Portal:History of science

This timeline of chemistry lists important works, discoveries, ideas, inventions, and experiments that significantly changed humanity's understanding of the modern science known as chemistry, defined as the scientific study of the composition of matter and of its interactions.

Known as "the central science", the study of chemistry is strongly influenced by, and exerts a strong influence on, many other scientific and technological fields. Many historical developments that are considered to have had a significant impact upon our modern understanding of chemistry are also considered to have been key discoveries in such fields as physics, biology, astronomy, geology, and materials science. (Full article...)

The Flammarion woodcut is an enigmatic woodcut by an unknown artist. It is referred to as the "Flammarion woodcut" because its first documented appearance is in page 163 of Camille Flammarion's L'atmosphère: météorologie populaire ("The Atmosphere: Popular Meteorology," Paris, 1888).

The woodcut depicts a man, dressed as a medieval pilgrim and carrying a pilgrim's staff, peering through the sky as if it were a curtain to look at the inner workings of the universe. One of the elements of the cosmic machinery bears a strong resemblance to traditional pictorial representations of the "wheel in the middle of a wheel" described in the visions of the prophet Ezekiel (see Merkabah). The caption in Flammarion's book translates as "A missionary of the Middle Ages tells that he had found the point where the sky and the Earth touched..." The image accompanies a text which reads, in part, "What, then, is this blue sky, which certainly does exist, and which veils from us the stars during the day?" The woodcut is often described as being medieval due to its visual style, its fanciful vision of the world, and to what appears to be a depiction of a flat Earth.

...that Einstein's famous letter to FDR about the possibility of an atomic bomb was actually written by Leó Szilárd?

...that geology was transformed in the latter part of the 20th century after widespread acceptance of plate tectonics?

...that the idea of biological evolution dates to the ancient world?

Gray in the 1870s

Asa Gray ForMemRS (November 18, 1810 – January 30, 1888) is considered the most important American botanist of the 19th century. His Darwiniana was considered an important explanation of how religion and science were not necessarily mutually exclusive. Gray was adamant that a genetic connection must exist between all members of a species. He was also strongly opposed to the ideas of hybridization within one generation and special creation in the sense of its not allowing for evolution. He was a strong supporter of Darwin, although Gray's theistic evolution was guided by a Creator.

As a professor of botany at Harvard University for several decades, Gray regularly visited, and corresponded with, many of the leading natural scientists of the era, including Charles Darwin, who held great regard for him. Gray made several trips to Europe to collaborate with leading European scientists of the era, as well as trips to the southern and western United States. He also built an extensive network of specimen collectors. (Full article...)

• 1671 – Birth of Guido Grandi, Italian mathematician (d. 1742)

• 1768 – Death of Robert Simson, Scottish mathematician (b. 1687)

• 1800 – Birth of Lars Levi Laestadius, Swedish-born botanist and founder of Laestadianism (d. 1861)

• 1811 - The first steamboat to sail the Mississippi River arrives in New Orléans, Louisiana

• 1838 – Death of Charles Tennant, Scottish chemist and industrialist (b. 1768)

• 1880 - First electric lamp factory opened by Thomas Edison

• 1904 – Birth of Otto Robert Frisch, Austrian-born physicist (d. 1979)

• 1910 – Birth of José Enrique Moyal, Australian mathematical physicist (d. 1998)

• 1969 - The Concorde supersonic transport plane breaks the sound barrier for the first time