Black bodies and quantum cats: tales from the annals of physics

Foreword / Alan Chodos

1. Renaissance man : 1509 : publication of de divina proportione

2. Talkin' 'bout a revolution : 1542 : publication of de revolutionibus

3. Lens crafters : circa 1590 : invention of the microscope

4. Good heavens : January 7, 1610 : Galileo discovers moons of Jupiter

5. Gravity's guru : July 1687 : publication of Newton's principia

6. Drawing down the fire : June 1752 : Franklin's kite experiment

7. Trompe l'Oeil : 1807 : invention of the camera Lucida

8. Rules of attraction : 1820 : first evidence of electromagnetism

9. Ingenious engines : circa 1840s : Babbage's analytical engine

10. Emperors of the air : September 24, 1852 : first dirigible takes flight

11. Disorderly conduct : June 1871 : Maxwell and his demon

12. Queens of science : November 1872 : death of Mary Somerville

13. Calling Mister Watson : March 10, 1876 : first documented transmission of human speech

14. Thrill seekers : 1884 : first U.S. roller coaster opens at Coney Island

15. Current affairs : May 1888 : Tesla and electric power generation

16. Shadow casters : February 2, 1893 : Edison films a sneeze

17. Radio days : 1895 : tesla demonstrates wireless radio

18. Mysterious rays : November 8, 1895 : Roentgen discovers X rays

19. thousand points of light : October 1897 : discovery of the electron

20. Quantum leap : October 1900 : planck introduces quanta

21. It's all relative : June 1905 : Einstein introduces special relativity

22. Rocket man : March 16, 1926 : launch of the first liquid-fuel rocket

23. That darn cat : 1935 : Schrodinger's quantum cat

24. Copy that : October 1938 : first xerographic copy

25. Life during wartime : July 1945 : the trinity test

26. Gimme shelter : June 2-4, 1947 : the shelter island conference

27. Tiny bubbles : 1948 Reddi-Wip appears on the market

28. Mimicking mother nature : May 13, 1958 : Velcro trademark registered

29. Energize me : December 1958 : invention of the laser

30. Small world : December 29, 1959 : Feynman's classic caltech lecture

31. Contemplating chaos : Circa January 1961 : Lorenz and the butterfly effect

32. Kamikaze cosmos : July 1963 : discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation

33. When particles collide : April 1994 : discovery of the top quark

34. Checkmate : May 1997 : deep blue defeats Kasparov

35. Much ado about nothing : December 1998 : discovery of the accelerating universe

36. case of the missing neutrinos : February 2001 : solution to solar neutrino problem

37. Icarus descending : September 2002 : Schden found guilty of scientific misconduct

38. String section : October 2003 : nova special on string theory.