A timeline of atomic and subatomic physics.
== Early beginnings ==
In 6th century BCE, Acharya Kanada proposed
that all matter must consist of indivisible
particles and called them "anu". He proposes
examples like ripening of fruit as the change
in the number and types of atoms to create
newer units.
430 BCE Democritus speculates about fundamental
indivisible particles—calls them "atoms"
== The beginning of chemistry ==
1766 Henry Cavendish discovers and studies
hydrogen
1778 Carl Scheele and Antoine Lavoisier discover
that air is composed mostly of nitrogen and
oxygen
1781 Joseph Priestley creates water by igniting
hydrogen and oxygen
1800 William Nicholson and Anthony Carlisle
use electrolysis to separate water into hydrogen
and oxygen
1803 John Dalton introduces atomic ideas into
chemistry and states that matter is composed
of atoms of different weights
1805 (approximate time) Thomas Young conducts
the double-slit experiment with light
1811 Amedeo Avogadro claims that equal volumes
of gases should contain equal numbers of molecules
1832 Michael Faraday states his laws of electrolysis
1871 Dmitri Mendeleyev systematically examines
the periodic table and predicts the existence
of gallium, scandium, and germanium
1873 Johannes van der Waals introduces the
idea of weak attractive forces between molecules
1885 Johann Balmer finds a mathematical expression
for observed hydrogen line wavelengths
1887 Heinrich Hertz discovers the photoelectric
effect
1894 Lord Rayleigh and William Ramsay discover
argon by spectroscopically analyzing the gas
left over after nitrogen and oxygen are removed
from air
1895 William Ramsay discovers terrestrial
helium by spectroscopically analyzing gas
produced by decaying uranium
1896 Antoine Becquerel discovers the radioactivity
of uranium
1896 Pieter Zeeman studies the splitting of
sodium D lines when sodium is held in a flame
between strong magnetic poles
1897 Emil Wiechert, Walter Kaufmann and J.J.
Thomson discover the electron
1898 Marie and Pierre Curie discovered the
existence of the radioactive elements radium
and polonium in their research of pitchblende
1898 William Ramsay and Morris Travers discover
neon, and negatively charged beta particles
== 
Timeline of classical mechanics ==
== 
The age of quantum mechanics ==
1887 Heinrich Rudolf Hertz discovers the photoelectric
effect that will play a very important role
in the development of the quantum theory with
Einstein's explanation of this effect in terms
of quanta of light
1896 Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen discovers the
X-rays while studying electrons in plasma;
scattering X-rays—that were considered as
'waves' of high-energy electromagnetic radiation—Arthur
Compton will be able to demonstrate in 1922
the 'particle' aspect of electromagnetic radiation.
1900 Paul Villard discovers gamma-rays while
studying uranium decay
1900 Johannes Rydberg refines the expression
for observed hydrogen line wavelengths
1900 Max Planck states his quantum hypothesis
and blackbody radiation law
1902 Philipp Lenard observes that maximum
photoelectron energies are independent of
illuminating intensity but depend on frequency
1902 Theodor Svedberg suggests that fluctuations
in molecular bombardment cause the Brownian
motion
1905 Albert Einstein explains the photoelectric
effect
1906 Charles Barkla discovers that each element
has a characteristic X-ray and that the degree
of penetration of these X-rays is related
to the atomic weight of the element
1909 Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden discover
large angle deflections of alpha particles
by thin metal foils
1909 Ernest Rutherford and Thomas Royds demonstrate
that alpha particles are doubly ionized helium
atoms
1911 Ernest Rutherford explains the Geiger–Marsden
experiment by invoking a nuclear atom model
and derives the Rutherford cross section
1911 Jean Perrin proves the existence of atoms
and molecules with experimental work to test
Einstein's theoretical explanation of Brownian
motion
1911 Ștefan Procopiu measures the magnetic
dipole moment of the electron
1912 Max von Laue suggests using crystal lattices
to diffract X-rays
1912 Walter Friedrich and Paul Knipping diffract
X-rays in zinc blende
1913 William Henry Bragg and William Lawrence
Bragg work out the Bragg condition for strong
X-ray reflection
1913 Henry Moseley shows that nuclear charge
is the real basis for numbering the elements
1913 Niels Bohr presents his quantum model
of the atom
1913 Robert Millikan measures the fundamental
unit of electric charge
1913 Johannes Stark demonstrates that strong
electric fields will split the Balmer spectral
line series of hydrogen
1914 James Franck and Gustav Hertz observe
atomic excitation
1914 Ernest Rutherford suggests that the positively
charged atomic nucleus contains protons
1915 Arnold Sommerfeld develops a modified
Bohr atomic model with elliptic orbits to
explain relativistic fine structure
1916 Gilbert N. Lewis and Irving Langmuir
formulate an electron shell model of chemical
bonding
1917 Albert Einstein introduces the idea of
stimulated radiation emission
1918 Ernest Rutherford notices that, when
alpha particles were shot into nitrogen gas,
his scintillation detectors showed the signatures
of hydrogen nuclei.
1921 Alfred Landé introduces the Landé g-factor
1922 Arthur Compton studies X-ray photon scattering
by electrons demonstrating the 'particle'
aspect of electromagnetic radiation.
1922 Otto Stern and Walther Gerlach show "spin
quantization"
1923 Lise Meitner discovers what is now referred
to as the Auger process
1924 Louis de Broglie suggests that electrons
may have wavelike properties in addition to
their 'particle' properties; the wave–particle
duality has been later extended to all fermions
and bosons.
1924 John Lennard-Jones proposes a semiempirical
interatomic force law
1924 Satyendra Bose and Albert Einstein introduce
Bose–Einstein statistics
1925 Wolfgang Pauli states the quantum exclusion
principle for electrons
1925 George Uhlenbeck and Samuel Goudsmit
postulate electron spin
1925 Pierre Auger discovers the Auger process
(2 years after Lise Meitner)
1925 Werner Heisenberg, Max Born, and Pascual
Jordan formulate quantum matrix mechanics
1926 Erwin Schrödinger states his nonrelativistic
quantum wave equation and formulates quantum
wave mechanics
1926 Erwin Schrödinger proves that the wave
and matrix formulations of quantum theory
are mathematically equivalent
1926 Oskar Klein and Walter Gordon state their
relativistic quantum wave equation, now the
Klein–Gordon equation
1926 Enrico Fermi discovers the spin–statistics
connection, for particles that are now called
'fermions', such as the electron (of spin-1/2).
1926 Paul Dirac introduces Fermi–Dirac statistics
1926 Gilbert N. Lewis introduces the term
"photon", thought by him to be "the carrier
of radiant energy."
1927 Clinton Davisson, Lester Germer, and
George Paget Thomson confirm the wavelike
nature of electrons
1927 Werner Heisenberg states the quantum
uncertainty principle
1927 Max Born interprets the probabilistic
nature of wavefunctions
1927 Walter Heitler and Fritz London introduce
the concepts of valence bond theory and apply
it to the hydrogen molecule.
1927 Thomas and Fermi develop the Thomas–Fermi
model
1927 Max Born and Robert Oppenheimer introduce
the Born–Oppenheimer approximation
1928 Chandrasekhara Raman studies optical
photon scattering by electrons
1928 Paul Dirac states his relativistic electron
quantum wave equation
1928 Charles G. Darwin and Walter Gordon solve
the Dirac equation for a Coulomb potential
1928 Friedrich Hund and Robert S. Mulliken
introduce the concept of molecular orbital
1929 Oskar Klein discovers the Klein paradox
1929 Oskar Klein and Yoshio Nishina derive
the Klein–Nishina cross section for high
energy photon scattering by electrons
1929 Nevill Mott derives the Mott cross section
for the Coulomb scattering of relativistic
electrons
1930 Paul Dirac introduces electron hole theory
1930 Erwin Schrödinger predicts the zitterbewegung
motion
1930 Fritz London explains van der Waals forces
as due to the interacting fluctuating dipole
moments between molecules
1931 John Lennard-Jones proposes the Lennard-Jones
interatomic potential
1931 Irène Joliot-Curie and Frédéric Joliot
observe but misinterpret neutron scattering
in paraffin
1931 Wolfgang Pauli puts forth the neutrino
hypothesis to explain the apparent violation
of energy conservation in beta decay
1931 Linus Pauling discovers resonance bonding
and uses it to explain the high stability
of symmetric planar molecules
1931 Paul Dirac shows that charge quantization
can be explained if magnetic monopoles exist
1931 Harold Urey discovers deuterium using
evaporation concentration techniques and spectroscopy
1932 John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton split
lithium and boron nuclei using proton bombardment
1932 James Chadwick discovers the neutron
1932 Werner Heisenberg presents the proton–neutron
model of the nucleus and uses it to explain
isotopes
1932 Carl D. Anderson discovers the positron
1933 Ernst Stueckelberg (1932), Lev Landau
(1932), and Clarence Zener discover the Landau–Zener
transition
1933 Max Delbrück suggests that quantum effects
will cause photons to be scattered by an external
electric field
1934 Irène Joliot-Curie and Frédéric Joliot
bombard aluminium atoms with alpha particles
to create artificially radioactive phosphorus-30
1934 Leó Szilárd realizes that nuclear chain
reactions may be possible
1934 Enrico Fermi publishes a very successful
model of beta decay in which neutrinos were
produced.
1934 Lev Landau tells Edward Teller that non-linear
molecules may have vibrational modes which
remove the degeneracy of an orbitally degenerate
state (Jahn–Teller effect)
1934 Enrico Fermi suggests bombarding uranium
atoms with neutrons to make a 93 proton element
1934 Pavel Cherenkov reports that light is
emitted by relativistic particles traveling
in a nonscintillating liquid
1935 Hideki Yukawa presents a theory of the
nuclear force and predicts the scalar meson
1935 Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and
Nathan Rosen put forth the EPR paradox
1935 Henry Eyring develops the transition
state theory
1935 Niels Bohr presents his analysis of the
EPR paradox
1936 Alexandru Proca formulates the relativistic
quantum field equations for a massive vector
meson of spin-1 as a basis for nuclear forces
1936 Eugene Wigner develops the theory of
neutron absorption by atomic nuclei
1936 Hermann Arthur Jahn and Edward Teller
present their systematic study of the symmetry
types for which the Jahn–Teller effect is
expected
1937 Carl Anderson proves experimentally the
existence of the pion predicted by Yukawa's
theory.
1937 Hans Hellmann finds the Hellmann–Feynman
theorem
1937 Seth Neddermeyer, Carl Anderson, J.C.
Street, and E.C. Stevenson discover muons
using cloud chamber measurements of cosmic
rays
1939 Richard Feynman finds the Hellmann–Feynman
theorem
1939 Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann bombard
uranium salts with thermal neutrons and discover
barium among the reaction products
1939 Lise Meitner and Otto Robert Frisch determine
that nuclear fission is taking place in the
Hahn–Strassmann experiments
1942 Enrico Fermi makes the first controlled
nuclear chain reaction
1942 Ernst Stueckelberg introduces the propagator
to positron theory and interprets positrons
as negative energy electrons moving backwards
through spacetime
1943 Sin-Itiro Tomonaga publishes his paper
on the basic physical principles of quantum
electrodynamics
1947 Willis Lamb and Robert Retherford measure
the Lamb–Retherford shift
1947 Cecil Powell, César Lattes, and Giuseppe
Occhialini discover the pi meson by studying
cosmic ray tracks
1947 Richard Feynman presents his propagator
approach to quantum electrodynamics
1948 Hendrik Casimir predicts a rudimentary
attractive Casimir force on a parallel plate
capacitor
1951 Martin Deutsch discovers positronium
1952 David Bohm propose his interpretation
of quantum mechanics
1953 Robert Wilson observes Delbruck scattering
of 1.33 MeV gamma-rays by the electric fields
of lead nuclei
1953 Charles H. Townes, collaborating with
J. P. Gordon, and H. J. Zeiger, builds the
first ammonia maser
1954 Chen Ning Yang and Robert Mills investigate
a theory of hadronic isospin by demanding
local gauge invariance under isotopic spin
space rotations, the first non-Abelian gauge
theory
1955 Owen Chamberlain, Emilio Segrè, Clyde
Wiegand, and Thomas Ypsilantis discover the
antiproton
1956 Frederick Reines and Clyde Cowan detect
antineutrino
1956 Chen Ning Yang and Tsung Lee propose
parity violation by the weak nuclear force
1956 Chien Shiung Wu discovers parity violation
by the weak force in decaying cobalt
1957 Gerhart Luders proves the CPT theorem
1957 Richard Feynman, Murray Gell-Mann, Robert
Marshak, and E.C.G. Sudarshan propose a vector/axial
vector (VA) Lagrangian for weak interactions.
1958 Marcus Sparnaay experimentally confirms
the Casimir effect
1959 Yakir Aharonov and David Bohm predict
the Aharonov–Bohm effect
1960 R.G. Chambers experimentally confirms
the Aharonov–Bohm effect
1961 Murray Gell-Mann and Yuval Ne'eman discover
the Eightfold Way patterns, the SU(3) group
1961 Jeffrey Goldstone considers the breaking
of global phase symmetry
1962 Leon Lederman shows that the electron
neutrino is distinct from the muon neutrino
1963 Eugene Wigner discovers the fundamental
roles played by quantum symmetries in atoms
and molecules
== 
The formation and successes of the Standard
Model ==
1964 Murray Gell-Mann and George Zweig propose
the quark/aces model
1964 Peter Higgs considers the breaking of
local phase symmetry
1964 John Stewart Bell shows that all local
hidden variable theories must satisfy Bell's
inequality
1964 Val Fitch and James Cronin observe CP
violation by the weak force in the decay of
K mesons
1967 Steven Weinberg puts forth his electroweak
model of leptons
1969 John Clauser, Michael Horne, Abner Shimony
and Richard Holt propose a polarization correlation
test of Bell's inequality
1970 Sheldon Glashow, John Iliopoulos, and
Luciano Maiani propose the charm quark
1971 Gerard 't Hooft shows that the Glashow-Salam-Weinberg
electroweak model can be renormalized
1972 Stuart Freedman and John Clauser perform
the first polarization correlation test of
Bell's inequality
1973 David Politzer and Frank Anthony Wilczek
propose the asymptotic freedom of quarks
1974 Burton Richter and Samuel Ting discover
the J/ψ particle implying the existence of
the charm quark
1974 Robert J. Buenker and Sigrid D. Peyerimhoff
introduce the multireference configuration
interaction method.
1975 Martin Perl discovers the tau lepton
1977 Steve Herb finds the upsilon resonance
implying the existence of the beauty/bottom
quark
1982 Alain Aspect, J. Dalibard, and G. Roger
perform a polarization correlation test of
Bell's inequality that rules out conspiratorial
polarizer communication
1983 Carlo Rubbia, Simon van der Meer, and
the CERN UA-1 collaboration find the W and
Z intermediate vector bosons
1989 The Z intermediate vector boson resonance
width indicates three quark-lepton generations
1994 The CERN LEAR Crystal Barrel Experiment
justifies the existence of glueballs (exotic
meson).
1995 The D0 and CDF experiments at the Fermilab
Tevatron discover the top quark.
1998 Super-Kamiokande (Japan) observes evidence
for neutrino oscillations, implying that at
least one neutrino has mass.
1999 Ahmed Zewail wins the Nobel prize in
chemistry for his work on femtochemistry for
atoms and molecules.
2001 The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (Canada)
confirms the existence of neutrino oscillations.
2005 At the RHIC accelerator of Brookhaven
National Laboratory they have created a quark–gluon
liquid of very low viscosity, perhaps the
quark–gluon plasma
2010 The Large Hadron Collider at CERN begins
operation with the primary goal of searching
for the Higgs boson.
2012 CERN announces the discovery of a new
particle with properties consistent with the
Higgs boson of the Standard Model after experiments
at the Large Hadron Collider.
== Quantum field theories beyond the Standard
Model ==
2000 Steven Weinberg. Supersymmetry and Quantum
Gravity.
2003 Leonid Vainerman. Quantum groups, Hopf
algebras and quantum field applications.
Noncommutative quantum field theory
M.R. Douglas and N. A. Nekrasov (2001) "Noncommutative
field theory," Rev. Mod. Phys. 73: 977–1029.
Szabo, R. J. (2003) "Quantum Field Theory
on Noncommutative Spaces," Physics Reports
378: 207–99. An expository article on noncommutative
quantum field theories.
Noncommutative quantum field theory, see statistics
on arxiv.org
Seiberg, N. and E. Witten (1999) "String Theory
and Noncommutative Geometry," Journal of High
Energy Physics
Sergio Doplicher, Klaus Fredenhagen and John
Roberts, Sergio Doplicher, Klaus Fredenhagen,
John E. Roberts (1995) The quantum structure
of spacetime at the Planck scale and quantum
fields," Commun. Math. Phys. 172: 187–220.
Alain Connes (1994) Noncommutative geometry.
Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-185860-X.
-------- (1995) "Noncommutative geometry and
reality", J. Math. Phys. 36: 6194.
-------- (1996) "Gravity coupled with matter
and the foundation of noncommutative geometry,"
Comm. Math. Phys. 155: 109.
-------- (2006) "Noncommutative geometry and
physics,"
-------- and M. Marcolli, Noncommutative Geometry:
Quantum Fields and Motives. American Mathematical
Society (2007).
Chamseddine, A., A. Connes (1996) "The spectral
action principle," Comm. Math. Phys. 182:
155.
Chamseddine, A., A. Connes, M. Marcolli (2007)
"Gravity and the Standard Model with neutrino
mixing," Adv. Theor. Math. Phys. 11: 991.
Jureit, Jan-H., Thomas Krajewski, Thomas Schücker,
and Christoph A. Stephan (2007) "On the noncommutative
standard model," Acta Phys. Polon. B38: 3181–3202.
Schücker, Thomas (2005) Forces from Connes's
geometry. Lecture Notes in Physics 659, Springer.
Noncommutative standard model
Noncommutative geometry
== 
See also ==
History of subatomic physics
History of quantum mechanics
History of quantum field theory
History of the molecule
History of thermodynamics
History of chemistry
Golden age of physics
