Create a timeline of famous scientific
experiments
Student guide A
In this activity, you will research famous scientific experiments from ancient times to the present
and record the information in a Microsoft Office Excel timeline.
Step 1
Research
Materials: Windows® Internet Explorer®, textbooks, and library books
What to do: Plan your timeline
Using Internet Explorer, your science textbooks, and library books, research the history of
scientific experiments from ancient times all the way to the present. Be sure to consult several
different resources (print and non-print media) when making your list because each list will offer
only some of the significant experiments around the world. You will select which experiments to
include and explain why you chose them. Remember, you are looking for scientific experiments,
not scientific discoveries. For example, the discovery of the magnetic compass in 1182 and the
discovery of the electric battery in 1799 are not examples of famous scientific experiments.
Consult the Web sites your teacher has saved under Internet Explorer Favorites to help you with
your research. These sites may include the following:
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Wikipedia, Timeline of scientific experiments
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_scientific_experiments)
BambooWeb Dictionary Timeline of Scientific Experiments
(http://www.bambooweb.com/articles/t/i/Timeline_of_scientific_experiments.html)
Eric Weisstein’s World of Science (http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/) (biographies of
scientists and explanations of topics in physics, astronomy, and chemistry)
Consult the following two Web sites for comprehensive, annotated lists of Internet resources on
the history of science, including links to biographies, general histories of science, bibliographies,
Nobel Prize scientists, the Galileo Project, the complete works of Darwin, and much more. You
can use these sites as a starting point for further research.
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The University of Delaware’s “Internet Resources for History of Science and Technology”
(http://www2.lib.udel.edu/subj/hsci/internet.htm).
Librarians Marianne Stowell Bracke and Paul J. Bracke’s article “Science and Technology
Resources on the Internet” (http://www.library.ucsb.edu/istl/99-winter/internet.html).
You can use this site as starting point for further research.
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Fordham University’s “Internet History of Science Sourcebook,”
(http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/science/sciencebooks.html) edited by Paul Halsall.
On paper or in a Microsoft Office Word file, make a list of 30 experiments that you want to
include in your timeline. Be sure to include experiments from all stages of history and from all
parts of the world. For example, don’t limit your list to the 20th century or Western cultures. To
keep your timeline balanced, select only 5 experiments from the 19th century and 7 from the 20th
century. Make notes about:
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Why you selected the 19th and 20th century experiments you did and why you are leaving
out others.
Why the lists of famous experiments for the 19th and 20th centuries are much longer than
those for previous centuries.
You will discuss in class why you chose your selections and your hypothesis about why the
number of scientific experiments has increased since the 18th century.
Be sure to list the experiments you have selected in chronological order.
For each experiment on your list, find and include the following information:
Date or dates the experiment was conducted
Name of scientist or scientists who conducted it
Question, theory, or hypothesis posed by the scientist
Procedure used in experiment
Discovery resulting from the experiment
Brief statement about whether this discovery added new knowledge to our existing
knowledge or revolutionized our understanding of knowledge we already possessed, and a
brief description of how it added to or revolutionized our knowledge.