The first decades of the 20th century and the few years leading up to it were one of the most exciting periods in recent history for science and the arts. The invention of the car, radio, and airplane fostered a feeling of unlimited human ability. The discovery of x-rays, radioactivity, and the electron, and the atomic nucleus led to the sense that the human mind would soon uncover all of nature’s mysteries. Indeed, some people were convinced that few, if any, mysteries remained.
1895 Rontgen discovers x-rays
1896 Becquerel discovers radioactivity.
1897 Thomson discovers the electron.
1898 Curie discovers radium.
1900 Freud proposes theory of the unconscious mind.
1900 Planck develops quantum theory.
1901 Marconi invents the radio.
1903 Wright brothers fly an airplane.
1905 Ford uses assembly line to build cars.
1905 Rutherford develops radioactivity theory.
1905 Einstein publishes relativity and photon theories
1906 St. Denis develops modern dance.
1908 Matisse and Picasso develop modern art.
1909 Schonberg and Berg develop modern music
1911 Rutherford presents nuclear model of the atom.
1913 Bohr proposes atomic model.
1914 to 1918 World War I is fought
1923 Compton demonstrates photon momentum.
1924 DeBroglie publishes wave theory of matter.
1926 Schrodinger develops wave equation.
1927 Heisenberg presents uncertainty principle.
1932 Chadwick discovers the neutron.
-Silberberg, Chemistry: The Molecular Nature of Matter and Change, 1999 p.259