---
title: "Timeline of scientific discoveries"
chunk: 5/7
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_scientific_discoveries"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:28:31.534973+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

16th century: Gerolamo Cardano solves the general cubic equation (by reducing them to the case with zero quadratic term).
16th century: Lodovico Ferrari solves the general quartic equation (by reducing it to the case with zero quartic term).
16th century: François Viète discovers Vieta's formulas.
16th century: François Viète discovers Viète's formula for π.1500: Scipione del Ferro solves the special cubic equation 
  
    
      
        
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Late 16th century: Tycho Brahe proves that comets are astronomical (and not atmospheric) phenomena.
1517: Nicolaus Copernicus develops the quantity theory of money and states the earliest known form of Gresham's law: ("Bad money drowns out good").
1543: Nicolaus Copernicus develops a heliocentric model, rejecting Aristotle's Earth-centric view, would be the first quantitative heliocentric model in history.
1543: Vesalius: pioneering research into human anatomy.
1545: Gerolamo Cardano discovers complex numbers.
1556: Niccolò Tartaglia introduces parenthesis.
1557: Robert Recorde introduces the equal sign.
1564: Gerolamo Cardano is the first to produce a systematic treatment of probability.
1572: Rafael Bombelli provides rules for complex arithmetic.
1591: François Viète's New algebra shows the modern notational algebraic manipulation.

== 17th century ==
1600: William Gilbert: Earth's magnetic field.
1608: Earliest record of an optical telescope.
1609: Johannes Kepler: first two laws of planetary motion.
1610: Galileo Galilei: Sidereus Nuncius: telescopic observations.
1614: John Napier: use of logarithms for calculation.
1619: Johannes Kepler: third law of planetary motion.
1620: Appearance of the first compound microscopes in Europe.
1628: Willebrord Snellius: the law of refraction also known as Snell's law.
1628: William Harvey: blood circulation.
1638: Galileo Galilei: laws of falling bodies.
1643: Evangelista Torricelli invents the mercury barometer.
1662: Robert Boyle: Boyle's law of ideal gases.
1665: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society: first peer reviewed scientific journal published.
1665: Robert Hooke: discovers the cell.
1668: Francesco Redi: disproved idea of spontaneous generation.
1669: Nicholas Steno: proposes that fossils are organic remains embedded in layers of sediment, basis of stratigraphy.
1669: Jan Swammerdam: epigenesis in insects.
1672: Sir Isaac Newton: discovers that white light is a mixture of distinct coloured rays (the spectrum).
1673: Christiaan Huygens: first study of oscillating system and design of pendulum clocks
1675: Leibniz, Newton: infinitesimal calculus.
1675: Anton van Leeuwenhoek: observes microorganisms using a refined simple microscope.
1676: Ole Rømer:  first measurement of the speed of light.
1687: Sir Isaac Newton: classical mathematical description of the fundamental force of universal gravitation and the three physical laws of motion.

== 18th century ==
1735: Carl Linnaeus described a new system for classifying plants in Systema Naturae.
1745: Ewald Georg von Kleist first capacitor, the Leyden jar.
1749 – 1789: Buffon wrote Histoire naturelle.
1750: Joseph Black: describes latent heat.
1751: Benjamin Franklin: lightning is electrical.
1755: Immanuel Kant: Gaseous Hypothesis in Universal Natural History and Theory of Heaven.
1761: Mikhail Lomonosov: discovery of the atmosphere of Venus.
1763: Thomas Bayes: publishes the first version of Bayes' theorem, paving the way for Bayesian probability.
1771: Charles Messier: publishes catalogue of astronomical objects (Messier Objects) now known to include galaxies, star clusters, and nebulae.
1778: Antoine Lavoisier (and Joseph Priestley): discovery of oxygen leading to end of Phlogiston theory.
1781: William Herschel announces discovery of Uranus, expanding the known boundaries of the Solar System for the first time in modern history.
1785: William Withering: publishes the first definitive account of the use of foxglove (digitalis) for treating dropsy.
1787: Jacques Charles: Charles's law of ideal gases.
1789: Antoine Lavoisier: law of conservation of mass, basis for chemistry, and the beginning of modern chemistry.
1796: Georges Cuvier: Establishes extinction as a fact.
1796: Edward Jenner: smallpox historical accounting.
1796: Hanaoka Seishū: develops general anaesthesia.
1800: Alessandro Volta: discovers electrochemical series and invents the battery.

== 1800–1849 ==
1802: Jean-Baptiste Lamarck: teleological evolution.
1805: John Dalton: Atomic Theory in (chemistry).
1820: Hans Christian Ørsted discovers that a current passed through a wire will deflect the needle of a compass, establishing the deep relationship between electricity and magnetism (electromagnetism).
1820: Michael Faraday and James Stoddart discover alloying iron with chromium produces a stainless steel resistant to oxidising elements (rust).
1821: Thomas Johann Seebeck is the first to observe a property of semiconductors.
1824: Carnot: described the Carnot cycle, the idealized heat engine.
1824: Joseph Aspdin develops Portland cement (concrete), by heating ground limestone, clay and gypsum, in a kiln.
1827: Évariste Galois development of group theory.
1827: Georg Ohm: Ohm's law (Electricity).
1827: Amedeo Avogadro: Avogadro's law (Gas law).
1828: Friedrich Wöhler synthesized urea, refuting vitalism.
1830: Nikolai Lobachevsky created Non-Euclidean geometry.
1831: Michael Faraday discovers electromagnetic induction.
1833: Anselme Payen isolates first enzyme, diastase.
1837: Charles Babbage proposes a design for the construction of a Turing complete, general purpose Computer, to be called the Analytical Engine.
1838: Matthias Schleiden: all plants are made of cells.
1838: Friedrich Bessel: first successful measure of stellar parallax (to star 61 Cygni).
1842: Christian Doppler: Doppler effect.
1843: James Prescott Joule: Law of Conservation of energy (first law of thermodynamics), also 1847 – Helmholtz, Conservation of energy.
1846: Johann Gottfried Galle and Heinrich Louis d'Arrest: discovery of Neptune.
1847: George Boole: publishes The Mathematical Analysis of Logic, defining Boolean algebra; refined in his 1854 The Laws of Thought.
1848: Lord Kelvin: absolute zero.