While studying the rays emitted by thorium and uranium, Marie Curie coined this term for the emission of radiation.
Radioactivity
"Busted", "Plausible", and "Confirmed" are the three outcomes of most experiments featured on this hit Discovery Channel show that has brought popular science into the mainstream.
Mythbusters
This three-acre Arizona facility was constructed between 1987 and 1991 to demonstrate the viability of closed eco systems to support life in space. While it was meant to be a closed system, the experiments did not go to plan and the crew were secretly shipped materials during their so-called isolation. It even saw the involvement of Steve Bannon and is now generally considered a failure.
Biosphere 2
The Geiger-Marsden experiments conducted under the supervision of a New Zealand-born great that established the presence of the atomic nucleus have this better known name.
Rutherford gold foil experiment
In a landmark 1966 paper, Robert Paine presented the impact of removing this marine creature on the stability of an ecosystem.
Starfish
In a series of experiments performed on animals, he discovered that separately holding down the veins and arteries connected to the heart had the opposite effect on blood flow.
William Harvey
Familiar to millions of high school students studying mechanics is the Atwood machine which consists of two masses connected over this device.
Pulley
Located in a desert outside Magdalena, New Mexico, the VLA is one of the largest telescopes in the world with 27 individual radio antennas. VLA stands for this.
Very Large Array
The famous oil drop experiment of Nobel laureate Robert Millikan in the early 1900s established this subatomic property.
Charge of an electron
Rosalind Franklin's significant contribution in discovering the shape of the DNA molecule came about from the pattern formed using this imaging technique.
X-ray diffraction
In 1928, this British bacteriologist conducted a series of experiments which inferred that bacteria are capable of transferring genetic information and ultimately lead to further research that isolated DNA as the material that communicated the genetic information.
Frederick Griffith
Gregor Mendel conducted his pathbreaking genetics experiments at a monastery in Brno in this present-day country.
Czech Republic
To find this out - Isaac Beeckman proposed an experiment using a cannon and a mirror, Galileo and his disciple stood on different hills with lanterns, the Danish astronomer Ole Rømer made observations of moons of Jupiter. What?
The speed of light
Livingston, Louisiana and Hanford, Washington were two laboratories for conducting the LIGO experiment used to detect these entities predicted by Einstein's General Theory of Relativity.
Gravitational waves
The Homestake experiment by astrophysicists Raymond Davis, Jr. and John N. Bahcall in the 1960s was performed to collect these particles emitted by nuclear fusion in the sun.
Neutrinos
The 1887 Michelson-Morley experiment had a significant impact on the debunking of the theory that the universe was filled with this transmission medium.
Aether
Using a torsion balance, this reclusive 18th century English scientist computed the density of the earth to a remarkably accurate value.
Henry Cavendish
The cover art of a 1973 music album that consistently ranks highly in any list of best album covers references the experiment of this English scientist.
Newton (Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon prism)
The French genius Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier discovered oxidation and disproving that this hypothetical fire-like element existed in all combustible bodies.
Phlogiston
At Nokia Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey, Clinton Davisson and Lester Germer enhanced Thomas Young's famous double slit experiment using electrons and confirmed the hypothesis of this French great who postulated on the wave-particle duality.
Louis de Broglie
Using an Argand oil lamp, a polarizing filter, a block of glass, and an electromagnet, he showed that electricity and magnetism are linked.
Michael Farady
In 1989, Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons caused a sensation in the scientific world by prematurely claiming that they were able to create nuclear fusion at room temperature which became known by this two-word term.
Cold fusion
The torsion bar experiment of 1798 by Henry Cavendish was the first to yield accurate values for this physical quantity.
Gravitational constant (the big G)
In 1985, the Nobel-winning Kary Mullis invented this process in which DNA can be copied in large quantities over a short period of time which has since revolutionized several areas of science.
Polymerase chain reaction (PCR)
Using a pair of large copper hemispheres, Otto von Guericke demonstrated the property of vacuum in this German city in 1654 which, just twenty years earlier, underwent a terrible atrocity during the Thirty Years' War.
Magdeburg
Though a biography of Galileo by one of his pupils relates the incident, the story of him dropping two balls of different masses from the top of this iconic construction is possibly apocryphal.
Leaning Tower of Pisa
Because the conditional reflexes he was studying required complete isolation of his subjects, he arranged for the construction of a building he called the "Tower of Silence." Bells and salivating creatures followed.
Ivan Pavlov
Investigating unexplained background noise while building a sensitive antenna lead Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson to the discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation that was a remnant of this event.
Big Bang
The Michelson-Morley experiment of 1887 that disproved the existence of luminiferous aether was conducted at this educational institution located in Cleveland, Ohio.
Case Western Reserve University
Galileo's 1604 experiment using this simple machine allowed him to accurately measure the effect of gravity on falling objects. Science teachers often call it the "alpha" or primal experiment as it is usually one of the first experiments that students learn in physics.
Inclined plane
James Lind's clinical trials and experiments with sailors ultimately lead to the large-scale eradication of this disease.
Scurvy
This 1953 experiment was conducted at the University of Chicago to simulate the conditions of early Earth and was conducted to investigate chemical origins of life.
Urey-Miller experiment
This great investigated the shape of certain orchid flowers and successfully predicted that there would be a moth with tongue long enough to reach the nectar inside the flowers.
Charles Darwin
Named for a Scottish village, the Schiehallion experiment of 1774 sought to measure this property of the earth.
Mass/ mean density
English polymath Thomas Young considered his famous double-slit experiment as his greatest achievement. It was performed to validate this theory.
Wave theory of light
During the Apollo 15 mission on the moon, Commander David Scott dropped these two objects to illustrate Galileo's reasoning that both of them would reach the surface at the same time.
Hammer and feather
Designed to track North America’s geological evolution, this is the largest science project on earth and its several components examine all facets of the continent's geological composition.
EarthScope
This device used to demonstrate the rotation of the earth is a popular display in entrances of science museums.
Foucault's pendulum
Using just the length of a shadow of a sundial and a simple set of measurements, the ancient Greek Eratosthenes computed this value with remarkable accuracy.
Circumference of the Earth
Luigi Galvani discovered that the muscles of these dead creature's legs twitched when struck by a spark and pioneered the study of nervous system signals.
Frogs