The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments

George Johnson, Central 507.8 J67T 2008

• p7 Galileo used 6 meter incline plane, 20 centimeters high, with a one centimeter groove. Bronze bells rolled downhill and rang bells, spaced to measure equal time intervals. He collected water in a jar during the descent, and weighed it to give time ratios. Distance increased with the square of the time. He also measured time by singing.
• William Harvey and the heart
• Isaac Newton, prisms and light and color
• Anton-Laurent Lavoisier, careful weight and capture of gasses, disproved phlogiston, French Academy of Science paper 1777
  • young wife Marie Anne Lavoisier drew apparatus
• Luigi Galvani animal electricity
• Michael Faraday - most hours spent on industrial research, less for experiment. Magneto-optic polarization rotation in lead glass

• James Joule, motor and generator, heat <-> kinetic energy <-> electric energy

• Albert A. Michelson, speed of light 299,940 km/s, nterferometer proving no ether or fixed frame
• Ivan Pavlov, testing dog behavior
• Millikan oil drop experiment. Author also performed experiment, learned about "bad runs", disbelieves Millikan "cooked the books", merely selected non-failed experiments.

  • p156 The most tempermental piece of laboratory equipment will always be the human brain