- Albert Einstein
This German born physicist is considered one of the world's greatest thinkers in history. Not only did he shape the way people think of time, space, matter, energy, and gravity but he also was a supporter of Zionism and peaceful living. Einstein was born on March 14, 1879 in Ulm Germany, and spent most of his youth living in Munich, where his family owned a small electric machinery shop. He attended schooling in Munich, which he found unimaginative and dull. - Stephen Hawking
Stephen William Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS, FRSA, (born 8 January1942) is a British theoretical physicist. Hawking is the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He is known for his contributions to the fields of cosmology and quantum gravity, especially in the context of black holes, and his popular works in which he discusses his own theories and cosmology in general. - Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton <small><nowiki>[</nowiki> OS: 25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726<nowiki>]</nowiki></small> was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, and alchemist. His treatise "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica", published in 1687, described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, laying the groundwork for classical mechanics, … - Richard Feynman
Richard Phillips Feynman was an American physicist known for expanding the theory of quantum electrodynamics, the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, and particle theory. For his work on quantum electrodynamics, Feynman was a joint recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965, … - Max Planck
Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck was a German physicist. He is considered to be the founder of quantum theory, and therefore one of the most important physicists of the twentieth century. - Niels Bohr
Niels (Henrik David) Bohr was a Danish physicist who made fundamental contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum mechanics, for which he received the Nobel Prize in 1922. He was also part of the team of physicists working on the Manhattan Project. Bohr married Margrethe Nørlund in 1912, and one of their sons Aage Niels Bohr grew up to be an important physicist, who like his father received the Nobel prize. - Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal, (June 19 1623-August 19 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father. Pascal's earliest work was in the natural and applied sciences where he made important contributions to the construction of mechanical calculators, the study of fluids, and clarified the concepts of pressure and vacuum by generalizing the work of Evangelista Torricelli. - Freeman Dyson
Freeman John Dyson FRS (born December 15, 1923) is an English-born American theoretical physicist and mathematician, famous for his work in quantum mechanics, solid-state physics, nuclear weapons design and policy, and for his serious theorizing in futurism and science fiction concepts, including the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. He is a lifelong opponent of nationalism, and proponent of nuclear disarmament and international cooperation. - Enrico Fermi
Enrico Fermi (September 29, 1901 - November 28, 1954) was an Italian physicist most noted for his work on the development of the first nuclear reactor, and for his contributions to the development of quantum theory, particle physics and statistical mechanics. Fermi won the 1938 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on induced radioactivity. - Robert Oppenheimer
J. Robert Oppenheimer (April 22, 1904 - February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physicist, best known for his role as the director of the Manhattan Project, the World War II effort to develop the first nuclear weapons, at the secret Los Alamos laboratory in New Mexico. Known as "the father of the atomic bomb"," Oppenheimer lamented the weapon's killing power after it was used to destroy the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. - James Clerk Maxwell
James Clerk Maxwell (13 June 1831 - 5 November 1879) was a Scottish mathematician and theoretical physicist. His most significant achievement was formulating a set of equations - eponymously named Maxwell's equations - that for the first time expressed the basic laws of electricity and magnetism in a unified fashion. He also developed the Maxwell distribution, a statistical means to describe aspects of the kinetic theory of gases. - Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla (10 July 1856 - 7 January 1943) was an inventor, physicist, mechanical engineer and electrical engineer. Born in Smiljan, Croatia, he was an ethnic Serb subject of the Austrian Empire and later became an American citizen. Tesla is best known for his many revolutionary contributions to the discipline of electricity and magnetism in the late 19th and early 20th century. - Lee Smolin
Lee Smolin (born 1955 in New York City) is an American theoretical physicist, a researcher at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, and an adjunct professor of physics at the University of Waterloo. Smolin is best known for devising several different approaches to quantum gravity, in particular loop quantum gravity. He advocates that the two primary approaches to quantum gravity, loop quantum gravity and string theory, … - Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei (15 February 1564 - 8 January 1642) was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher closely associated with the scientific revolution. His achievements include the first systematic studies of uniformly accelerated motion, improvements to the telescope, a variety of astronomical observations, and support for Copernicanism. Galileo's experiment-based work was a significant break from the abstract approach of Aristotle. - Frank Oppenheimer
Frank Friedman Oppenheimer (August 14, 1912 - February 3, 1985) was an American physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project, was a target of McCarthyism, and was later the founder of the Exploratorium in San Francisco. He was the younger brother of Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, the first director of Los Alamos National Laboratory. Growing up eight years Robert's junior, Frank was constantly in the shadow of his brilliant brother. - Marie Curie
Maria Skłodowska-Curie (born Maria Skłodowska; known in France and most other countries as Marie Curie; November 7, 1867 - July 4 1934) was a Polish-French physicist and chemist. She was a pioneer in the field of radioactivity, the first twice-honored Nobel laureate (and still today the only laureate in two different sciences), and the first female professor at the Sorbonne. - Luboš Motl
Lubos Motl, in Czech Luboš Motl is a Czech theoretical physicist who works on string theory and conceptual problems of quantum gravity. Motl was born in Plzeň. He received his master degree from the Charles University in Prague, and his Doctor of Philosophy degree from Rutgers University and has been a Harvard Junior Fellow (2001-2004) and assistant professor (2004-2007) at Harvard University. - James Hansen
James E. Hansen (born March 29, 1941 in Denison, Iowa), heads the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City, a part of the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, Earth Sciences Division. He is currently an adjunct professor in the Earth and Environmental Sciences department at Columbia University. - David Bohm
David Joseph Bohm (b. December 20 1917, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania - d. October 27 1992, London) was an American-born quantum physicist, who made significant contributions in the fields of theoretical physics, philosophy and neuropsychology, and to the Manhattan Project. - Brian Greene
Brian Greene (born February 9, 1963), is a physicist and one of the best-known string theorists. Since 1996 he has been a professor at Columbia University. Born in New York City, Greene was a prodigy in mathematics. His skill in mathematics was such that by the time he was twelve years old, he was being privately tutored in mathematics by a Columbia University professor because he had surpassed the high-school math level. - Michael Faraday
Michael Faraday, FRS (September 22, 1791 – August 25, 1867) was an English chemist and physicist (or "natural philosopher", in the terminology of that time) who contributed significantly to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. Faraday studied the magnetic field around a conductor carrying a DC electric current, and established the basis for the magnetic field concept in physics. He discovered electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism and electrolysis. - Edward Teller
Edward Teller (original Hungarian name "Teller Ede") (January 15 1908 - September 9 2003) was a Austria-Hungary-born American theoretical physicist, known colloquially as "the father of the hydrogen bomb." Teller immigrated to the United States in the 1930s, and was an early member of the Manhattan Project charged with developing the first atomic bombs. During this time he made a serious push to develop the first fusion-based weapons as well, … - Paul Davies
Paul Charles William Davies (born April 22, 1946) is a British-born, physicist, writer and broadcaster, who holds the position of College Professor at Arizona State University. He has held previous academic appointments at the University of Cambridge, University of London, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, University of Adelaide and Macquarie University. His research interests are in the fields of cosmology, quantum field theory, and astrobiology. - Steven Weinberg
Steven Weinberg (born May 3, 1933) is an American physicist. He was awarded the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics (with colleagues Abdus Salam and Sheldon Glashow) for combining electromagnetism and the weak force into the electroweak force. - Werner Heisenberg
Werner Karl Heisenberg was a celebrated German physicist and Nobel laureate, one of the founders of quantum mechanics, and acknowledged to be one of the most important physicists of the twentieth century. He was born in Würzburg, Germany and died in Munich. Heisenberg was the head of German nuclear energy project, though the nature of this project, and his work in this capacity, has been heavily debated. - Leonard Susskind
Leonard Susskind (born 1940) is the Felix Bloch professor of theoretical physics at Stanford University in the field of string theory and quantum field theory. Susskind is widely regarded as one of the fathers of string theory for his early contributions to the String Theory model of particle physics. - Michio Kaku
Dr. Michio Kaku is a Japanese American theoretical physicist, tenured professor, and co-founder of string field theory, a branch of superstring theory. He is a widely known popularizer of science, the host of two radio programs, and the author of numerous books. - Edward Witten
Edward Witten (born August 26, 1951) is an American mathematical physicist, Fields Medalist, and professor at the Institute for Advanced Study. He is one of the world's leading researchers in string theory (as the founder of M-theory) and quantum field theory. - Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell (3 March 1847 - 2 August 1922) was a scientist, inventor, and innovator. Born and raised in Edinburgh, Scotland, he emigrated to Canada in 1870, and then to the United States in 1871, becoming a U.S. citizen in 1882. Bell was awarded the U.S. patent for the invention of the telephone in 1876; although other inventors had claimed the honor, the Bell patent remained in effect. - Arthur C. Clarke
Sir Arthur Charles Clarke (born 16 December 1917) is a British science-fiction author and inventor, most famous for his novel "2001: A Space Odyssey", and for collaborating with director Stanley Kubrick on the film of the same name. Clarke is the last surviving member of what was sometimes known as the "Big Three" of science fiction, which included Robert A. Heinlein and Isaac Asimov. - Max Born
Max Born (December 11, 1882 - January 5, 1970) was a German mathematician and physicist. He won the 1954 Nobel Prize in Physics - Wolfgang Pauli
Wolfgang Ernst Pauli (April 25, 1900 - December 15, 1958) was an Austrian theoretical physicist noted for his work on the theory of spin, and in particular the discovery of the exclusion principle, which underpins the structure of matter, and (as such) the whole of chemistry. - Paul Dirac
Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac, OM, FRS (August 8, 1902 - October 20, 1984) was a British theoretical physicist and a founder of the field of quantum mechanics. He held the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge and spent the last ten years of his life at Florida State University. Among other discoveries, he formulated the so-called "Dirac equation," which describes the behavior of fermions and which led to the prediction of the existence of antimatter. - Louis Pasteur
Louis Pasteur (December 27 1822 - September 28 1895) was a French chemist best known for his remarkable breakthroughs in microbiology. His experiments confirmed the germ theory of disease, also reducing mortality from puerperal fever (childbed), and he created the first vaccine for rabies. He is best known to the general public for showing how to stop milk and wine from going sour - this process came to be called "pasteurization". - Murray Gell-Mann
Murray Gell-Mann (born September 15, 1929 in Manhattan, New York City, USA) is an American physicist who received the 1969 Nobel Prize in physics for his work on the theory of elementary particles. - John Adams
Sir John Bertram Adams KBE FRS (24 May 1920-3 March 1984) was a British nuclear physicist and administrator. During World War II, Adams worked in the Radar laboratories of the British Ministry of Aircraft Production. After the war he moved to Harwell, and the Atomic Energy Research establishment, designing a 180 MeV synchro-cyclotron. In 1953 he joined CERN as director of the Proton Synchotron division. - John von Neumann
John von Neumann (born Margittai Neumann János Lajos on December 28, 1903 in Budapest, Austria-Hungary; died February 8, 1957 in Washington D.C., United States) was a Austria-Hungary-born American mathematician who made contributions to quantum physics, functional analysis, set theory, topology, economics, computer science, numerical analysis, hydrodynamics (of explosions), … - Ernest Rutherford
Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson OM PC FRS (30 August 1871 - 19 October 1937), widely referred to as Lord Rutherford, was a nuclear physicist who became known as the "father" of nuclear physics. He pioneered the orbital theory of the atom through his discovery of Rutherford scattering off the nucleus with his gold foil experiment. - Erwin Schrödinger
Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger was an Austrian - Irish physicist who achieved fame for his contributions to quantum mechanics, especially the Schrödinger equation, for which he received the Nobel Prize in 1933. In 1935, he proposed the Schrödinger's cat thought experiment. - Francis Harry Compton Crick
Francis Harry Compton Crick was born on June 8th, 1916, at Northampton, England, being the elder child of Harry Crick and Annie Elizabeth Wilkins . He has one brother, A. F. Crick , who is a doctor in New Zealand. Crick was educated at Northampton Grammar School and Mill Hill School, London.
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