Have a Breakthrough With This Quiz on Scientific Theories

In 1665, the English scientist Robert Hooke published a description of tiny, box-like structures he had discovered while examining cork under a microscope. Hooke called these structures “cells,” and his discovery eventually led to the development of cell theory. Cell theory posits that cells are the basic unit of all life on Earth, and that all cells originate from other cells.

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) was a German astronomer whose extensive observations of the night sky and keen mathematical insight enabled him to develop groundbreaking laws of planetary motion. These laws were the first to accurately describe the way that objects in the solar system orbited one another, and they laid the groundwork for advancements such as Newton’s theory of universal gravitation.

Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) was a biologist and friar who studied how pea plants passed physical traits from one generation to the next. Through his research, Mendel developed many principles of inheritance that helped form the foundation of the modern science of genetics.

In the late 19th century, the German scientist and physician Robert Koch proved that anthrax was caused by a specific strain of bacteria. This groundbreaking discovery was one of the key developments of modern germ theory, which is the currently accepted biological theory that many infectious diseases are caused by microscopic organisms.

In 1913, Niels Bohr proposed a model of the atom composed of a central nucleus orbited by tiny electrons. Bohr’s model was the first to incorporate the breakthroughs of quantum mechanics, and though it has since been refined by further research, it laid the groundwork for the modern study of the atom. It’s still commonly used in schools to demonstrate the atom’s basic structure.

“Schrödinger’s cat” is an imaginary experiment designed by the scientist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935 to demonstrate some of the apparent paradoxes presented by quantum mechanics. The experiment involves a box containing a cat that, in certain interpretations of quantum mechanics, can be said to be both alive and dead at the same time until someone opens the box and observes the cat firsthand.

In 1633, the astronomer and physicist Galileo Galilei was arrested by the Catholic Church for arguing that the sun is the center of the solar system and that the Earth and other planets revolve around it. This claim contradicted church doctrine, which held that the Earth was the center of the solar system. Galileo spent the rest of his life under house arrest for his revolutionary theory.

Plate tectonics is the geological theory that posits that Earth’s major landforms, such as mountains and volcanoes, are created through the subterranean movement of large tectonic plates in the Earth’s crust. The theory also attributes geological events such as earthquakes to the movement of these plates.

In 1924, the astronomer Edwin Hubble proved that the universe was expanding, and that this expansion sped up as objects moved farther away from one another. These observations provide strong evidence for the Big Bang theory of the universe, which posits that the universe originated from an extremely small and dense state which then rapidly expanded to form the universe we observe today.

Marie Curie (1867-1934) made major breakthroughs in the study of radioactivity, including the discovery of the radioactive elements radium and polonium. Much of her research was conducted alongside her husband Pierre Curie, who shared the Nobel Prize in physics with her in 1903. She also won the 1911 Nobel Prize in chemistry, making her the only person to win the prize in two scientific fields.

Electrons are subatomic particles that carry a negative charge. All atoms have electrons, and their discovery by J.J. Thomson in 1897 was an important step in the development of atomic theory. Atomic theory posits that all matter is composed of atoms, and studies their interactions and internal compositions.

In 1687, Isaac Newton published the book “Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica,” in which he proposed his theory of universal gravitation. Newton’s theory argues that every object in the universe exerts a gravitational pull on every other object. This idea revolutionized science, and remains one of the fundamental theories of physics.

In 1859, Charles Darwin published “On the Origin of Species,” which laid out his theory of evolution by natural selection. Darwin’s radical evolutionary theory revolutionized the biological sciences and remains the foundation of modern biology.

Alan Turing (1912-1954) was a British mathematician who made important early contributions to computer science. One of Turing’s most important theoretical breakthroughs was the development of the “Turing Machine,” a hypothetical computing device that could carry out any computable task and provided the abstract model for modern computer algorithms.

The theory of relativity was developed by Albert Einstein in the early decades of the 20th century. It describes the interconnected nature of space and time, and helps explain a wide range of physical phenomena, from the force of gravity to the behavior of light. Einstein’s work underpins nearly all of modern physics, particularly astronomy and cosmology.