Compare Experiments — Ontological Atlas

Select 2–5 experiments

Mary's Room Frank Jackson · 1982 The Chinese Room John Searle · 1980 The Ship of Theseus Plutarch (transmitting an older Athenian puzzle) · c. 75 AD Newcomb's Problem William Newcomb; popularised by Robert Nozick · 1969 The Double-Slit Experiment Thomas Young (light, 1801); Davisson–Germer (electrons, 1927) · 1801 / 1927 Bell Test Experiments John S. Bell (theorem); Alain Aspect et al. (canonical experiment) · 1964 / 1982 (loophole-free, 2015) The Michelson–Morley Experiment Albert A. Michelson and Edward W. Morley · 1887 The Delayed-Choice Quantum Eraser John A. Wheeler (proposal); Kim, Yu, Kulik, Shih, Scully (experiment) · 1978 / 1999 Schrödinger's Cat Erwin Schrödinger · 1935 Wigner's Friend Eugene Wigner · 1961 Brain in a Vat Hilary Putnam (modern formulation); descended from Cartesian skepticism · 1981 Twin Earth Hilary Putnam · 1973 Philosophical Zombies David Chalmers (modern; descended from Robert Kirk 1974) · 1996 Parfit's Teletransporter Derek Parfit · 1984 The Experience Machine Robert Nozick · 1974 The Trolley Problem Philippa Foot (original); Judith Jarvis Thomson (modern variants) · 1967 / 1976 Galileo's Falling Bodies Galileo Galilei · 1638 Einstein's Elevator Albert Einstein · 1907 Maxwell's Demon James Clerk Maxwell · 1867 Boltzmann Brains Ludwig Boltzmann (precursor, 1895); modern formulation by Albrecht & Sorbo (2004) · 1895 / 2004 The Stern–Gerlach Experiment Otto Stern and Walther Gerlach · 1922 Eddington's Eclipse Expedition Arthur Eddington and Frank Dyson · 1919 Hafele–Keating Joseph Hafele and Richard Keating · 1971 The Pound–Rebka Experiment Robert Pound and Glen Rebka · 1959 Foucault's Pendulum Léon Foucault · 1851 The Cavendish Experiment Henry Cavendish · 1798 The Wu Experiment Chien-Shiung Wu, with Lee and Yang (theory) · 1956 LIGO Gravitational-Wave Detection LIGO Scientific Collaboration / Virgo Collaboration · 2015 (first detection); 1916 (Einstein's prediction) The Cosmic Microwave Background Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson (detection); Alpher, Herman, Gamow (prediction) · 1964 (detection); 1948 (prediction) Libet's Free Will Experiments Benjamin Libet · 1983 The Millikan Oil-Drop Experiment Robert A. Millikan (with Harvey Fletcher) · 1909 The Rutherford Gold-Foil Experiment Ernest Rutherford (with Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden) · 1909 Plato's Cave Plato · c. 375 BC Descartes' Evil Demon René Descartes · 1641 Buridan's Ass Attributed to Jean Buridan (14th c.); the example is older · c. 1340 The Inverted Spectrum John Locke (precursor, 1689); modern: Sydney Shoemaker, Ned Block · 1689 / 1980s Swampman Donald Davidson · 1987 The Beetle in the Box Ludwig Wittgenstein · 1953 Gettier Cases Edmund Gettier · 1963 The Sorites Paradox Eubulides of Miletus · 4th c. BC The Sleeping Beauty Problem Adam Elga (modern formulation); origins in Piccione & Rubinstein 1997 · 2000 Frankfurt Cases Harry Frankfurt · 1969 The Veil of Ignorance John Rawls · 1971 Bostrom's Simulation Argument Nick Bostrom · 2003 Newton's Prism Experiment Isaac Newton · 1672 Joule's Mechanical Equivalent of Heat James Prescott Joule · 1843–1850 Faraday's Electromagnetic Induction Michael Faraday · 1831 Hertz's Electromagnetic Waves Heinrich Hertz · 1887 Brownian Motion / Perrin's Confirmation Robert Brown (observation, 1827); Einstein (theory, 1905); Jean Perrin (confirmation, 1908) · 1827 / 1905 / 1908 The Photoelectric Effect Albert Einstein (theory, 1905); R. A. Millikan (confirmation, 1916) · 1905 / 1916 Pasteur's Swan-Neck Flask Louis Pasteur · 1859 Mendel's Pea Plants Gregor Mendel · 1866 Hubble's Redshift Law Edwin Hubble (with Vesto Slipher's spectral data) · 1929 The Higgs Boson Discovery ATLAS and CMS Collaborations (LHC); theory: Higgs, Brout, Englert, Guralnik, Hagen, Kibble (1964) · 2012 (detection); 1964 (theory) Neutrino Oscillations Super-Kamiokande and SNO Collaborations · 1998 / 2001 Quantum Teleportation Bouwmeester, Pan, Mattle, Eibl, Weinfurter, Zeilinger (experiment); Bennett et al. (1993, theory) · 1997 (first experiment); 1993 (theory) The Violinist Judith Jarvis Thomson · 1971 The Drowning Child Peter Singer · 1972 Block's Chinese Nation Ned Block · 1978 The Repugnant Conclusion Derek Parfit · 1984 The Ring of Gyges Plato (recounted by Glaucon) · c. 375 BC Newton's Bucket Isaac Newton · 1687 Galileo's Ship Galileo Galilei · 1632 Hilbert's Hotel David Hilbert · 1924 (lecture); popularised by Gamow 1947 Pascal's Wager Blaise Pascal · 1670 (posthumous) The Liar Paradox Attributed to Epimenides; modern formulations from Eubulides · 6th–4th c. BC Tegmark's Mathematical Universe Hypothesis Max Tegmark · 1998 Dennett's 'Where Am I?' Daniel Dennett · 1978 Compton Scattering Arthur Compton · 1923 The Hershey–Chase Experiment Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase · 1952 The Meselson–Stahl Experiment Matthew Meselson and Franklin Stahl · 1958 Milgram's Obedience Experiments Stanley Milgram · 1961 Asch's Conformity Experiments Solomon Asch · 1951 Galileo's Inclined Plane Galileo Galilei · 1604–1638 Lavoisier's Conservation of Mass Antoine Lavoisier · 1789 Coulomb's Torsion Balance Charles-Augustin de Coulomb · 1785 CP Violation in Kaon Decay James Cronin and Val Fitch · 1964 Bose–Einstein Condensation Cornell, Wieman, Ketterle (experiment); Bose, Einstein (theory) · 1995 (experiment); 1924–25 (theory) The Lamb Shift Willis Lamb and Robert Retherford · 1947 The Avery–MacLeod–McCarty Experiment Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod, Maclyn McCarty · 1944 The Doomsday Argument Brandon Carter (1983); John Leslie; J. Richard Gott · 1983 The Lottery Paradox Henry Kyburg · 1961 The Two Envelopes Paradox Folklore; modern: Maurice Kraitchik (1953), John Broome (1995) · 1953 The Surprise Examination Paradox Folklore; analysed by D. J. O'Connor, Quine, Fitch, others · 1940s Hesperus and Phosphorus Gottlob Frege · 1892 Quine's Gavagai W. V. O. Quine · 1960 Hempel's Ravens Carl Hempel · 1945 Goodman's Grue Nelson Goodman · 1955 Russell's Five-Minute Hypothesis Bertrand Russell · 1921 Fitch's Knowability Paradox Frederic Fitch · 1963 Eternal Recurrence Friedrich Nietzsche (modern); Stoics, Indian thought (precursors) · 1882 The Bilking Argument Max Black; Michael Dummett (precise formulation) · 1956 Eratosthenes' Measurement of Earth Eratosthenes of Cyrene · c. 240 BC Galileo's Moons of Jupiter Galileo Galilei · 1610 Tycho's Supernova Tycho Brahe · 1572 Hess's Cosmic-Ray Balloon Flights Victor Hess · 1912 The Aharonov–Bohm Effect Yakir Aharonov and David Bohm · 1959 Tonomura's Single-Electron Interference Akira Tonomura and colleagues (Hitachi) · 1989 The Discovery of Pulsars Jocelyn Bell Burnell (with Antony Hewish) · 1967 The November Revolution Burton Richter (SLAC) and Samuel Ting (BNL) · 1974 The Discovery of W and Z Bosons UA1 (Rubbia) and UA2 collaborations, CERN · 1983 The Top Quark Discovery CDF and D0 collaborations, Fermilab · 1995 Trapped Anti-Hydrogen at CERN ALPHA ALPHA collaboration, CERN · 2010 Lunar Laser Ranging McDonald Observatory, JPL, others; reflectors deployed by Apollo 11, 14, 15 and Lunokhod 1, 2 · 1969–present What Is It Like to Be a Bat? Thomas Nagel · 1974 Block's Blockhead Ned Block · 1981 Wittgenstein's Lion Ludwig Wittgenstein · 1953 Reid's Brave Officer Thomas Reid (against Locke) · 1785 Locke's Prince and the Cobbler John Locke · 1694 Williams' Self and the Future Bernard Williams · 1970 Strawson's Reactive Attitudes P. F. Strawson · 1962 Russell's Paradox Bertrand Russell · 1901 Cantor's Diagonal Argument Georg Cantor · 1891 The Cogito René Descartes · 1637 / 1641 Nozick's Tale of the Slave Robert Nozick · 1974 Singer's Expanding Circle Peter Singer (building on W. E. H. Lecky) · 1981 Rømer's Measurement of the Speed of Light Ole Rømer · 1676 Torricelli's Barometer Evangelista Torricelli · 1644 Ørsted's Compass Deflection Hans Christian Ørsted · 1820 Röntgen's X-Rays Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen · 1895 Discovery of Radioactivity Henri Becquerel (1896); Marie and Pierre Curie (1898) · 1896 / 1898 Seafloor Spreading Alfred Wegener (continental drift, 1912); F. J. Vine and D. H. Matthews (seafloor evidence, 1963) · 1912 / 1963 The Cesium Atomic Clock Louis Essen and Jack Parry · 1955 JWST's Surprisingly Mature Early Galaxies JWST collaboration; many groups · 2022– Boyle's J-Tube Robert Boyle (with Robert Hooke) · 1662 The Faraday Cage Michael Faraday · 1836 Volta's Pile Alessandro Volta · 1800 The Hubble Deep Fields Robert Williams and the HST team; later HUDF, eXtreme Deep Field, JWST counterparts · 1995 (HDF); 2004 (HUDF); 2023 (JWST) Kripke's "Plus" vs "Quus" Saul Kripke (reconstructing Wittgenstein) · 1982 The Survival Lottery John Harris · 1975 Meno's Slave Boy Plato · c. 380 BC BonJour's Clairvoyant Laurence BonJour · 1980 Williamson's Anti-Luminosity Argument Timothy Williamson · 2000 The Frame Problem John McCarthy and Patrick Hayes · 1969 Pascal's Mugging Nick Bostrom · 2009 Curry's Paradox Haskell Curry · 1942 Berry's Paradox G. G. Berry (Bodleian librarian); reported by Russell · 1906 Searle's Wisdom Tooth John Searle · 1992 Anscombe's Intention G. E. M. Anscombe · 1957 Davidson's Triangulation Donald Davidson · 1990s (developed over the decade) Galvani's Twitching Frogs Luigi Galvani · 1780–1791 Olbers' Paradox Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers (folklore precursors) · 1823 Anderson's Discovery of the Positron Carl Anderson · 1932 The Discovery of the Muon Carl Anderson and Seth Neddermeyer · 1936 Cherenkov Radiation Pavel Cherenkov · 1934 Rossi-Hall Cosmic-Ray Muon Time Dilation Bruno Rossi and David B. Hall · 1941 The Quantum Hall Effect Klaus von Klitzing · 1980 High-Tc Superconductivity Johannes Bednorz and Karl Alex Müller · 1986 The First Image of a Black Hole Event Horizon Telescope collaboration · 2019 WMAP and Planck CMB Anisotropy Maps WMAP team (NASA); Planck Collaboration (ESA) · 2003 / 2013–2018 The Casimir Effect Hendrik Casimir (theory, 1948); Steve Lamoreaux (precision measurement, 1997) · 1948 / 1997 Voyager 1 Crossing the Heliopause NASA / JPL Voyager team · 2012 (heliopause crossing)