Firsts

If atoms are the basic building block of each element, then molecules are the basic building blocks of each substance on Earth. Scientists were stalled by their inability to accurately imagine, let alone detect, particles as small as an atom or a molecule. Many had theorized that some tiny particle (that they called an atom) […]

Humphry Davy discovered that the chemical bonds between individual atoms in a molecule are electrical in nature. We now know that chemical bonds are created by the sharing or transfer of electrically charged particles, electrons, between atoms. In 1800, the idea that chemistry somehow involved electricity was a radical discovery. Davy’s discovery started the modern […]

Infrared and ultraviolet radiation are key parts of our scientific development over the past 200 years. Yet until 1800 it never occurred to anyone that radiation could exist outside the narrow band that human eyes detect. The discovery of infrared and ultraviolet light expanded science’s view beyond the visible light to the whole radiation spectrum, […]

Have you had smallpox? Polio? Typhoid? Probably not. However, such infectious diseases used to plague humankind. The word plague comes from one of these killer diseases, the bubonic plague. Throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the plague killed nearly half of the population of Europe. Smallpox killed over 100,000 people a year for a century […]

Chromosomes carry genes that hold the blueprints for building, operating, and maintaining the cells of your body. Genetics and heredity research could not advance until these physical structures inside the nucleus of each cell had been discovered and studied. Our basic understanding of biology also depends, in part, on our knowledge of how cells divide, […]

Photosynthesis is the process that drives plant production all across Earth. It is also the process that produces most of the oxygen that exists in our atmosphere for us to breathe. Plants and the process of photosynthesis are key elements in the critical (for humans and other mammals) planetary oxygen cycle. When Jan Ingenhousz discovered […]

Joseph Priestley’s discovery of oxygen sparked a chemical revolution. He was the first person to isolate a single gaseous element in the mixture of gasses we call “air.” Before Priestley’s discovery, scientific study had focused on metals. By discovering that air wasn’t a uniform thing, Priestley created a new interest in the study of gasses […]

Electricity is one of our greatest energy resources and one of the few natural energy sources. Benjamin Franklin’s electricity experiments were the first scientific ventures into the nature and use of electricity and uncovered its true nature. They set the stage for much of the scientific and engineering development in the nineteenth century and for […]

The discovery that stars are clumped into galaxies represents the first advance in efforts to describe the actual shape of the universe and the distribution of stars in it. Thomas Wright’s theory of galaxies was the first astronomical work to place our sun not in the center of the universe, but in a tightly packed […]

The Atlantic Ocean’s Gulf Stream is the most important of our world’s ocean currents. It is a major heat engine, carrying massive amounts of warm water north to warm Europe. It has directed the patterns of ocean exploration and commerce and may be a major determinant of the onset of ice ages. Finally, it is […]

Antoine Lavoisier was the first chemist to believe in measurement during and after experiments. All chemists before had focused on observation and description of the reactions during an experiment. By carefully measuring the weight of each substance, Lavoisier discovered that matter is neither created nor destroyed during a chemical reaction. It may change from one […]

Until the eighteenth century, nature was viewed as a wild profusion of life. Carl Linnaeus discovered order and organization in that seeming randomness. His system for naming, grouping, and conceptually organizing plants and animals provided insights into botany, biology, ecosystems, and biological structure that scientists still rely on almost 300 years later. For his discovery, […]

Darwin’s theory of evolution and its concept of survival of the fittest is the most fundamental and important discovery of modern biology and ecology. Darwin’s discoveries are 150 years old and are still the foundation of our understanding of the history and evolution of plant and animal life. Darwin’s discovery answered countless mysteries for anthropology […]

The Doppler Effect is one of the most powerful and important concepts ever discovered for astronomy. This discovery allowed scientists to measure the speed and direction of stars and galaxies many millions of light years away. It unlocked mysteries of distant galaxies and stars and led to the discovery of dark matter and of the […]

Yogurt and other dairy products soured and curdled in just a few days. Meat rotted after a short time. Cow’s and goat’s milk had always been drunk as fresh milk. The consumer had to be near the animal since milk soured and spoiled in a day or two. Then Louis Pasteur discovered that microscopic organisms […]

Twenty new elements (beginning with the discovery of cesium in 1860) were discovered using one chemical analysis technique. That same technique allows astronomers to determine the chemical composition of stars millions of light years away. It also allowed physicists to understand our sun’s atomic fires that produce heat and light. That same technique allows other […]

Energy is never lost. It can change from one form to another, but the total amount of energy never changes. That principle has allowed scientists and engineers to create the power systems that run your lights and house and fuel your car. It’s called conservation of energy and is one of the most important discoveries […]

We now know that mechanical work, electricity, momentum, heat, magnetic force, etc., can be converted from one to another. There is always a loss in the process, but it can be done. That knowledge has been a tremendous help for the development of our industries and technologies. Only 200 years ago, the thought had not […]

It was a revolutionary idea: Earth’s climate had not always been the same. Every scientist for thousands of years had assumed that Earth’s climate had remained unchanging for all time. Then Louis Agassiz discovered proof that all Europe had once been covered by crushing glaciers. Earth’s climate had not always been as it was now. […]

Most people and scientists assumed that the world and its mix of plants and animals had always been as it was when these scientists lived. The discovery of dinosaur fossils destroyed that belief. This discovery represented the first proof that entire groups of ancient, and now extinct, animals once roamed Earth. It was the first […]

The concept Robert Boyle discovered (now called Boyle’s Law) laid the foundation for all quantitative study and chemical analysis of gasses. It was the first quantitative formula to describe the behavior of gasses. Boyle’s Law is so basic to understanding chemistry that it is taught to every student in beginning chemistry classes. A genius experimenter, […]

Throughout most of the nineteenth century, people thought that electricity, magnetism, and light were three separate, unrelated things. Research proceeded from that assumption. Then Maxwell discovered that they are all the same, forms of electromagnetic radiation. It was a startlingly grand discovery, often called the greatest discovery in physics in the nineteenth century. Maxwell did […]

The human circulatory system represents the virtual definition of life. No system is more critical to our existence. Yet only 400 years ago, no one understood our circulatory system. Many seriously thought that the thumping inside the chest was the voice of the conscience trying to be heard. Most thought that blood was created in […]

Galileo discovered that other planets have moons and thus extended human understanding beyond our own planet. His careful work with the telescopes he built launched modern astronomy. His discoveries were the first astronomical discoveries using the telescope. Galileo proved that Earth is not unique among planets of the universe. He turned specks of light in […]

It is a simple, seemingly obvious notion: air has weight; the atmosphere presses down on us with a real force. However, humans don’t feel that weight. You aren’t aware of it because it has always been part of your world. The same was true for early scientists, who never thought to consider the weight of […]

Even after Copernicus simplified and corrected the structure of the solar system by discovering that the sun, not the earth, lay at the center of it, he (like all astronomers before him) assumed that the planets orbited the sun in perfect circles. As a result, errors continued to exist in the predicted position of the […]

It seems a simple and obvious discovery. Heavier objects don’t fall faster. Why does it qualify as one of the great discoveries? Because it ended the practice of science based on the ancient Greek theories of Aristotle and Ptolemy and launched modern science. Galileo’s discovery brought physics into the Renaissance and the modern age. It […]

The human anatomy references used by doctors through the year A.D. 1500 were actually based mostly on animal studies, more myth and error than truth. Andreas Vesalius was the first to insist on dissections, on exact physiological experiment and direct observation, scientific methods, to create his anatomy guides. His were the first reliable, accurate books […]

Copernicus measured and observed the planets and stars. He gathered, compiled, and compared the observations of dozens of other astronomers. In so doing Copernicus challenged a 2,000-year-old belief that the earth sat motionless at the center of the universe and that planets, sun, and stars rotated around it. His work represents the beginning point for […]

Newton’s three laws of motion form the very the foundation of physics and engineering. They are the underlying theorems that our physical sciences are built upon, just as Euclid’s basic theorems form the foundation of our modern geometry. For the creation of these laws, combined with his discovery of gravity and his creation of calculus, […]

By the early seventeenth century, many forces had been identified: friction, gravity, air resistance, electrical, forces people exerted, etc. Newton’s mathematical concept of gravity was the first step in joining these seemingly different forces into a single, unified concept. An apple fell; people had weight; the moon orbited Earth, all for the same reason. Newton’s […]

The only way we can learn about the ancient past is to examine fossil remains of now extinct plants and animals and try to re-create that long-gone life and environment. Scientists can only do this if they correctly interpret the fossil remains that are dug from ancient rock layers. That process began with Nicholas Steno. […]

Our understanding of the universe depends on two foundations, our ability to measure the distances to faraway stars, and our ability to measure the chemical composition of stars. The discovery that allowed scientists to determine the composition of stars is described in the 1859 entry on spectrographs. The distance to the sun has always been […]

Just as Galileo used his telescope to open the human horizon to the planets and stars of space, so van Leeuwenhoek used his microscope to open human awareness to the microscopic world that was invisibly small and that no one had even dreamed existed. He discovered protozoa, bacteria, blood cells, sperm, and capillaries. His work […]

The cell is the basic unit of anatomy. Countless millions of cells build living plants and animals. The functions of a body can be studied by studying individual cells. Just as the discovery of the molecule and atom allowed scientists to better understand chemical substances, Hooke’s discovery of the cell has allowed biologists to better […]

The concepts of buoyancy (water pushes up on an object with a force equal to the weight of water that the object displaces) and of levers (a force pushing down on one side of a lever creates a lifting force on the other side that is proportional to the lengths of the two sides of […]

The classical view of dinosaurs through the first half of the twentieth century was that they were plodding, cold-blooded monsters. Dinosaurs were also were depicted as sluggish, dull-gray, and so dumb that they weren’t capable of decent parenting. That was what expert paleontologists believed. Robert Bakker shattered those beliefs. Robert Bakker was the first to […]

One of the great questions for science and humanity is: Are we the only solar system with planets, and the only one with planets that could support life? The discovery of planets around other stars makes it likely that other planets exist capable of supporting life. Of great importance to astronomers, the discovery of other […]

A great debate began after Edwin Hubble discovered that the universe is expanding: Is that expansion slowing so that it will eventually stop and the universe will begin to collapse? Saul Perlmutter discovered that the expansion of the universe is actually accelerating, shattering all existing scientific models of the motion of the universe. The universe […]

Austrian monk Gregor Mendel discovered the concept of heredity in 1865, launching the field of genetics. In 1953 Francis Crick and James Watson discovered the double helix shape of the DNA molecule that carried all genetic instructions. The problem was that there were billions of genetic instructions carried on the complete human genetic code, or […]

The now famous character Mario was created by Shigeru Miyamoto and has appeared in over 200 video games. Mario’s first appearance was in Donkey Kong (ドンキーコング) in 1981, which is another iconic arcade game developed by Nintendo. In Donkey Kong, Mario was known as “Jumpman” the carpenter. In later games, Mario is depicted as a […]

No one knows for sure who was the first to reach the North Pole, but two men claimed to have done it at almost the same time. The American explorer Frederick Cook, along with two Eskimos, two sleds, and 26 dogs, took off from Greenland for the pole on February 19, 1908. Fourteen months later, […]

Not all people in the world practice the custom of exchanging rings at marriage. But in some places, the custom has been followed for so long that no one knows where it started. In some primitive tribes, it was a custom for the man to place an arm or leg bracelet on a married woman […]

In ancient times, kissing was more often an act of respect or homage than of affection. In Persia, a man showed his respect for another man by kissing him on the lips if they were social equals, or on the cheek if they were not. The Greeks and Romans also used to kiss as a […]

If by flush toilet we mean any toilet hi which water is used to clean the bowl after its use, then the flush toilet is close to 4,000 years old! The palace at Knossos, Crete, which was built around 2000 B.C., contained latrines that were cleaned by water stored in a reservoir and delivered to […]

The first locks that we know about were used by the Egyptians more than 4,000 years ago. They were made of wood, and were very large. The Egyptian lock consisted of two pieces: a crossbar or bolt, and another piece of wood with a slot in it. This second piece of wood was attached to […]

You might think that the peanut comes from the southern part of the United States, for it was there that the peanut’s true value was first realized. Or you may believe it comes from Africa, since peanuts were often associated with African slaves in America. But actually, the peanut hails from South America! Spanish explorers […]

Looking at a field of wheat and a loaf of bread, you wouldn’t guess that one came from the other. But man has been making bread of some kind for over 10,000 years! Early man probably chewed the seeds of wheat and other grains, either raw or roasted. Then primitive people learned to crush cereal […]

Even though the word chow means food, the word chowder has nothing to do with chow. In the early days of America, a group of French sailors were shipwrecked off the coast of Maine. They managed to take with them some salted pork, potatoes, and crackers before they left the sinking ship. While they waited […]

The restaurant as we know it today is less than 220 years old! Until the 18th century, people who wanted to eat out went to a tavern, where only one dish was offered each day, and only men were allowed. Or they went to a cookshop, where meat was cooked, and brought home a “take-out” […]

The ancient Egyptians and Greeks, and the American Indians, sometimes chewed the leaves of the willow tree and other plants to relieve pain. But no one knew why these plants helped fight pain until in the 19th century, when scientists found that these plants contain pain-relieving drugs called salicylates. But in their pure form, these […]

In one way at least, you’re a lot more fortunate than the people of ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. You can enjoy a delicious glass of orange juice in the morning, while in ancient times there wasn’t a single orange in all of Europe or Africa! The orange first grew in China, and was eaten […]

You’ve probably heard the expression “as American as apple pie.” Apples are grown today in every state in the United States, but when Columbus set sail for the New World, there wasn’t a single apple growing anywhere in America! Apples first grew in the Near East, spreading to Europe before the days of the Roman […]

Potatoes are so popular and important today that you might think they’ve been around for a long time. But that just isn’t so. Actually, no one in Europe had even seen a potato until just a few hundred years ago! When Spanish explorers visited South America in the 16th century, they found that the Inca […]

Until this century, all tea was sold in large bags or in tins. Then in 1904, a New York merchant named Thomas Sullivan began shipping tea to his customers in small silk bags. The customers found that it was easy to brew the tea right in the silk bags, and the tea bag was born!