Timeline of fundamental physics discoveries
250 BCE Archimedes' principle: Archimedes
1514 Heliocentrism: Nicholas Copernicus
1589 Galileo's Leaning Tower of Pisa experiment: Galileo Galilei
1613 Inertia: Galileo Galilei
1621 Snell's law: Willebrord Snellius
1660 Pascal's Principle: Blaise Pascal
1660 Hooke's law: Robert Hooke
1687 Laws of Motion and Law of Gravitation and calculus: Isaac Newton
1676 Rømer's determination of the speed of light traveling from the moons of Jupiter.
1782 Conservation of matter: Lavoisier
1785 Inverse square law for electric charges confirmed: Charles-Augustin de Coulomb
1801 Wave theory of light: Thomas Young
1803 Atomic theory of matter: John Dalton
1806 Kinetic energy: Thomas Young
1814 Wave theory of light, interference: Fresnel
1820 Evidence for electromagnetic interactions: André-Marie Ampère, Jean-Baptiste Biot, Félix Savart
1827 Electrical resistance, etc.: Ohm
1831 Electromagnetic induction: Michael Faraday
1838 Lines of Force, Fields: Michael Faraday
1838 Earth's magnetic field: Wilhelm Eduard Weber and Carl Friedrich Gauss
1843 Conservation of energy: Julius Robert von Mayer, William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
1845 Faraday Rotation (light and electromagnetic): Michael Faraday
1847 Conservation of energy 2: James Prescott Joule, Hermann von Helmholtz
1851 Second law of thermodynamics: Rudolf Clausius, William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
1859 Kinetic theory: James Clerk Maxwell
1861 Black body: Gustav Kirchhoff
1863 Entropy: Rudolf Clausius
1864 Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field: James Clerk Maxwell
1867 Dynamic Theory of Gases, James Clerk Maxwell
1871–89 Statistical mechanics: Ludwig Boltzmann, Josiah Willard Gibbs
1884 Boltzmann derives Stefan's radiation law
1887 Michelson–Morley experiment
1887 Electromagnetic waves: Heinrich Rudolf Hertz
1893 Radiation law: Wien
1895 X-rays: Wilhelm Röntgen
1896 Radioactivity: Henri Becquerel
1897 Electron: J. J. Thomson
1900 Formula for Black body radiation: Max Planck
1905 Special relativity: Albert Einstein
Photoelectric effect: Albert Einstein
Brownian motion: Albert Einstein
1911 Equivalence principle
Discovery of the atomic nucleus: Ernest Rutherford
Superconductivity: Kamerlingh Onnes
1913 Bohr model of the atom: Niels Bohr
1916 General Relativity: Albert Einstein
1923 Stern–Gerlach experiment
Matter waves
Galaxies
1925 Matrix Mechanics: Werner Heisenberg
1927 Big Bang: Georges Lemaître
1927 Uncertainty Principle: Werner Heisenberg
1928 Antimatter predicted: Paul Dirac
1929 Expansion of universe confirmed: Edwin Hubble
1932 Antimatter discovered: Carl David Anderson
Neutron discovered: James Chadwick
1937 Muon discovered: Carl David Anderson & Seth Neddermeyer
1938 Superfluidity discovered
Nuclear fission discovered: Otto Hahn
1947 Pion discovered
1948 Theory of Quantum Electrodynamics: Richard Feynman
1956 Electron neutrino discovered
1957 Parity violation discovered
1957 Theory of Superconductivity
1962 Theory of strong interactions
Muon neutrino discovered
1964 Bell's Theorem initiates quantitative study of quantum entanglement
1967 Theory of Weak interaction
Pulsars discovered
1974 Charmed quark discovered
1975 Tau lepton discovered
1977 Bottom quark discovered
1980 Quantum Hall effect discovered
1980 Richard Feynman proposes quantum computing
1981 Theory of cosmic inflation
Fractional quantum Hall effect discovered
1984 First laboratory implementation of quantum cryptography
1994 shor's algorithm discovered, initiating the serious study of quantum computation.
1995 Top quark discovered
1998 Accelerating universe discovered
2000 Tau neutrino discovered
2012 Higgs Boson discovered
2015 Gravitational waves detected