Ranking the Important Experiments

William Harris compiled a list of the 10 Science Experiments that changed the world.  Some simple experiments alter our understanding of reality and lead us to our theories to describe nature.  So I will join in this salute of the experiment by providing his list (Top 10)  and completing a top 25.  For more details check out Harris' list at Curiosity Online through the Discovery Channel

1. Stanley Milgram's experiments in obedience provided some shocking results (psychology).
2. Ivan Pavlov trains his dog to salivate at the sound of a bell (classical conditioning).
3. Marie Curie leaves uranium on a photographic plate (radioactivity).
4. A.A. Michelson devises a method of calculating the speed of light (quantum mechanics).
5. Stanley Miller and Harold Urey simulate the conditions of early Earth in a lab (abiogenesis).
6. Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin maps the 3-D structure of penicillin (x-ray crystallography).
7. Ernest Rutherford fires alpha particles through gold foil and some bounce back (atomic nucleus).
8. Edward Jenner defeats small pox (vaccination).
9. Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase infect bacteria with radioactive viruses (DNA).
10. Charles Darwin inspects the relationship between orchids and their pollinators (natural selection).
11. Gregor Mendel studies pea plants (genetics).
12. Oswald Avery narrows down the genetic material (DNA).
13. Henry Cavendish calculates the Gravitational Constant (G).
14. Isaac Newton unlocks the secret of the prism (light).
15. Thomas Hunt Morgan mutates fruit flies (chromosomes).
16. Robert Hooke looks at cork under a microscope (cells).
17. Louis Pasteur boils some broth (biogenesis).
18. Galileo drops a ball and disproves Aristotle (acceleration of gravity).
19. Barbara McClintock finds jumping genes (transposons).
20. Thomas Young passes light through a double slit test (light).
21. Enrico Fermi splits the atom (nuclear physics).
22. BF Skinner puts the pigeons in a box (operant conditioning).
23. Philip Zimbardo puts college kids in a prison with college guards in Stanford (psychology)
24. J.J. Thomson builds a cathode ray tube (electrons).
25. Hans Speilman clones a salamander by dividing an embryo (embryology).

I will admit that my list may be biased towards biology and physics because I am teaching those subjects right now.  You can leave your favorite experiments in the comments section.