Science: A History in 100 Experiments

CONTENTS

1 THE UPWARD THRUST OF WATER

2 MEASURING THE DIAMETER OF THE EARTH

3 THE EYE AS A PINHOLE CAMERA

4 DISSECTING THE HUMAN BODY

5 MEASURING THE MAGNETIC FIELD OF THE EARTH

6 MEASURING INERTIA

7 CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD

8 WEIGHING THE ATMOSPHERE

9 RESISTING THE SQUEEZE

10 REVEALING THE MICROSCOPIC WORLD

11 ALL THE COLOURS OF THE RAINBOW

12 THE SPEED OF LIGHT IS FINITE

13 VITAMIN AT SEA

14 CONDUCTING THE LIGHTNING

15 THE HEAT OF ICE

16 STEAMING AHEAD

17 BREATHING PLANTS AND PURE AIR

18 OPENING UP THE SOLAR SYSTEM

19 ANIMAL HEAT, BUT NO ANIMAL MAGIC

20 TWITCHING FROGS AND ELECTRIC PILES

21 WEIGHING THE EARTH

22 BORING EXPERIMENTS ON HEAT

23 THE FIRST VACCINE

24 FEELING INVISIBLE LIGHT

25 COSMIC RUBBLE

26 FLYING HIGH WITH HYDROGEN

27 LIGHT IS A WAVE

28 DISCOVERING ATOMS

29 ELECTRIFYING SCIENCE

30 QUANTIFYING CHEMISTRY

31 THINKING ABOUT THE POWER OF FIRE

32 A RANDOM WALK

33 THE MAGNETISM OF ELECTRICITY

34 THE DEATH OF VITALISM

35 MAKING ELECTRICITY

36 AN UPLIFTING EXPERIENCE

38 TRUMPETERS ON A TRAIN

39 THE SPEED OF ICE

40 ABSORBING RADIANT HEAT

41 THE LEVIATHAN OF PARSONSTOWN

42 CONTROVERSY AND CONTROLS

43 FROM FIRE LIGHT TO STAR LIGHT

44 PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN CURE

45 PINNING DOWN THE SPEED OF LIGHT

46 DEATH TO BACTERIA

47 THE FLOWERING OF EVOLUTION THEORY

48 THE BENZENE SNAKE DANCE

49 THE MONK AND THE PEAS

50 THE IMPORTANCE OF NOTHING

51 FEELING THE SQUEEZE

52 THE SPEED OF LIGHT IS CONSTANT

53 SPARKING RADIO INTO LIGHT

54 NOBLE GASES AND A NOBLE LORD

55 THE BIRTH OF BIOCHEMISTRY

56 ENTER THE X-RAY

57 ENTER THE ELECTRON

58 RADIOACTIVITY REVEALED

59 KNOCKING ELECTRONS WITH LIGHT

60 A PAVLOVIAN RESPONSE

61 JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH

62 INSIDE THE ATOM

63 A RULER FOR THE UNIVERSE

64 THE DISCOVERY OF NUCLEIC ACIDS

65 EVOLUTION AT WORK

66 SOMETHING TO BRAG ABOUT

67 LIGHT FROM THE DARKNESS

68 ELECTRON WAVES AND QUANTUM DUALITY

69 TAKING THE ROUGH WITH THE SMOOTH

70 AN ANTIBIOTIC BREAKTHROUGH

71 SPLITTING THE ATOM

72 MAKING VITAMIN C

73 PROBING PROTEINS

74 ARTIFICIAL RADIOACTIVITY

75 THE CAT IN THE BOX

76 FISSION GETS HEAVY

77 THE FIRST NUCLEAR REACTOR

78 THE FIRST PROGRAMMABLE COMPUTER

79 DISCOVERING THE ROLE OF DNA

80 JUMPING GENES

81 THE ALPHA HELIX

82 A BLEND OF DNA

83 THE DOUBLE HELIX

84 MAKING THE MOLECULES OF LIFE

85 MASERS AND LASERS

86 MAGNETIC STRIPES AND SEA-FLOOR SPREADING

87 DETECTING THE GHOST PARTICLE

88 A VITAL VITAMIN

89 THE BREATHING PLANET

90 THE ECHO OF THE BIG BANG

91 CLOCKING ON TO RELATIVITY

92 MAKING WAVES IN THE UNIVERSE

93 THE PACEMAKER OF ICE AGES

94 THE WORLD IS NON-LOCAL

95 THE ULTIMATE QUANTUM EXPERIMENT

96 THE ACCELERATING UNIVERSE

97 MAPPING THE HUMAN GENOME

98 FIFTEEN EQUALS THREE TIMES FIVE

99 MAKING MATTER MASSIVE

100 THE COMPOSITION OF THE UNIVERSE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

© NASA/Science Photo Library
Astronaut working on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) during a routine servicing mission.

© Caltech/MIT/Ligo Labs/Science Photo Library
LIGO gravitational wave detector. Aerial photograph of the Livingston detector site for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). LIGO compares measurements between two detector sites 3000 kilometres apart, one near Hanford, Washington, USA, and the other near Livingston, Louisiana, USA. Each site is an L-shaped ultra-high vacuum system, four kilometres long on each side. Laser interferometers are used to look for small changes caused by gravitational waves. LIGO has been operating since 2002, with an advanced upgrade (aLIGO) operating since 2015. On 11 February 2016 it was announced that gravitational waves had been detected by LIGO. The signal was detected on 14 September 2015, and was the result of two black holes colliding.