For the past two-and-a-half
decades, the Office of Science at the U.S.
Department of Energy has been at the forefront
of scientific discovery. We asked our staff
and colleagues to help us identify 100 or
so of the most important discoveries supported
by the Office of Science.
The following list of discoveries is grouped
by general discipline—the numerical order
is random and not ranked by importance.
Basic Energy Sciences
1. Adenosine Triphosphate:
The Energy Currency of Life
2. Making Better
Catalysts
3. Understanding
Chemical Reactions
4. New Types of
Superconductors
5. Development of
Neutron Scattering Facilities
6. Development of
Synchrotron Radiation Light Sources
7. Development of
Lithium Batteries
8. A New Class of
Carbon Structures
9. Engineering Organisms
to Make Valuable Biomaterials
10. Heavy Element
Chemistry
11. Improving Intermetallic
Compounds
12. Ion Beam Techniques
Enhance Materials Science
13. Preventing
Radioactive Contamination
14. Explaining
and Applying Magnetism
15. Modeling Metals
16. Organic-Based
Magnets: A New Frontier
17. Manipulating
Light in Photonic Crystals
18. Extending the
Power of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Techniques
19. Saving the
Earth's Ozone Layer
20. Making Solar
Energy More Affordable
21. Enhancing Separations
and Analysis
22. Sequencing
the First Plant Genome
23. New Opto-electronic
Materials and Devices
24. Unraveling
the Mystery of High-Temperature Superconductivity
25. Harnessing
the "Thermoacoustic" Effect
26. Metallic Glasses
with Extraordinary Properties
27. Extending the
Science of Transition Metal Nitrides
28. A New Type
of Microscopy
High Energy and Nuclear Physics
29. First Evidence
of a Third Family of Fundamental Particles
30. Discovery of
One of the Smallest Particles of Matter
31. A Limit on
the Complexity of the Universe
32. Completion
of the Third Generation of Matter
33. Confirmation
of the Unification of Two Fundamental Forces
34. Methods for
Complex Calculations
35. Zeroing in
on the Elusive Higgs Boson
36. The Missing
Solar Neutrinos
37. Evidence for
Neutrino Mass
38. Setting Limits
on the Mass of the Electron Anti-Neutrino
39. Beyond the
Standard Model?
40. Unraveling
the Mystery of Antimatter
41. Detecting the
Afterglow of the Big Bang
42. The Inflationary
Universe
43. Expansion of
the Universe is Accelerating
44. The Most Distant
Object Ever Observed
45. "The Stars
Above Us, Govern Our Conditions"
46. Rare Double
Beta Decay Process is Observed
47. Unusual Nuclei
May Answer Long-Standing Questions
48. A Theory for
Deducing Quark Behavior
49. The World's
Most Powerful Accelerator
50. First Linear
Collider Offers New Possibilities
51. World's Most
Intense Source of Polarized Electrons
52. Lifetime of
the Bottom Quark
53. New Clues to
the Disappearance of Antimatter
54. The Highest-Energy
Atom Smasher
55. Why Dinosaurs
Are Extinct
56. Understanding
and Applying Superstring Theory
Plasma Physics
57. Stable Confinement
of High-Pressure Plasmas
58. The Role of
Currents in Plasma Confinement
59. Reducing Plasma
Turbulence
60. Measuring the
Magnetic Field Inside Plasmas
61. A New Magnetic
Container for Super Hot Plasmas
62. Modeling Large
Systems of Particles
63. First Achievement
of Fusion Temperatures in the Laboratory
64. A New Plasma
Confinement Regime
Advanced Scientific Computing
Research
65. Emergence of
Chaotic Systems
66. The Launch
of Internet Conferencing
67. Fluid Dynamics
Calculations in Complex Geometries
68. Best Performances
in Scientific Computing
69. Mathematics
Puzzle Finally Solved
70. Accurate Modeling
of Magnetic Materials
71. The Transition
to Massively Parallel Supercomputing
72. Identifying
an Intractable Scientific Problem
Biological and Environmental
Research
73. Improving the
Realism of Global Simulations
74. Decoding the
Human Genome
75. Verifying the
"Third Branch of Life"
76. The World's
Toughest Microbe
77. The Smallest
Genome that Sustains Independent Life
78. Speeding Up
the Process of Gene Discovery
79. Engineered
Enzyme Accelerates DNA Sequencing
80. Tiny Capillaries
Have Giant Impact on DNA Sequencing
81. "Painting"
Chromosomes for Quick and Easy Analysis
82. Putting a Virus
to Practical Use
83. Unraveling
the Role of DNA Repair
84. Of Mice and
Men
85. The Role of
the Extracellular Matrix in Cancer
86. New Tools for
Structural Biology Research
87. The Structure
of Nature's "Molecular Machines"
88. Studies of
Protein Structure Help Fight Lyme Disease
89. Accelerating
the Study of Proteins
90. Optical Probes
for Imaging Single Molecules
91. MicroPET Enhances
Studies of Small Animals
92. Mapping Human
Brain Function
93. Improving Neutron
Beams for Cancer Treatment
94. The Biochemistry
of Human Addiction
95. Observing Chemical
Changes in Living Cells
96. Modeling and
Simulating Environmental Problems
97. Discovering
the Processes of Acid Rain
98. Predicting
Effects of Elevated Carbon Dioxide
99. Clues to the
Location of the Missing Carbon Dioxide
100. Human Effects
on Global Warming
101. Listening
to the Ocean's Temperature |
