Timeline of developments in theoretical physics

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This page lists important developments in theoretical physics that have either been experimentally confirmed or significantly influence current thinking in modern physics.

DiscoveryDateLiterature
Kepler's laws of planetary motion 1609, 1619
The Galilean principle 1632
Newton's laws of motion 1687
Newton's law of universal gravitation 1687
Laws of thermodynamics 1824, 1873, 1930s
Coulomb's law 1785
Biot–Savart law 1820
Ampere's Law 1826
Faraday's law of induction 1831
Boltzmann equation 1872
Maxwell's equations and electromagnetic waves 1873
Lorentz-FitzGerald contraction 1889, 1892
Planck proposes quanta solution to radiation ultraviolet catastrophe 1900
Einstein proposes the photon 1905
Special relativity 1905
General relativity 1916
Schwarzschild metric 1916
Kaluza-Klein models
FRW Metric 1922, 1935, 1937
Chandrasekhar limit 1935
J. J. Thompson model
Rutherford model 1912
Bohr model 1913
Bose–Einstein statistics 1924
De Broglie wave 1924
Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle 1927
Heisenberg Matrix Mechanics 1925
Fermi-Dirac Statistics 1926
Schrödinger equation 1926
Born Interpretation1927
Dirac equation 1927
Dirac antiparticle1930
S-Matrix
Feynman Path Integral1941
Feynman rules and diagrams1948
Quantum electrodynamics 1948
Yang–Mills theory
Spontaneous symmetry breaking
Electroweak unification
Renormalizability of gauge theories
Renormalization group
Veneziano model
QCD, quarks and gluons
Supersymmetry
Supergravity
Black Hole Entropy 1972
Hawking radiation 1974
Cosmic inflation
BRST symmetry
Skyrmions
Quantum computers
Bosonic strings
NSR strings
Green–Schwarz superstrings
Heterotic strings
T-duality
Loop quantum gravity
SUSY dark matter
Dark energy as cosmological constant
Matrix models/M-theory 1994, 1996, 1997
Randall-Sundrum models
Mirror symmetry
AdS/CFT and the holographic principle

See also

The Timeline of theoretical physics lists key events by century.

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