| | This article may need to be rewritten entirely to comply with Wikipedia's quality standards, as Many errors, particularly claims that medieval Islamic scientists were ahead of those of the European renaissance. You can help. The discussion page may contain suggestions. (September 2009) | The timeline below shows the date of publication of major scientific theories and discoveries, along with the discoverer. In many cases, the discovery spanned several years. -
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- Democritus - Accurate atomic hypothesis. Atoms (quarks) are indivisible, indestructible & between atoms lies empty space.
- Geber (Jabir ibn Hayyan): beginning of chemistry and experimental method; discovery of hydrochloric, sulfuric, nitric and acetic acids; discovery of soda, potash, distilled water and pure alcohol (ethanol); the discovery that aqua regia, a mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acids, could dissolve metals such as gold; and discovery of liquefaction, crystallisation, purification, oxidisation, evaporation, filtration and sublimation
- 1021 - Ibn al-Haytham's Book of Optics: beginning of modern optics, scientific method and experimental physics; correct explanation of visual perception; invention of camera obscura and pinhole camera; foundations of telescopic astronomy; discovery of light rays travelling in straight lines and being made up of energy particles, Fermat's principle of least time, and vision being caused by light rays entering the eye; the rectilinear propagation, constituent colors and electromagnetic aspects of light; explanations of shadows, binocular vision, atmospheric refraction and the moon illusion; the relationship of the density of the atmosphere with altitude; and the finite speed of light
- 1020s - Avicenna's The Canon of Medicine: beginning of experimental medicine; discovery of the contagious nature of infectious diseases, including phthisis, tuberculosis and sexually transmitted disease; and the discovery of mediastinitis and pleurisy, bacteria and viral organisms, and the distribution of disease through water and soil
- Ibn al-Haytham and Avicenna: law of inertia (Newton's first law of motion) and discovery of momentum (part of Newton's second law of motion)
- Ibn al-Haytham: attraction between masses and the magnitude of acceleration due to gravity at a distance
- Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī: beginning of experimental astronomy and experimental mechanics; discovery of the Milky Way galaxy being a collection of numerous nebulous stars; and the discovery that the solar apogee and the precession are not identical; the finite speed of light being much faster than the speed of sound; and the relationship between acceleration and non-uniform motion (part of Newton's second law of motion)
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