Some Milestones in History of Science About 10,000 bce, wolves

Lorentz, independently, reached the same conclusions about the contraction of a moving body.   
In 1889, Giuseppe Peano postulated five properties of natural numbers in attempting to be as 
rigorous with numbers as Euclid had been with geometry. 
In 1890, Boveri and Jean Louis Guignand established the numerical equality of paternal and 
maternal chromosomes at fertilization.
 
In 1890, Hans Driesch separated two cells of a fertized sea urchin egg by shaking with very different
results than Roux: From a single cell arose an entire sea urchin.  Roux's frog experiment was 
repeated and by merely turning the cell over it developed into a whole frog.  Thus, a cell's competence 
to develop fully was established.  Roux was not deterred by this result and continued to maintain,
against  Weismann's germ-line theory, that the mechanics of development were distributed
throughout the cytoplasm and triggered by each prior stage. 
In 1890, Richard Altmann reported the presence within cells of organisms which live as intracellular
symbionts, and were later named mitochondria.
In 1890, Emil Adoph von Behring and Shibasaburo Kitasato showed that antitoxins, that is, 
antibodies, could be produced--without any knowledge of their chemical nature--which neutralized the 
soluble toxins, classically, diptheria, tetanus, and botulism. 
In 1890, Theobold Smith demonstrated the transmission of disease by an 'arthropod vector,' a tick. 
In 1890, William James, in Principles of Psychology, accepted the idea that all behavior derives from 
the nervous system.  He also suggested that learning is accompanied by an increase in neuronal
efficiency, and that primary memory, or short-term memory, is memory of the immediate past still in 
consciousness where it is the object of selective attention. 
In 1890, Eugen Bleuler declared that 'dementia praecox' was curable.
In 1890, Michaelson, in "On the Application of Interference Methods to Astronomical Measurements," 
described the utility of interferometers "in measuring the angular size and the one-dimensional 
brightness distribution of sources that are too small to be resolved by a single telescope" (Lang and
Gingerich 1979:2).
 
Before 1890, Herman Hollerith invented a punch card tabulator which was used in the United States
Census of 1890. Hollerith's company eventually became IBM.  
In the 1890s, William Coley observed that some of his cancer patients were able to eliminate their
cancer after contracting severe bacterial infections and so causing him to use bacterial extracts to
activate the immune system with some good results.
In 1891, Marie Eugene Dubois discovered 'Javaman,' now known as Homo erectus.
 
In 1891, Waldeyer named nerve cells 'neurons.'. 

In 1891, George Redmayne Murray successfully treated hypothyroid patients with a preparation of
sheep thyroid. 
 
In 1892, Poincaré published the first of three volumes on celestial mechanics in which he made 
fundamental mathematical discoveries, such as his demonstration that dynamical systems are non-
integrable, i.e., they are neither static nor deterministic.  He also identified the reason for this, which is 
the existence of resonances between the degrees of freedom of, e.g., harmonic oscillators.  His 
memoirs on 'analysis situs,' as it was then called, marked the beginning of modern topology. 
 
In 1892, Lorentz, in "La théorie électromagnétique de Maxwell et son application aux corps 
mouvants," proposed a theory of 'charged particles,' in which a body carries a charge if it has an
excess of positive or negative particles, an electric current in a conductor is a flow of particulate
particles, and the particles create the electromagnetic field.  "Because Lorentz completely separated 
ether [i.e., the field] and matter, he needed only one pair of directed magnitudes-one electric and one 
magnetic-to define the field at a point" (McCormmach 1976:494).  He also derived Fresnel's 'drag 
coefficient,' the measure of the motion that a moving transparent body communicates to light passing
through it, and demonstrated that the drag was the result of the interference of light.  
 
In 1893, Andreas Franz Wilhelm Schimper proposed the idea that the photosynthetic parts of plant
cells came from cyanobacteria. 
 
In 1893, Freud and Breuer published Über den Psychischen Mechanismus Hysterischer, marking the 
beginning of psychoanalysis.  They claimed that "hysterics suffer mainly from reminescences" (Breuer 
and Freud 1893:7).
 
In 1893, Michaelson completed the measurement of the standard meter in terms of the wave length
of the red line of the cadmium spectrum, providing an absolute and reproducible standard.
 
In 1893, Emile Durkheim published the first of a series of sociological books in which he explained
how the ostensible explanations of theistic world-views, e.g., curiosity about the seasons or the rest of 
the natural environment, are actually "phrased so as to satisfy a dominant social concern, the problem 
of how to organize together in society" (Douglas 1966:91). 
In 1894, William Bateson, in Materials for the Study of Variation, emphasized the importance of 
discontinuous variations and described and named homeotic mutations. 
In 1894, H. J. H. Fenton discovered a reaction, to which he lent his name, now considered to be one
of the most important mechanisms of oxidative damage in living cells. 
In 1894, Ramón y Cajal, combining and extending the ideas of E. Tanzi and E. Lugaro, proposed 
the plastic, or functional, change hypothesis for neuronal growth, according to which synapses on
'associative pathways' are able to strengthen through use and to make new associations through
learning. 
 
In 1894, George Oliver and Eduard Albert Sharpey-Schaeffer demonstrated the effect of an extract 
of the adrenal gland, that is to say, a hormone, which contracted blood vessels and muscles and
raised blood pressure.
 
In 1894, Emil Fischer suggested that a cell contains a chemically active substance whose 
geometrical configuration is complementary to that of another substance, fitting it like a key in a lock
(Fischer 1894; de Duve 1991:22n8).  These studies still form the basis of our notions of enzyme
specificity. 
 
[["From the time of [N.] Carnot on, when it was discovered that the new science of thermodynamics
did not require any sort of picture or model to explain the nature of heat, there had been a widespread
hostile attitude among Continental physicists [Mach is one example] to any form of hypothetical model 
in science.  By [the time of Boltzmann, Planck, and Hertz], however, new developments in physics 
were requiring fresh patterns of explanation, and these warranted complex mechanical hypotheses"
(Janik and Toulmin 1973:143)]]. 
 
In 1894, Hertz, in Principien der Mechanik, having earlier held that "Maxwell's theory is in Maxwell's 
equations" (Hertz, quoted in McCormmach 1976:346), noted that mathematical formulas could confer
a logical structure on physical reality, creating 'possible sequences' of observed events.  Hertz 
opened Principien with the statement that "all physicists agree that the problem of physics consists in
tracing the phenomena of nature back to the simple laws of mechanics" (Ibid.:348).  He went on to 
trace the classic mechanical formulations of Newton, Lagrange, and Hamilton, but it was one of the 
last times anyone would make that statement.  
In 1894, Strutt and William Ramsay discovered and isolated argon in the process of explaining the
discrepancy between the weight of nitrogen obtained from the air and from ammonia.   
 
In 1894, Élie Joseph Cartan, in "Sur la Structure des Groupe de Transformations Finis et Continus,"
laid out all possible variations of Lie groups and gave them names, e.g., U(1), or unitary group with
one matrix row, or SU(2), or special unitary group with two matrix rows (Cartan 1894:133-287). 
In 1894, Oliver Joseph Lodge invented the 'coherer,' a detector used in early radio receivers.
 

In 1895, Richard F. J. Pfeiffer presented the theory that bactericidal substances in the blood, or
"Antikörper," were "highly active" and "were formed 'under the influence' of the body's cells and were
consumed in the process of destroying bacteria" (Keating and Ousman 1991:248). 
 
In 1895, Smith  produced a blood deficiency disease in guinea pigs by depriving them of leafy
vegetables. 
 
In 1895, Johannes Eugenius Bülow Warming, in Plantesamfund (which was translated as The 
Ecology of Plants in 1909), plotted the distribution of plants against temperature and moisture. 
 
In 1895, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, using a Crookes' tube, observed a new form of penetrating 
radiation, which he named X-rays.
 
In 1895, Lorentz, in Versuch einer Theoris der electrischen und optischen Erscheinungen in 
bewegten Körpen, spoke of 'ions,' instead of charged particles, and produced an equation connecting
the continuous field with discrete electricity.  
In 1895, Guglielmo Marconi sent longwave wireless telegraphic, or radio, signals over a distance of 
more than a mile.
 
In 1896, Romanes  promulgated the notion that behavior is species-dependent and phyletic, or 
inherited.  He also coined the term 'Neo-Darwinism' in order to differentiate pre- and post-
Weismannian concepts of evolution. 
 
In 1896, Conwy Lloyd Morgan, James Mark Baldwin, and Henry Fairfield Osborn, each 
independently, proposed a theory of how acquired characters could be inherited.  Lloyd Morgan 
concluded that evolutionary changes in anatomy can give rise to new behavior patterns.  Baldwin 
named his version 'Organic Selection' "since it required the direct cooperation of the organism itself." 
The idea behind this so-called 'Baldwin effect' is that learning creates habituation which, in turn,
provides the adaptive occasion for selection, or "overproduction with survival of the fittest" (Baldwin
1896:546,548-549). 
 
In 1896, Ferdinand Isidore Widal introduced serological diagnosis through his discovery that typhoid
patients agglutinate typhoid bacilli. 
 
In 1896, Eduard Buchner discovered a chemical in yeast, which he called zymase.  He noted that the 
crushed yeast, that is, cell-free yeast, fermented sugar.  This observation opened the era of modern 
biochemistry. 
 
In 1896, Freud suggested analyzing childhood conflicts in the study of neuroses.  He also devised a 
psychoanalytic technique called 'free association' which allows emotionally-charged, repressed 
material to be consciously recognized.  Over the next few years, Freud expanded his interpretive
repertoire to include "dreams..., slips of the tongue, bungled actions, the forgetting of names, and 
what he called 'screen memories' (vivid but essentially counterfeit recollections from childhood)" (Kerr
1993:76).
 
In 1896, Pieter Zeeman observed that a single spectral line splits into a group of closely spaced lines
when the substance producing the line is subjected to a uniform magnetic field.  This is known as the 
'Zeeman effect,' and was explained by Lorentz on the basis of his electron theory.  
 
In 1896, Antoine Henri Becquerel discovered radioactivity in uranium. 
In 1896, Boltzmann, in Vorlesunfer über Gastheorie, provided what he felt was a reasonable basis for 
statistical mechanics: "We...obtain the correct average values if we consider...an infinite number of
equivalent systems, which started from arbitrary initial conditions" (Boltzmann 1896:310).  These 
mean values he called the 'Ergoden,' or "the so-called 'quasi-ergotic hypothesis, [i.e.,] the trajectory of 
a [kinetic] system may pass arbitrarily close to every point on an energy surface" (Brush 1964:11).  
In 1897, Paul Ehrlich , in Die Wertbemessung des Diphtherieheilserums und deren theoretische
Grundlagen,determined that a toxin was toxic because it had a chemical, i.e., molecular receptor,
structure complementary to the molecular structure of the susceptible cell.  If there were no matching 
receptors, this meant there was no disease.  If there were some matches, but the cell did not have 
enough receptors to deal with all the toxins, the cell would produce more and release them into the
blood (Ehrlich 1897).  This was the first selective theory of antibody formation. By 1900, he had
revised this theory to mintain that antibodies were continuously formed under normal conditions.
In 1897, Charles Sherrington named the junction between the neurons, a 'synapse.'
 
In 1897, Christiaan Eijkman proved that in a rice diet only rice with hulls intact would prevent
'beriberi.'
 
In 1897, Gabriel Bertrand  designated certain inorganic substances co-enzymes because they were 
necessary to activate certain enzymes. 
In 1897, Felix Hoffman synthesized a form of acetysalicylic acid that enabled the mass production of
aspirin two years later.
 
In 1897, Jean Henri Fabre observed a series of stereotypic sequences in insect behavior, later named
'fixed-action patterns' by Konrad Lorenz.

In 1897, Wilhelm Fliess suggested that all organisms were fundamentally bisexual, with the
implication that adolescence is as much a time of sexual repression as of sexual flowering.
 
In 1897, Joseph John Thomson, using a Crookes' tube, demonstrated that cathode rays consisted of 
units of electrical current made up of negatively charged particles of subatomic size.  Believing them 
to be integral to all matter, in "Cathode Rays," he hypothesized a model of atomic structure in which
negatively charged particles, or electrons, were embedded in a sphere of positive electricity.
(Thomson 1897) 
 
In 1897, Boltzmann, responding to Ernst Zermelo on time irreversibility, preferred a "universe, which 
is in thermal equilibrium as a whole and therefore dead, [but has] here and there relatively small
regions the size of our galaxy..., which during the relatively short time of aeons deviate significantly 
from thermal equilibrium," i.e., corresponding to the existence of life, to an entire universe of
"unidirectional change...from a definite initial state to final state" (Boltzmann, quoted in Cercignani
1998:102).  Earlier, to the same end, he had maintained that "the probability that such a small part of 
[the universe] as our world should be in its present state is no longer small" (Boltzmann 1895:415).  
In 1897, Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn, in a program of measuring the proper motions of stars, found
two preferred directions of motion, roughly toward and away from the center of our Galaxy.  This is 
known as 'star streaming.'
 
In 1897, Peirce attempted to publish a topographical system of symbolic logic which he belived could
give geometric expression to any conceivable assertion or logical argument.  "Once a formal structure 
had been adequately graphed, it could then be experimented upon in a manner similar to the way a
scientist experiments with a structure in nature" (Gardner 1982:56). 
In 1898, Henry Fairfield Osborne  enunciated the evolutionary concept of 'adaptive radiation,' the
descent from an ancestral form of related species occupying and exploiting different types of available
habitats. 
 
In 1898, Edward L. Thorndike devised the first reliable techniques for measuring learning in animals.
In 1898, Golgi described the 'Golgi apparatus.'
 
In 1898, Stokes suggested that X-rays were pulses of radiation emitted when electrons, ejected from
a cathode, hit a target. 
 
In 1898, Marie Sklodowska Curie and P. Curie discovered and isolated radium and polonium. and 
clarified that radiation was an atomic property.  M. Curie coined the term 'radioactive.' 
 
In 1898, J. Thomson, in "On the Charge of Electricity Carried by the Ions Produced by Röntgen-
Rays," showed that neon gas consisted of two types of charged electrons, or ions, each with a
different charge, or mass, or both.  This raised the possibility that varieties of a single element might
exist with the same atomic number but differ in mass.   
In 1898, Planck, in "Über irreversible Strahlungsvorgänge. 
 Vierte Mitteilung" and probably 
responding to Boltzmann's criticism, adopted the kinetic theory and changed his program completely,
saying that "all the radiation processes which do not exhibit the feature of irreversibility" must be 
excluded (Planck, quoted in Cercignani 1976:218).  
In 1898, Wien, while studying streams of ionized gas, identified a positive particle equal in mass to
the hydrogen atom, which later was named the 'proton.' 
In 1898, Poincaré, in "De la mesure du temps," postulated the limiting and constant speed of light
and formulated the principle of relativity non-mathematically. 
In 1898, George Johnstone Stoney showed that the stability of the atmosphere of a given planet
depends on its temperature and its mass.  If the velocity of individual molecules, as determined by
their temperature, exceed the planet's 'escape velocity,' as determined by its gravitational pull, the
lighter molecules are more likely to escape. 
In 1898, Ramsey and Morris Travers discovered neon, krypton, and xenon.
In 1898, James Dewar liquified hydrogen.
In 1899, Charles O. Whitman  , working with pigeons, and Oskar Heinroth, working with ducks, 
independently discovered that the stereotypic responses of birds could be used as a taxonomic 
criteria for phylogenetic classification.
 
In 1899, the sixth edition of Emil Kraepelin's textbook, Psychiatrie, codified a diagnostic distinction, 
based on outcome statistics, by adding dementia praecox, i.e., 'schizophrenia,' to 'manic-depression' 
and 'paranoia.'
 
In 1899, Ernest Rutherford characterized the radiation from radium as being quite complex, easily
absorbed, and stopped by a few centimeters of air.  These he named 'alpha rays.'  He also 
characterized uranium radiation as far more penetrating.  These he named 'beta rays.'
 
In 1899, Becquerel showed that radioactivity in uranium consists in charged particles that are
deflected by a magnetic field.
 
In 1899, Strutt, in "On the Transmission of Light Through an Atmosphere Containing Small Particles

in Suspension, and On the Origin of the Blue of the Sky," explained 'elastic scattering of
electromagnetic radiation,' called 'Rayleigh scattering,' as reflected photons, i.e., photons which
bounce off atoms and molecules without any change of energy.  Therefore, for example, the 'elastic 
scattering' of photons when they bounce off molecules and atoms in the Earth's atmosphere accounts
for the color of the sky and red sunsets.  
In 1899, J. Thomson, in "On the Masses of Ions in Gases at Low Pressure," pointed out that ions
have "a very much smaller mass than ordinary atoms; so that in the convection of negative
electricity...we have...something which involves the splitting up of the atom" (Thomson 1899:548).  
In 1899, Lorentz, in "Théorie simplifiée des phénomènes électriques et optique dans des corps en 
mouvement," treated his contraction hypothesis mathematically in terms of electrons and, except for
not determining the coefficient and not generalizing the subject to any mass, the resulting
transformations for space and time coordinates are the same as those in his 1904 article.  
 
In 1899, Thomas Chrowder Chamberlain raised the question of whether the "present knowledge
relative to the behavior of matter under such extraordinary conditions as obtain in the interior of the
sun [is] sufficiently exhaustive to warrent the assertion that no unrecognized sources of heat reside
there?  What the internal constitution of atoms may be is yet open to question.  It is not improbable 
that they are complex organizations and seats of enormous energies" (Chamberlain 1899:12). 
Chamberlain was a geologist and "up to the end of the nineteenth century, the minimum estimates of
geologists were far in excess of the maximum which physicists would allow for the age of the solar
system on the basis of known sources of energy radiated by the sun.  When the enormously greater 
energy from the conversion of mass became known, there was no difficulty in reconciling estimates"
(Wright 1948:920).
 
In 1900, Julius Bernstein hypothesized that nerve cells have both a resting and a stimulated
potential. During the resting potential, the cell is impermeable to the negatively charged ions. When
the cell is stimulated, the ions can pass in both directions (Bernstein 1902)
In 1900, the significance of Mendel's work was realized when there were three independent accounts
of it by Hugo Marie de Vries, Carl Erich Correns, and Erich von Tschermak von Seysegegg. 
 
In 1900, Karl Pearson developed the chi-square, or 

2
, test, a statistical procedure that enables the 
determination of how closely an experimental set of values conforms to theoretical expectation. 
In 1900, Mikhail Semenovich Tsvet, or sometimes Tswett, established that in leaves there are two
green pigments, chlorophyll a and b, differing in color, fluorescence, and spectral absorption.
Subsequently he discerned another green pigment, chlorophyll c.
In 1900, Planck, in "Zur Theorie des Gesetzes der Enieverteilung im Normalspektrum," introduced the
'quantum theory' to explain a formula, E=hf, where E is energy, f is frequency, and h is a new 
constant, 6.63 x 10
-34
 J-sec., which accounts for experimental data in black-body radiation. Quantum
is a Latin word, widely used in German to mean 'portion.'.  This theory holds that oscillating atoms 
absorb and emit energy, or light, only in discrete bundles, or 'quanta,' rather than continuously, as
classical physics would have it. Each quanta has a value proportional to the frequency of the 
oscillation.  
 
In 1900, Joseph Larmor, in Aether and Matter, showed that Maxwell's theory of the electromagnetic 
field can be derived from a Lagrangian, which equals the square of the magnetic field strength H
2
minus the square of the electric field E
2
.  
In 1900, Rutherford identified a third type of radiation, which he called 'gamma radiation.' Rather than
consisting of particles, like alpha and beta radiation, gamma rays are electromagnetic photons.  
In 1901, de Vries devoted his book, in Die Mutationstheorie, promulgated the principle characters, or 
genes, and the speculation that that made possible, namely, evolution of species by discontinuities, or
'saltations,' rather than by imperceptible gradations.  This led to Darwin's eclipse for some years, at 
least, for those biologists who believed with de Vries that mutation superceded selection as the cause
of evolution. 
 
In 1901, Richard Bucke proposed the possibility of man's evolution from self-consciousness to 
'cosmic consciousness.' 
In 1901, Josiah Royce contended that "the distinction between Self and the not-Self had a 
predominently social origin" (Royce 1901:245). 
In 1901, Planck discovered the first indications of the granular structure of electromagnetic radiation 
while working on the spectrum of blackbody radiation. 
In 1901, Oliver Heaviside and, independently, Arthur E. Kennelly predicted the existence of an 
atmospheric layer, later named the ionosphere, that would reflect radio waves.  This encouraged