Timeline of particle physics
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The timeline of particle physics lists the sequence of particle physics theories and discoveries in chronological order. The most modern developments follow the scientific development of the discipline of Particle physics.
[edit] 19th century
- 1858 - Julius Plücker produced the Cathode rays;
- 1886 - Eugene Goldstein produced the Anode rays;
- 1897 - J. J. Thomson discovered the electron;
- 1899 - Ernest Rutherford discovered the Alpha particle in uranium radiation;
- 1900 - Paul Villard discovered the Gamma ray in uranium decay.
[edit] 20th century
- 1919 - Ernest Rutherford discovered the proton;
- 1928 - Paul Dirac postulated the existence of positrons as a consequence of the Dirac equation;
- 1930 - Wolfgang Pauli postulated the neutrino to explain the energy spectrum of beta decays;
- 1932 - James Chadwick discovered the Neutron;
- 1932 - Carl D. Anderson discovered the Positron;
- 1935 - Hideki Yukawa predicted the existence of mesons as the carrier particles of the strong nuclear force;
- 1936 - Carl D. Anderson discovered the muon while he studied cosmic radiation;
- 1947 - G.D. Rochester and C.C. Butler discovered the Kaon, the first strange particle;
- 1947 - Cecil Powell, César Lattes and Giuseppe Occhialini discovered the pion;
- 1955 - Owen Chamberlain, Emilio Segrè, Clyde Wiegand, and Thomas Ypsilantis discovered the Antiproton;
- 1956 - Clyde Cowan and Frederick Reines discovered the neutrino;
- 1957 - Bruno Pontecorvo postulated the flavor oscillation;
- 1962 - Leon M. Lederman, Melvin Schwartz and Jack Steinberger discovered the muon neutrino;
- 1967 - Bruno Pontecorvo postulated the Neutrino oscillation;
- 1974 - Burton Richter and Samuel Ting discovered the J/ψ particle;
- 1977 - Upsilon particle discovered at Fermilab, demonstrating the existence of the bottom quark;
- 1977 - Martin Lewis Perl discovered the Tau lepton after a series of experiments;
- 1979 - Gluon observed indirectly in three jet events at DESY;
- 1983 - Carlo Rubbia and Simon van der Meer discovered the W and Z bosons;
- 1995 - Top quark discovered at Fermilab;
- 2000 - Tau neutrino proved distinct from other neutrinos at Fermilab.
