ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Timeline of developments in theoretical physics

Well, kiddo, the timeline of developments in theoretical physics is like a map that shows us how scientists have worked hard to understand the world around us. Just like you learn about numbers and shapes in school, physicists have been trying to understand how the world works for a long time.

One of the first great physicists was Sir Isaac Newton, who helped us understand how things move by discovering the laws of motion and the law of gravity. Next came a genius named Albert Einstein who helped us understand that space and time aren't just things we experience, but they're connected and can actually affect each other. He also came up with the famous equation E=mc² that explains how energy and matter are related to each other.

After Einstein, other scientists like Max Planck and Werner Heisenberg figured out that the world is actually made of tiny particles called atoms, and that those particles behave differently the closer you look at them. This became known as quantum mechanics, and it helped scientists understand things like how the sun produces energy and how our computers work.

More recently, physicists have been trying to understand the universe on a grand scale. They've discovered that the universe began with a Big Bang and that it's still expanding today. They've also figured out that there's dark matter, which we can't see but we know it's there because of its effects on other things. They're still working to understand all of these mysteries, but they've made huge progress already.

So in summary, physicists have been working for a long time to understand the world we live in, and they've made amazing discoveries about how things move, how atoms behave, and how the universe began and is still evolving.
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