This Month in Physics History

Deep underground, Japan’s “Super-K” detector picked up hints that the ghostly particles have mass — and switch from type to type.

An expanding universe, Lemaître reasoned, might have started with a single “primeval atom.”

Director Stanley Kubrick packed the iconic movie with accurate depictions of space and physics, and inspired a generation of sci-fi films.

A group of University of Iowa scientists made the extraordinary discovery.

Manabe, who won the 2021 Nobel Prize, developed models that forecast the warming effects of greenhouse gases.

Detection of waves emitted by colliding binary black holes opened a new era in astrophysics and proved that Einstein was right.

Heisenberg’s matrix mechanics fixed the holes in quantum theory by taking physics into the realm of pure abstraction and math.

The two-time Nobel laureate was recognized for her “transcendent service to science and humanity” with the gift of an essential ingredient for her life-saving research.

The reactor, which achieved criticality in just nine months, had both wartime and peacetime utility.

The Keeling curve deepened our understanding of Earth’s workings, and continues to show how fossil fuel emissions are changing the planet.

The film’s visualization of a fictional black hole was both iconic and grounded in science.

A seminal paper by Paul Dirac, who relied on mathematical intuition, laid the foundation for quantum electrodynamics.

Fleming’s innovation kickstarted the age of electronics.

West’s research at a naval facility in Virginia proved crucial to navigation satellite systems.

Years earlier, a physicist named Ross Gunn had recognized the potential of nuclear energy to power submarines.

Voyager 2 became the first spacecraft to probe the Solar System’s mysterious ice giants.

Alexander Friedmann used Einstein’s general theory of relativity to propose a universe that could expand or contract.

Before an audience of some 500 fellow physicists, Allen Austin delivered a powerful speech about the bureau’s core values.

George Carruthers' invention of an ultraviolet telescope was the first telescope set up on another planetary body.

In clever experiments studying what he called “radiant heat” — what we now know as infrared light — Herschel realized there might be light we can’t see.

Chemist Bertram Boltwood published a paper in the American Journal of Science detailing a novel method of dating rocks.

Emil Rupp’s research, which fooled even Einstein, is exposed as fraud.

Inventor Granville T. Woods became locked in a patent battle over an invention which allowed stations to communicate with trains.

The Jurassic Park-themed game Trespasser made history using classical mechanics.

By carefully studying earthquake shock waves, Lehmann realized that the prevailing view of Earth’s structure was incomplete.

In 1856, an American woman named Eunice Newton Foote conducted a series of homespun experiments that concluded carbon dioxide could warm the earth.

In 1980 astronomer Vera Rubin published an influential paper, which charted the rotation curves of 21 spiral galaxies, with the conclusion that non-luminous matter exists beyond the optical galaxy.

The electret microphone is now found in nearly every consumer product that has a microphone.

The duo’s work energized the 1987 APS meeting that became known as the “Woodstock of Physics.”

When the Venera 3 spacecraft hit Venus, it became the first human-made object to touch the surface of another planet.

In February 1947, fruit flies became the first animals to rocket Into space.

Leon Lederman's findings demonstrate that physicists can learn from failure to make significant discoveries.

Six young women programmed the world’s first modern electronic computer (ENIAC), which ran its first, top-secret program in 1945.

In November 1964 John Stewart Bell published the seminal quantum theory paper "On the Einstein Podolsky Rosen Paradox" but recognition came slowly.

Lee and Yang's explosive paper in 1956 cracked the mirror of parity.

In 1887 electrical engineer James Blyth built the world's first wind turbine in his front yard.

Launched on April 24, 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope represents one of the most ambitious undertakings in the history of unmanned space study.

The first real measurement of a rogue wave occurred on January 1, 1995.

The public generally associates Samuel Morse with the invention of the telegraph, but decades earlier, Sir Francis Ronalds, created his own version of an electric telegraph.

Today, we think of physics and astronomy as being inexorably linked, thanks to the work of Johannes Kepler.

Wolfgang Pauli first proposed the existence of neutrinos in 1930 while investigating the conundrum of radioactive beta decay.

In 1824 French mechanical engineer and physicist Sadi Carnot published Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire, which led to the discovery of the law of thermodynamics.

In April 1954, researchers at Bell Laboratories demonstrated the first practical silicon solar cell.

In October 1958, Physicist William Higinbotham created what is thought to be the first video game.

In March 1896 Henri Becquerel discovered spontaneous radioactivity.

In December 1938, physicists Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch realized that a uranium nucleus could be split in two.

At around 240 B.C., Eratosthenes devised a clever method of estimating the circumference of the Earth.