the "Compton Effect" that confirmed the dual nature of electromagnetic radiation as both a wave and a partice.
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In 1924, Louis de Broglie published a thesis that unveiled his discovery of the wave-like nature of electrons.
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Werner Heisenberg discovered a way to formulate quantum mechanics in terms of matrices in 1925. He also made important contributions to the theories of hydrodynamics of turbulent flows, the atomic nucleus, ferromagnetism, cosmic rays, and subatomic particles.
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In 1925, Wolfgang Pauli "discovered" the Pauli exclusion principle, which states that, in an atom, no two electrons can simultaneously occupy the same quantum state.
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In 1926, Erwin Schrodinger introduced the Schrodinger equation, which is based on the idea that particles move in wave-like motions in specific situations.
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Arthur Compton won a Nobel Prize for Physics with C.T.R. Wilson, a physicist from England.
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Paul Dirac proposed his relativistic quantum theory in 1928. He also predicted the existence of antiparticles.
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Hans Geiger developed the Geiger counter, the first successful detector of individual alpha particles and other ionizing radiations.
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In a team with her husband Frederic Joliot, Irene Joliot-Curie discovered new radiactive isotopes that had been artificially prepared, beginning in 1928.
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Louis de Broglie won a Nobel Prize for Physics in 1929 for his discovery of the wave nature of electrons.
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In the 1930s, Lise Meitner, Otto Hahn, and Fritz Strassman discovered uranium fission. While none of them won a Nobel Prize for their feats in atomic theory, the three did receive the Enrico Fermi Award in 1966.
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Carl Anderson discovered the positron in 1931. It was the first known particle of antimatter.
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James Chadwick discovered the neutron while observing and experimenting on beryllium in 1932.
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Werner Heisenberg won a Nobel Prize for Physics in 1932.
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Paul Dirac won a Nobel Prize for Physics in 1933.
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In 1933, Erwin Schrodinger won a Nobel Prize for Physics with his partner, P.A.M. Dirac.
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James Chadwick won a Novel Prize for Physics for his discovery of the neutron.
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Husband and wife Frederic and Irene Joliot-Curie won a joint Nobel Prize for Physics in 1935.
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Carl Anderson won the Nobel Prize in 1936 for his discovery of the positron.
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Enrico Fermi won a Nobel Prize for Physics in 1938.
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During an experiment with neutron-bombarded uranium in 1939, Otto Frisch coined the term "fission" after observing the element's division.
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Enrico Fermi, the inventor of the nuclear reactor, directed the first controlled chain reaction involving nuclear fission in 1942.
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In 1945, Wolfgang Pauli won a Nobel Prize for Physics.
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Richard Feynman's foundings remade the way that others understood quantum physics - the interactions between light and matter. He studied quantum physics alongside Julian Schwinger and Tomonaga Shin'ichiro, but his theories provded to be the truly outstanding ones.
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Murray Gell-Mann discovered and studied the omega-minus particle in 1964.
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Richard Feynman, Julian Schwinger, and Tomonaga Shin'ichiro won a joint Nobel Prize for Physics in 1965 for their studies in quantum electrodynamics.
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Murray Gell-Mann won a Nobel Prize for Physics in 1969, but his partner, George Zweig, did not.
