History of Physics and Astronomy

This version sorts the important events by name. The lifetimes of people are highlighted in blue, important people are in bold blue.

C

Calendar introduced by Julius Caesar 46 BC
Callendar and Griffiths bridge 1887
Canal rays – Goldstein 1886
Canon boring experiments - Rumford 1798
Capillarity – theory of capillarity - Poisson 1831
Car – Daimler 1887
Carbon 14 discovered and used in carbon dating 1940
Carbon arc lighting in Paris opera house 1846
Carbon dioxide discharge tube 1895
Carbon gas from Alphonsus – Kosirev 1958
Carnot 1796-1832
Carnot cycle 1824
Cassini space probe launched by NASA to Saturn 1997
Cassini passes 600 km from Venus 1999
Cathode ray oscilloscope – Braun 1897
Cathode rays – Hittorf 1869
Cathode rays - Hittorf and Plucker 1859
Cathode rays – named by Goldstein 1876
Cathode rays – negatively charged 1895
Cavalieri – lens makers formula 1598- 1647
Cavendish 1731-1810
Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge founded – Maxwell as director 1874
Celestial gamma ray source 1973
Celsius scale of temperature 1742
Centripetal acceleration - proof of formula for– Huygens (v²/r)1673
Cepheid – period-luminosity relation 1912
Cepheid variable – delta Cephei – discovered - Goodricke 1784
Cerenkov radiation 1934
Cerenkov – Nobel prize for Physics 1958
Ceres discovered – first minor planet - Piazzi 1801
CERN set up 1952
Chain reaction – first nuclear chain reaction – Chicago – Fermi 1942
Challenger shuttle disaster 1986
Chamberlain and Segrι – Nobel prize for Physics 1959
Charles' Law 1787
Charmed quark – Ting and Richter 1974
Charon – part of Pluto double planet system discovered 1978
Chelyabinsk nuclear accident - Urals 1957
Chemical deposition of silver for mirrors 1840
Chladni 1756-1827
Chromatic aberration – Newton 1665
Clark cell 1872
Classification of stars – E.C.Pickering 1885
Clausius 1822-1888
Cleomedes studied refraction 50
Cloud chamber – Wilson 1912
Cloud chamber – continuously sensitive - Langsdorf 1938
Coal mines – eight hour day 1908
Cobalt discovered – Brandt 1735
COBE – fluctuations in cosmic microwave background radiation 1992
Cockcroft 1897-1967
Cockcroft and Walton – Nobel prize for Physics 1951
Coefficient of expansion – Fizeau – using Newton's rings 1864
Coincidence counters 1929
Cold fusion debate 1989
Colour blindness – Dalton 1794
Colour theory – three colour theory of vision 1807
Comet – the great comet became the first one to be photographed 1882
Communist manifesto published – Karl Marx 1847
Complementarity 1928
Compound microscope 1609
Compton effect 1923
Compton, A.H 1892-1962
Computer - electronic 1946
Computer – first successful PC 1977
Concorde flies 1968
Concorde – last flight 24th October 2003
Conduction in metals due to electron motion demonstrated - Drude 1900
Conductivity of gases – Geitel and Wilson 1900
Conservation of energy principle 1847
Conservation of momentum - Wallace 1668
Conservation of strangeness 1953
Constant acceleration of gravity – Galileo 1632
Constant flow calorimeter (C_p) - Regnault 1862
Constant flow method for J – Callendar and Barnes 1902
Contact lenses 1888
Continental drift theory proposed - Wegener 1912
Cook – voyage to Australia 1757
Copernicus 1473-1543
Copernican system published 1543
Coriolis force - Gustav-Gaspard Coriolis 1835
Cornu (Cornu's spiral)1841-1902
Corpuscular theory of matter – Robert Boyle 1661
Cosmic rays predicted – Wilson 1900
Cosmic ray detection in balloons – Victor Hess 1911
Cosmic rays – electroscopes in balloons 1922
Cosmic rays – term introduced 1925
Coulomb 1736-1806
Crimean War 1854-1856
Crookes 1832-1919
Cuban crisis 1962
Curie point for magnetic materials identified 1895
Curie, Pierre 1859-1906
Curie, Marie 1867-1934
Curies and Becquerel – Nobel prize for Physics 1903
Curium discovered – element 961944
Curvature of space-time - Einstein 1912
C_v - Joly 1890
Cyclotron – Lawrence 1932
Cygnus A radio source discovered 1948
Cygnus X1 – possible black hole 1974