The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments

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