What Are the Key Physics Experiments Shaping Our Understanding of the Universe?

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Key physics experiments that have shaped our understanding of the universe include foundational studies by figures such as Galileo Galilei on motion, Thomas Young on light diffraction, and Albert Einstein on relativity. The discussion highlights the importance of various experiments, including the Michelson-Morley experiment on aether and the Stern-Gerlach experiment illustrating quantum mechanics. Participants seek comprehensive lists and summaries of these experiments to deepen their understanding. Resources like Wikipedia and specific physics websites are recommended for further exploration. Overall, these experiments collectively contribute to the current knowledge of electromagnetic radiation, atomic structure, and fundamental physical principles.
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* I'm looking for a list of the major physics experiments on the internet that will show how the present understanding of electromagnetic radiation, sound, atomic and molecular structure etc came about.
* So far I've only found the following lists. Once I find a more complete list of the people who did the major experiments, then I hope to look through each one in more detail and try to get a summary of each. I'd appreciate if anyone can link me to more thorough lists - and sites with good summaries of the experiments would be nice too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_experiments"
1. mechanics: Al-Khazini
2. rainbow: Kamāl al-Dīn al-Fārisī
3. motion of rolling balls: Galileo Galilei
4. torsion: Henry Cavendish
5. double-slit light diffraction: Thomas Young
6. electricity & compass: Hans Christian Ørsted
7. heat: James Prescott Joule
8. sound: Christian Doppler
9. pendulum: Léon Foucault
10. magnet & voltage: Edwin Hall
11. aether: Michelson-Morley
12. radio waves: Guglielmo Marconi
13. cathode rays: J. J. Thomson
14. inertia & gravity: Roland von Eötvös
15. electric charge of oil drops: Robert Millikan
16. superconductivity: Heike Kamerlingh Onnes
17. atomic nucleus: Ernest Rutherford
18. gravitational lensing: Arthur Eddington
19. particle spin: Otto Stern and Walther Gerlach
20. atomic fission: Enrico Fermi
21. nuclear disintegration: John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton
22. nuclear reactor: Enrico Fermi
23. atomic bomb: The Manhattan Project
24. transistor: John Bardeen and Walter Brattain
25. neutrino: Clyde L. Cowan and Frederick Reines
26. time dilation: The Scout rocket
27. quantum entanglement: Alain Aspect
28. Bose-Einstein condensate: Eric Cornell and Carl Wieman

http://physics-animations.com/Physics/English/top_ref.htm"
30. Double-slit electron diffraction: Claus Jönsson
31. falling objects: Galileo Galilei
32. prism light spectrum: Isaac Newton
33. measurement of Earth's circumference: Eratosthenes

http://www.slideshare.net/kmitaksov/atomic-experiments-regular-fall07"
 
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* I found these in the Library section of this forum.
34. moment of inertia: Isaac Newton, Leonhard Euler, Jakob Steiner
35. pressure: Daniel Bernoulli
36. electric field: Michael Faraday, James Maxwell
37. momentum: Isaac Newton
38. Newton's second law: Isaac Newton
39. heat: Sadi Carnot, James Joule
40. impedance: Oliver Heaviside, Arthur Kennelly
41. voltage: Alessandro Volta
42. flux: Carl Friedrich Gauss
43. cooper pair: Leon Cooper
44. Feynman propagator: Richard Feynman
45. virtual particles: Richard Feynman, Gian-Carlo Wick, Freeman Dyson
46. mean value theorem: Parameshvara, Michel Rolle, Augustin Cauchy
47. free energy: St Albert of Cologne, Germain Hess, James Joule, Rudolf Clausius, Julius Thomsen, Marcellin Berthelot, Willard Gibbs, Hermann von Helmholtz
 
You might want to check out the Stern-Gerlach experiment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stern–Gerlach_experiment). It illustrates a lot of the basic quantum mechanical principles, in particular the deflection of particles and hence, physical interactions between particles.
 
So I know that electrons are fundamental, there's no 'material' that makes them up, it's like talking about a colour itself rather than a car or a flower. Now protons and neutrons and quarks and whatever other stuff is there fundamentally, I want someone to kind of teach me these, I have a lot of questions that books might not give the answer in the way I understand. Thanks

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