Second, the simplest instruments and equipment in the top ten most beautiful physical experiments in history have discovered the most fundamental and simplest scientific concepts. These experiments have captured the "most beautiful" soul of science in the eyes of physicists. Just like historical sites, people's long-term confusion and ambiguity have been swept away in an instant, and their understanding of nature has become clearer.
Robert Crais is a faculty member in the Philosophy Department of new york University at Stony Brook and a historian at Brookhaven National Laboratory. He recently conducted a survey among American physicists, asking them to nominate the most beautiful scientific experiment in history. The Physical World published in September published the first 10 most beautiful experiments, most of which are well-known classics.
Surprisingly, most of the top ten experiments were done by scientists independently, with at most one or two assistants. All the experiments were carried out on the experimental platform, without using large computing tools such as computers, but only a ruler or calculator at most.
From the selection of the top ten classic scientific experiments, we can also clearly see the most important discovery trajectory of scientists since 2000, just like we have a bird's eye view of history. "Physical World" ranks these experiments according to the public's understanding. The first one is an experiment that shows the quantum characteristics of the physical world.
However, the development of science is a process of accumulation. On September 25th, American magazine * * * rearranged these experiments in chronological order and made a simple explanation. Eratosthenes measures the circumference of the earth. It is a small town in ancient Egypt, now called Aswan.
In this small town, the sun hangs high overhead at noon in summer: objects have no shadow, and the sun shines directly into deep wells. Eratosthenes was the curator of the Alexandria Library in the 3rd century BC. He realized that this information could help him estimate the circumference of the earth.
On the same day and at the same time in the following years, he measured the shadow of an object in the same place in Alexandria. It is found that the sun's rays are slightly inclined, deviating from the vertical by about 7 degrees.
The rest is the problem of geometry. Suppose the earth is spherical, its circumference should be 360 degrees.
If the two cities form an angle of 7 degrees, it is 7/360 of the circumference, which is the distance of 5000 Greek stadiums at that time. So the circumference of the earth should be 250,000 Greek stadiums.
Today, through orbit measurement, we know that the measurement error of Eratosthenes is only within 5%. In Galileo/KLOC-free fall experiment at the end of 0/6, everyone thought that heavy objects fell faster than light objects, because the great Aristotle once said so.
Galileo, who worked in the department of mathematics at the University of Pisa at that time, boldly challenged the public's views. The famous experiment of the leaning tower of Pisa has become a scientific story: he dropped a light and a heavy object from the leaning tower at the same time, so that everyone could see that both objects landed at the same time.
Galileo may have lost his job at the cost of challenging Aristotle, but he showed the essence of nature, not the authority of human beings, and science made the final decision. Galileo's accelerated experiment Galileo continued to improve his view on the motion of objects.
He made a smooth straight wooden trough more than 6 meters long and 3 meters wide. Then fix the wooden trough obliquely, let the copper balls slide down the inclined plane from the top of the wooden trough, measure the time of each sliding of the copper balls with a water clock, and study the relationship between them.
Aristotle predicted that the speed of rolling ball was uniform; The copper ball rolls twice as long and walks twice as far. Galileo proved that the rolling distance of the copper ball is proportional to the square of time: in twice the time, the copper ball rolled four times because of the constant acceleration of gravity.
(No.8) Newton prism decomposes sunlight. Galileo died the year he was born in isaac newton. Newton graduated from Trinity College of Cambridge University in 1665, then stayed at home for two years to avoid the plague, and then successfully found a job.
At that time, everyone thought that white light was pure light without other colors (Aristotle thought so), and colored light was a kind of light that changed somehow. In order to test this hypothesis, Newton placed a prism under the sun. Through the prism, the light was decomposed into different colors on the wall, which we later called spectrum.
People know that rainbows are colorful, but they think they are abnormal. Newton's conclusion is that it is red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue and purple that have different chromatograms and form a single white light on the surface. If you look deeply, you will find that white light is very beautiful.
(Ranked fourth) Cavendish Torque Experiment Another great contribution of Newton is his law of gravity, but how big is gravity? /kloc-at the end of 0/8, the British scientist Henry cavendish decided to find out this gravity. He hung a 6-foot-long wooden stick with small metal balls tied on both sides with wires, like a dumbbell; Then, two 350-pound shot putters are brought close together to generate enough gravity to rotate the dumbbell and twist the wire.
Then measure the tiny rotation with a self-made instrument. The measurement results are surprisingly accurate. He measured the parameters of the gravitational constant, and on this basis, cavendish calculated the density and mass of the earth.
Cavendish's calculation shows that the earth weighs 6.0* 1024 kg, or 13 trillion pounds. Thomas Young's light interference experiment Newton is not always correct.
After many arguments, Newton made the scientific community accept that light is composed of particles, not waves. 1830, Thomas Young, a British doctor and physicist, verified this view with experiments.
He punched a small hole in the shutter, then covered it with thick paper and poked a small hole in the paper. Let the light pass through and reflect the transmitted light with a mirror.
Then he used a piece of paper about 1/30 inches thick to divide the light into two beams in the middle. As a result, I saw the cross light and shadow.
This shows that two beams of light can interfere with each other like waves. This experiment played a vital role in the establishment of quantum theory a century later.
Michel foucault pendulum experiment Last year, scientists placed a pendulum clock at the South Pole and observed its swing. They are repeating a famous experiment in Paris.
185 1 year, French scientist michel foucault made a reality in public.
Three, the top ten most beautiful experiments in the history of chemistry In 2003, the "most beautiful chemical experiment in history" initiated by American scientists and voted by chemists around the world gave the results:1In the middle of the 9th century, Pasteur won the first place for manually separating dextrorotatory tartrate and levorotatory tartrate under a microscope.
This is the first time in human history that optical isomers have been successfully separated artificially, and in such an artistic way. Scientists believe that this experiment is not only of epoch-making significance, but also a perfect combination of technology and art, simplicity and beauty.
It is not only a milestone in the study of symmetry in nature, but also an excellent embodiment of scientific aesthetic significance. If Woodward R. B's lifelong work is to make organic synthesis reach its peak in technology and art, and it is a sign of the beauty of complexity, then Pasteur's work is synonymous with simplicity and harmony in science.
His hypothesis that molecular asymmetry is one of the mechanisms of life is still an important inference about the origin of life, but this inference is only drawn from such a simple experiment in the middle of the nineteenth century, which is amazing. BACKGROUND: All substances without symmetry element of the second kind are chiral substances.
(The rotation axis is the first kind of symmetry element, except the second kind of symmetry element) Racemic chiral substances can be divided into two kinds of substances with the same structural formula, but the rotation angles of plane polarized light are completely opposite (one is to the left and the other is to the right), and these two kinds of substances are called enantiomers (they cannot completely overlap in three-dimensional space, but the mirror images of one substance can overlap with the other, just like left and right hands). L- tartrate and D- tartrate under Pasteur microscope are two such substances.
Racemization refers to the loss of the ability to rotate plane polarized light when these two substances are mixed in equal amounts. ) Under suitable temperature and humidity conditions, the crystal shapes of these two substances are different, just like the relationship between left and right hands, and what Pasteur did was to separate them under the microscope.
Four, the top ten most beautiful experiments in the history of physics 1 period: Thomas Young's double-slit demonstration was applied to the electronic interference experiment, and Newton and Thomas Young's research conclusions on the properties of light were not completely correct.
Light is neither a simple particle nor a simple wave. At the beginning of the 20th century, Planck and Einstein respectively pointed out that something called photon can emit light and absorb light.
But other experiments have proved that light is a wave. After decades of development, quantum theory has finally summed up two contradictory truths: photons and subatomic particles (such as electrons and photons) are particles with two properties at the same time, which is physically called wave-particle duality.
The transformation of Thomas Young's double-slit demonstration can well illustrate this point. Scientists use electron flow instead of light beam to explain the experiment.
According to quantum mechanics, the charged particle flow is divided into two streams, and the smaller particle flow produces wave effect, which interacts with each other to produce enhanced light and shadow similar to that in Thomas Young's double-slit demonstration. This shows that particles also have fluctuation effect.
2 nd place: Galileo's free fall experiment 16 At the end of the year, everyone thought that heavy objects fell faster than light objects, because the great Aristotle once said so. Galileo, who worked at the University of Pisa at that time, boldly challenged the public's views.
The famous experiment of the leaning tower of Pisa has become a scientific story: he dropped a light and a heavy object from the leaning tower at the same time, so that everyone could see that both objects landed at the same time. The price of flail lillo's challenge to Aristotle also cost him his work, but he showed the nature, not the authority of human beings, and science made the final ruling.
Third place: Millikan's oil drop experimental scientists have been studying electricity for a long time. It is known that this invisible substance can be obtained from lightning in the sky or by rubbing hair.
1897, the British physicist J. J. Thomas has determined that the current is composed of negatively charged particles, that is, electrons. 1909, American scientist robert millikan began to measure the charge of current.
Millikan used a perfume bottle nozzle to spray droplets into a small transparent box. The top and bottom of the small box are connected with batteries, so that one side becomes the positive electrode and the other side becomes the negative electrode.
Oil droplets will absorb some static electricity when passing through the air, and the falling speed of oil droplets can be controlled by changing the voltage between electrodes. Millikan constantly changed the voltage and carefully observed the movement of each drop of oil.
After repeated experiments, 10 years later, Millikan came to the conclusion that the value of charge is a fixed constant, and the smallest unit is the charge of a single electron. Fourth place: Newton's prism dispersion experiment When Newton was born, Galileo died.
Newton 1665 graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge University. He stayed at home for two years because of the plague, and then he found a job smoothly. At that time, everyone thought that white light was pure light without other colors (Aristotle thought so), and colored light was a kind of light that changed somehow.
In order to test this hypothesis, Newton placed a prism under the sun. Through the prism, the light was decomposed into different colors on the wall, which we later called spectrum. People know the color of the rainbow, but they don't know why.
Newton's conclusion is that it is red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue and purple that have different chromatograms and form a single white light on the surface. If you look deeply, you will find that white light is very beautiful. Fifth place: Thomas Young's light interference experiment After many quarrels, Newton made the scientific community accept that light is composed of particles, not waves.
But Newton was not always right. 1830, Thomas Young, a British doctor and physicist, verified this view with experiments.
He punched a small hole in the shutter, then covered it with thick paper and poked a small hole in the paper. Let the light pass through and reflect the transmitted light with a mirror.
Then, he used a piece of paper about one thirtieth of an inch thick to divide the light into two beams in the middle. As a result, I saw the cross light and shadow.
This shows that two beams of light can interfere with each other like waves. This experiment played a vital role in the establishment of quantum theory a century later.
Sixth place: Cavendish Torsion Scale Experiment Another great contribution of Newton is his law of gravity, but how big is gravity? /kloc-at the end of 0/8, British scientist Henry cavendish decided to find out this gravity. He tied a small metal ball to both sides of a 6-foot (1 foot = 0.305 m) long wooden stick and hung it with wire. This stick is like a dumbbell.
Then put two 350-pound (1 pound is equal to 0.4536 kg) copper balls in a relatively close place to generate enough gravity to make the dumbbell rotate and twist the steel wire. Then measure the tiny rotation with a self-made instrument.
The measurement results are surprisingly accurate. He measured the parameters of the gravitational constant, and on this basis, cavendish calculated the density and mass of the earth. Cavendish's calculation shows that the mass of the earth is 6.0x 10 24kg. Seventh: Eratosthenes measures the circumference of the earth. There was a small town in ancient Egypt, now called Aswan.
In this small town, the midday sun on the summer solstice hangs overhead, and there is no shadow on the object. The sun shines directly into the deep well. Eratosthenes was the curator of the Alexandria Library in the 3rd century BC. He realized that this information could help him estimate the circumference of the earth.
On the same day and at the same time in the following years, he measured the shadow of an object in the same place in Alexandria. It is found that the sun's rays are slightly inclined, and the vertical direction deviates by about 7.
Suppose the earth is spherical, its circumference should be 360 degrees. If the two cities are in 7, it is the circumference of 7/360, which is the distance of 5000 Greek stadiums at that time.
So the circumference of the earth should be 250,000 Greek stadiums. Today, through orbit measurement, we know that the measurement error of Eratosthenes is only within 5%.
No.8: Galileo's accelerated experiment Galileo perfected his view on the motion of objects. He made a smooth straight wooden trough with a length of more than 6m and a width of more than 3m, then fixed the wooden trough obliquely, let the steel ball slide down from the top of the wooden trough along the inclined plane, and measured the sliding time of the steel ball every time with a water clock to study the relationship between them.
Aristotle predicted that the speed of rolling the ball was uniform: the copper ball rolled twice as long and went twice as far. Galileo proved the distance and time of steel ball rolling.
Five, the top ten most beautiful physical experiments michel foucault pendulum experiment Last year, scientists placed a pendulum clock at the South Pole and observed its swing.
They are repeating a famous experiment in Paris. 185 1 year, French scientist Foucault made an experiment in front of the public. Hanging a 62-pound iron ball with an iron pen on its head under the roof with a 220-foot-long steel wire, observe and record its trajectory of swinging back and forth.
The audience around us were surprised to find that every time the pendulum swings, it will slightly deviate from the original track and rotate once. In fact, this is because the house moves slowly.
Foucault's argument shows that the earth rotates around its axis. At the latitude of Paris, the trajectory of the pendulum is clockwise with a period of 30 hours.
In the southern hemisphere, the pendulum should turn counterclockwise, but it won't turn at the equator. At the South Pole, the rotation period is 24 hours.
Rutherford discovered the nuclear experiment in 19 1 1 year. When Rutherford was still doing radioactive energy experiments at Manchester University, atoms were like "raisin pudding" in people's minds, with a large number of positively charged paste-like substances and electronic particles in the middle. But he and his assistant were very surprised to find that a small amount of positively charged alpha particles were bounced back when they were fired at the gold foil.
Rutherford calculated that atoms are not a paste. Most of the matter is concentrated in a small central nucleus, now called nucleon, and electrons surround it. Galileo's accelerated experiment Galileo continued to improve his view on the motion of objects.
He made a smooth straight wooden trough more than 6 meters long and 3 meters wide. Then fix the wooden trough obliquely, let the copper balls slide down the inclined plane from the top of the wooden trough, measure the time of each sliding of the copper balls with a water clock, and study the relationship between them.
Aristotle predicted that the speed of rolling the ball was uniform: the copper ball rolled twice as long and went twice as far. Galileo proved that the rolling distance of the copper ball is proportional to the square of time: in twice the time, the copper ball rolled four times because of the constant acceleration of gravity.
A town in ancient Egypt, now called Aswan. In this small town, the midday sun from summer solstice hangs overhead: objects have no shadow, and the sun shines directly into deep wells.
Eratosthenes was the curator of the Alexandria Library in the 3rd century BC. He realized that this information could help him estimate the circumference of the earth. On the same day and at the same time in the following years, he measured the shadow of an object in the same place in Alexandria.
It is found that the sun's rays are slightly inclined, deviating from the vertical by about 7 degrees. The rest is the problem of geometry.
Suppose the earth is spherical, its circumference should be 360 degrees. If the two cities form an angle of 7 degrees, it is 7/360 of the circumference, which is the distance of 5000 Greek stadiums at that time.
So the circumference of the earth should be 250,000 Greek stadiums. Today, through orbit measurement, we know that the measurement error of Eratosthenes is only within 5%.
(No.7) Cavendish Torque Experiment Another great contribution of Newton is his law of gravity, but how big is gravity? /kloc-at the end of 0/8, the British scientist Henry cavendish decided to find out this gravity. He hung a 6-foot-long wooden stick with small metal balls tied on both sides with wire, like a dumbbell.
Then put two 350-pound shot putters together to generate enough gravity to turn dumbbells and twist steel wires. Then measure the tiny rotation with a self-made instrument.
The measurement results are surprisingly accurate. He measured the parameters of the gravitational constant, and on this basis, cavendish calculated the density and mass of the earth. Cavendish's calculation shows that the earth weighs 6.0* 1024 kg, or 13 trillion pounds.
Thomas Young's light interference experiment Newton is not always correct. After many arguments, Newton made the scientific community accept that light is composed of particles, not waves.
1830, Thomas Young, a British doctor and physicist, verified this view with experiments. He punched a small hole in the shutter, then covered it with thick paper and poked a small hole in the paper.
Let the light pass through and reflect the transmitted light with a mirror. Then he used a piece of paper about 1/30 inches thick to divide the light into two beams in the middle.
As a result, I saw the cross light and shadow. This shows that two beams of light can interfere with each other like waves.
This experiment played a vital role in the establishment of quantum theory a century later. (No.5) Newton prism decomposes sunlight. Galileo died the year he was born in isaac newton.
Newton 1665 graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge University. Later, I stayed at home for two years to avoid the plague, and then I found a job smoothly. At that time, everyone thought that white light was pure light without other colors (Aristotle thought so), and colored light was a kind of light that changed somehow.
In order to test this hypothesis, Newton placed a prism under the sun. Through the prism, the light was decomposed into different colors on the wall, which we later called spectrum. People know that rainbows are colorful, but they think they are abnormal.
Newton's conclusion is that it is red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue and purple that have different chromatograms and form a single white light on the surface. If you look deeply, you will find that white light is very beautiful. Robert milliken's oil droplet experimental scientist has been studying electricity for a long time.
It is known that this invisible substance can be obtained from lightning in the sky or by rubbing hair. 1897, the British physicist J. J. Thomas has determined that the current is composed of negatively charged particles, that is, electrons.
1909 American scientist Robert milliken began to measure the charge of electric current. Milliken used a perfume bottle nozzle to spray droplets into a small transparent box.
The top and bottom of the small box are connected with batteries, so that one side becomes a positive plate and the other side becomes a negative plate. Oil droplets will absorb some static electricity when passing through the air, and the falling speed of oil droplets can be controlled by changing the voltage between the plates.
Milliken constantly changed the voltage and carefully observed the movement of each drop of oil. After repeated experiments, milliken came to the conclusion that the value of charge is a fixed constant, and the smallest unit is the charge of a single electron.
(Ranked third) Galileo's free fall experiment was conducted in16th century.
What are the top ten most beautiful experiments in physics? //wl.zxxk/Article/34626。 The simplest instruments and equipment have discovered the most fundamental and simple scientific concepts. These experiments "caught" the "most beautiful" scientific soul in the eyes of physicists. Just like historical sites, people's long-term confusion and ambiguity were swept away in an instant, and naturally they were swept away.
Robert Crais is a faculty member in the Philosophy Department of new york University at Stony Brook and a historian at Brookhaven National Laboratory. He recently conducted a survey among American physicists, asking them to nominate the most beautiful scientific experiment in history. The Physical World published in September published the first 10 most beautiful experiments, most of which are well-known classics.
Surprisingly, most of the top ten experiments were done by scientists independently, with at most one or two assistants. All the experiments were carried out on the experimental platform, without using large computing tools such as computers, but only a ruler or calculator at most.
From the selection of the top ten classic scientific experiments, we can also clearly see the most important discovery trajectory of scientists since 2000, just like we have a bird's eye view of history. "Physical World" ranks these experiments according to the public's understanding of them. The first experiment is to show the quantum characteristics of the physical world.
However, the development of science is a process of accumulation. On September 25th, American magazine * * * rearranged these experiments in chronological order and made a simple explanation. Eratosthenes measures the circumference of the earth. It is a small town in ancient Egypt, now called Aswan.
In this small town, the sun hangs high overhead at noon in summer: objects have no shadow, and the sun shines directly into deep wells. Eratosthenes was the curator of the Alexandria Library in the 3rd century BC. He realized that this information could help him estimate the circumference of the earth.
On the same day and at the same time in the following years, he measured the shadow of an object in the same place in Alexandria. It is found that the sun's rays are slightly inclined, deviating from the vertical by about 7 degrees.
The rest is the problem of geometry. Suppose the earth is spherical, its circumference should be 360 degrees.
If the two cities form an angle of 7 degrees, it is 7/360 of the circumference, which is the distance of 5000 Greek stadiums at that time. So the circumference of the earth should be 250,000 Greek stadiums.
Today, through orbit measurement, we know that the measurement error of Eratosthenes is only within 5%. In Galileo/KLOC-free fall experiment at the end of 0/6, everyone thought that heavy objects fell faster than light objects, because the great Aristotle once said so.
Galileo, who worked in the department of mathematics at the University of Pisa at that time, boldly challenged the public's views. The famous experiment of the leaning tower of Pisa has become a scientific story: he dropped a light and a heavy object from the leaning tower at the same time, so that everyone could see that both objects landed at the same time.
Galileo may have lost his job at the cost of challenging Aristotle, but he showed the essence of nature, not the authority of human beings, and science made the final decision. Galileo's accelerated experiment Galileo continued to improve his view on the motion of objects.
He made a smooth straight wooden trough more than 6 meters long and 3 meters wide. Then fix the wooden trough obliquely, let the copper balls slide down the inclined plane from the top of the wooden trough, measure the time of each sliding of the copper balls with a water clock, and study the relationship between them.
Aristotle predicted that the speed of rolling ball was uniform; The copper ball rolls twice as long and walks twice as far. Galileo proved that the rolling distance of the copper ball is proportional to the square of time: in twice the time, the copper ball rolled four times because of the constant acceleration of gravity.
(No.8) Newton prism decomposes sunlight. Galileo died the year he was born in isaac newton. Newton graduated from Trinity College of Cambridge University in 1665, then stayed at home for two years to avoid the plague, and then successfully found a job.
At that time, everyone thought that white light was pure light without other colors (Aristotle thought so), and colored light was a kind of light that changed somehow. To test this hypothesis, Newton put a prism in the sun, and through it, it was decomposed into different colors on the wall, which we later called spectrum.
People know that rainbows are colorful, but they think it is because they are abnormal. Newton's conclusion is that it is red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue and purple that have different chromatograms and form a single white light on the surface. If you look deeply, you will find that white light is very beautiful.
(Ranked fourth) Cavendish Torque Experiment Another great contribution of Newton is his law of gravity, but how big is gravity? /kloc-at the end of 0/8, the British scientist Henry cavendish decided to find out this gravity. His 6-foot-long wooden stick, with small metal balls tied to both sides, is hung by wire like a dumbbell; Then, two 350-pound shot putters are brought close together to generate enough gravity to rotate the dumbbell and twist the wire.
Then measure the tiny rotation with a self-made instrument. The measurement results are surprisingly accurate. He measured the parameters of the gravitational constant, and on this basis, cavendish calculated the density and mass of the earth.
Cavendish's calculation shows that the earth weighs 6.0* 1024 kg, or 13 trillion pounds. Thomas Young's light interference experiment Newton is not always correct.
After many arguments, Newton made the scientific community accept that light is composed of particles, not waves.
Seven, the ten most beautiful chemical experiments in the history of chemistry 1. Louis Pasteur separated the optical isomer of tartrate (1848).
2. lavoisier's research on metal oxidation led to the basic theory of combustion and oxidation. (about 1775)
3. Emile Fischer determined the structure of glucose. (about 1890)
4. humphry davy uses electrolysis to separate elements, including sodium and potassium (1807) and magnesium, calcium, strontium and barium (1808).
5. William Henry Perkin artificially synthesized lavender dye. ( 1856)
6. Gustav Gustav Kirchhoff and Robert Bunsen proved that when a metal salt is heated in a flame, the spectral lines released have elemental characteristics (flame reaction). ( 1859)
Joseph priestley discovered oxygen by heating "red metal ash", that is, oxidizing mercury. ( 1774)
8.bartlett was the first person to synthesize xenon hexafluoride from platinum hexafluoride to synthesize rare gas compounds. ( 1962)
9.grina found that organic compounds containing magnesium can be used in organic synthesis. (about 1899)
10. Mary and pierre curie discovered polonium and radium. ( 1898)