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Famous Physicists Listing 1544-1603 English hypothesized that the Earth is a giant magnet Galileo Galilei 1564-1642 Italian performed fundamental observations, experiments, and mathematical analyses in astronomy and physics; discovered mountains and craters on the moon, the phases of Venus, and the four largest satellites of Jupiter: Io, Europa, Callisto, and Ganymede Willebrod Snell 1580-1626 Dutch discovered law of refraction (Snell's law) Blaise Pascal 1623-1662 French discovered that pressure applied to an enclosed fluid is transmitted undiminished to every part of the fluid and to the walls of its container (Pascal's principle) Christiaan Huygens 1629-1695 Dutch proposed a simple geometrical wave theory of light, now known as ``Huygen's principle''; pioneered use of the pendulum in clocks Robert Hooke 1635-1703 English discovered Hooke's law of elasticity Sir Isaac Newton 1643-1727 English developed theories of gravitation and mechanics, and invented differential calculus Daniel Bernoulli 1700-1782 Swiss developed the fundamental relationship of fluid flow now known as Bernoulli's principle Benjamin Franklin 1706-1790 American the first American physicist; characterized two kinds of electric charge, which he named ``positive'' and ``negative'' Leonard Euler 1707-1783 Swiss made fundamental contributions to fluid dynamics, lunar orbit theory (tides), and mechanics; also contributed prolifically to all areas of classical mathematics Henry Cavendish 1731-1810 British discovered and studied hydrogen; first to measure Newton's gravitational constant; calculated mass and mean density of Earth Charles Augustin de Coulomb 1736-1806 French experiments on elasticity, electricity, and magnetism; established experimentally nature of the force between two charges Joseph-Louis Lagrange 1736-1813 French developed new methods of analytical mechanics James Watt 1736-1819 Scottish invented the modern condensing steam engine and a centrifugal governor William Gilbert Count Alessandro Volta 1745-1827 Italian pioneer in study of electricity; invented the first electric battery Joseph Fourier 1768-1830 French established the differential equation governing heat diffusion and solved it by devising an infinite series of sines and cosines capable of approximating a wide variety of functions Thomas Young 1773-1829 British studied light and color; known for his double-slit experiment that demonstrated the wave nature of light Jean-Babtiste Biot 1774-1862 French studied polarization of light; co-discovered that intensity of magnetic field set up by a current flowing through a wire varies inversely with the distance from the wire André Marie Ampère 1775-1836 French father of electrodynamics Amadeo Avogadro 1776-1856 Italian developed hypothesis that all gases at same volume, pressure, and temperature contain same number of atoms Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss 1777-1855 German formulated separate electrostatic and electrodynamical laws, including ``Gauss' law''; contributed to development of number theory, differential geometry, potential theory, theory of terrestrial magnetism, and methods of calculating planetary orbits Hans Christian Oersted 1777-1851 Danish discovered that a current in a wire can produce magnetic effects Sir David Brewster 1781-1868 English deduced ``Brewster's law'' giving the angle of incidence that produces reflected light which is completely polarized; invented the kaleidoscope and the stereoscope, and improved the spectroscope Augustin-Jean Fresnel 1788-1827 French studied transverse nature of light waves Georg Ohm 1789-1854 German discovered that current flow is proportional to potential difference and inversely proportional to resistance (Ohm's law) Michael Faraday 1791-1867 English discovered electromagnetic induction and devised first electrical transformer Felix Savart 1791-1841 French co-discovered that intensity of magnetic field set up by a current flowing through a wire varies inversely with the distance from the wire Sadi Carnot 1796-1832 French founded the science of thermodynamics Joseph Henry 1797-1878 American performed extensive fundamental studies of electromagnetic phenomena; devised first practical electric motor Christian Doppler 1803-1853 Austrian experimented with sound waves; derived an expression for the apparent change in wavelength of a wave due to relative motion between the source and observer Wilhelm E. Weber 1804-1891 German developed sensitive magnetometers; worked in electrodynamics and the electrical structure of matter Sir William Hamilton 1805-1865 Irish developed the principle of least action and the Hamiltonian form of classical mechanics James Prescott Joule 1818-1889 British discovered mechanical equivalent of heat Armand-HippolyteLouis Fizeau 1819-1896 French made the first terrestrial measurement of the speed of light; invented one of the first interferometers; took the first pictures of the Sun on daguerreotypes; argued that the Doppler effect with respect to sound should also apply to any wave motion, particularly that of light Jean-Bernard-Léon Foucault 1819-1868 French accurately measured speed of light; invented the gyroscope; demonstrated the Earth's rotation Sir George Gabriel Stokes 1819-1903 British described the motion of viscous fluids by independently discovering the Navier-Stokes equations of fluid mechanics (or hydrodynamics); developed Stokes theorem by which certain surface integrals may be reduced to line integrals; discovered fluorescence Hermann von Helmholtz 1821-1894 German developed first law of thermodynamics, a statement of conservation of energy Rudolf Clausius 1822-1888 German developed second law of thermodynamics, a statement that the entropy of the Universe always increases Lord Kelvin (born William Thomson) 1824-1907 British proposed absolute temperature scale, of essence to development of thermodynamics Gustav Kirchhoff 1824-1887 German developed three laws of spectral analysis and three rules of electric circuit analysis; also contributed to optics Johann Balmer 1825-1898 Swiss developed empirical formula to describe hydrogen spectrum Sir Joseph Wilson Swan 1828-1914 British developed a carbon-filament incandescent light; patented the carbon process for printing photographs in permanent pigment James Clerk Maxwell 1831-1879 Scottish propounded the theory of electromagnetism; developed the kinetic theory of gases Josef Stefan 1835-1893 studied blackbody radiation Austrian Ernst Mach 1838-1916 Austrian studied conditions that occur when an object moves through a fluid at high speed (the ``Mach number'' gives the ratio of the speed of the object to the speed of sound in the fluid); proposed ``Mach's principle,'' which states that the inertia of an object is due to the interaction between the object and the rest of the universe Josiah Gibbs 1839-1903 American developed chemical thermodynamics; introduced concepts of free energy and chemical potential James Dewar 1842-1923 British liquified nitrogen and invented the Dewar flask, which is critical for low-temperature work Osborne Reynolds 1842-1912 British contributed to the fields of hydraulics and hydrodynamics; developed mathematical framework for turbulence and introduced the ``Reynolds number,'' which provides a criterion for dynamic similarity and correct modeling in many fluid-flow experiments Ludwig Boltzmann 1844-1906 Austrian developed statistical mechanics and applied it to kinetic theory of gases Roland Eötvös 1848-1919 Hungarian demonstrated equivalence of gravitational and inertial mass Oliver Heaviside 1850-1925 English contributed to the development of electromagnetism; introduced operational calculus and invented the modern notation for vector calculus; predicted existence of the Heaviside layer (a layer of the Earth's ionosphere) George Francis FitzGerald 1851-1901 Irish hypothesized foreshortening of moving bodies (Lorentz-FitzGerald contraction) to explain the result of the Michelson-Morley experiment John Henry Poynting 1852-1914 British demonstrated that the energy flow of electromagnetic waves could be calculated by an equation (now called Poynting's vector) Henri Poincaré 1854-1912 French founded qualitative dynamics (the mathematical theory of dynamical systems); created topology; contributed to solution of the three-body problem; first described many properties of deterministic chaos; contributed to the development of special relativity Janne Rydberg 1854-1919 Swedish analyzed the spectra of many elements; discovered many line series were described by a formula that depended on a universal constant (the Rydberg constant) Edwin H. Hall 1855-1938 American discovered the ``Hall effect,'' which occurs when charge carriers moving through a material are deflected because of an applied magnetic field - the deflection results in a potential difference across the side of the material that is transverse to both the magnetic field and the current direction Heinrich Hertz 1857-1894 German worked on electromagnetic phenomena; discovered radio waves and the photoelectric effect Nikola Tesla 1857-1943 Serbian-born American created alternating current Johannes van der Waals 1837-1923 Dutch worked on equations of state for gases and liquids Lord Rayleigh (born John William Strutt) 1842-1919 British discovered argon; explained how light scattering is responsible for red color of sunset and blue color of sky Wilhelm Röntgen 1845-1923 German discovered and studied x rays Antoine Henri Becquerel 1852-1908 French discovered natural radioactivity Albert A. Michelson 1852-1931 German-born American devised an interferometer and used it to try to measure Earth's absolute motion; precisely measured speed of light Hendrik Antoon Lorentz 1853-1928 Dutch introduced Lorentz transformation equations of special relativity; advanced ideas of relativistic length contraction and relativistic mass increase; contributed to theory of electromagnetism Heike KamerlinghOnnes 1853-1926 Dutch liquified helium; discovered superconductivity Sir Joseph John Thomson 1856-1940 British demonstrated existence of the electron Max Planck 1858-1947 German formulated the quantum theory; explained wavelength distribution of blackbody radiation Pierre Curie 1859-1906 French studied radioactivity with wife, Marie Curie; discovered piezoelectricity Sir William Henry Bragg 1862-1942 British worked on x-ray spectrometry Nobel Laureates Philipp von Lenard 1862-1947 German studied cathode rays and the photoelectric effect Wilhelm Wien 1864-1928 German discovered laws governing radiation of heat Pieter Zeeman 1865-1943 Dutch discovered splitting of spectral lines in a strong magnetic field Marie Curie 1867-1934 Polish-born French discovered radioactivity of thorium; co-discovered radium and polonium Robert Millikan 1868-1953 American measured the charge of an electron; introduced term ``cosmic rays'' for the radiation coming from outer space; studied the photoelectric effect Charles Wilson 1869-1959 British invented the cloud chamber Jean Baptiste Perrin 1870-1942 French experimentally proved that cathode rays were streams of negatively charged particles; experimentally confirmed the correctness of Einstein's theory of Brownian motion, and through his measurements obtained a new determination of Avogadro's number Lord Ernest Rutherford 1871-1937 British theorized existence of the atomic nucleus based on results of the alpha-scattering experiment performed by Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden; developed theory of Rutherford scattering (scattering of spinless, pointlike particles from a Coulomb potential) Guglielmo Marconi 1874-1937 Italian invented the first practical system of wireless telegraphy Johannes Stark 1874-1957 German discovered splitting of spectral lines in a strong electric field Charles Glover Barkla 1877-1944 British discovered that every chemical element, when irradiated by x rays, can emit an x-ray spectrum of two line-groups, which he named the K-series and L-series, that are of fundamental importance to understanding atomic structure Albert Einstein 1879-1955 German-born American explained Brownian motion and photoelectric effect; contributed to theory of atomic spectra; formulated theories of special and general relativity Otto Hahn 1879-1968 German discovered the fission of heavy nuclei Max von Laue 1879-1960 discovered diffraction of x rays by crystals German Sir Owen Richardson 1879-1959 British discovered the basic law of thermionic emission, now called the Richardson (or Richardson-Dushman) equation, which describes the emission of electrons from a heated conductor Clinton Joseph Davisson 1881-1958 American co-discovered electron diffraction Max Born 1882-1970 German-born British contributed to creation of quantum mechanics; pioneer in the theory of crystals Percy Williams Bridgman 1882-1961 American invented an apparatus to produce extremely high pressures; made many discoveries in high-pressure physics James Franck 1882-1964 German experimentally confirmed that atomic energy states are quantized Victor Franz Hess 1883-1964 Austrian discovered cosmic radiation Peter Debye 1884-1966 Dutch-born German used methods of statistical mechanics to calculate equilibrium properties of solids; contributed to knowledge of molecular structure Neils Bohr 1885-1962 Danish contributed to quantum theory and to theory of nuclear reactions and nuclear fission Karl Manne Georg Siegbahn 1886-1978 Swedish made important experimental contributions to the field of x-ray spectroscopy Gustav Hertz 1887-1975 German experimentally confirmed that atomic energy states are quantized Erwin Schrödinger 1887-1961 Austrian contributed to creation of quantum mechanics; formulated the Schrödinger wave equation Sir Chandrasekhara Raman 1888-1970 Indian studied light scattering and discovered the Raman effect Otto Stern 1888-1969 German-born American contributed to development of the molecular beam method; discovered the magnetic moment of the proton Frits Zernike 1888-1966 Dutch invented the phase-contrast microscope, a type of microscope widely used for examining specimens such as biological cells and tissues Sir William Lawrence Bragg 1890-1971 British worked on crystal structure and x rays Walther Bothe 1891-1957 German devised a coincidence counter for studying cosmic rays; demonstrated validity of energy-momentum conservation at the atomic scale Sir James Chadwick 1891-1974 British discovered the neutron Sir Edward Appleton 1892-1965 English discovered the layer of the Earth's atmosphere, called the Appleton layer, which is the part of the ionosphere having the highest concentration of free electrons and is the most useful for radio transmission Prince Louis-Victor de Broglie 1892-1987 French predicted wave properties of the electron Arthur Compton 1892-1962 American discovered the increase in wavelength of x rays when scattered by an electron Sir George Paget Thomson 1892-1975 British co-discovered electron diffraction Harold Clayton Urey 1893-1981 American discovered deuterium Pjotr Leonidovich Kapitsa 1894-1984 Soviet heralded a new era of low-temperature physics by inventing a device for producing liquid helium without previous cooling with liquid hydrogen; demonstrated that Helium II is a quantum superfluid Robert S. Mulliken 1896-1986 American introduced the theoretical concept of the molecular orbital, which led to a new understanding of the chemical bond and the electronic structure of molecules Lord Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett 1897-1974 British developed an automatic Wilson cloud chamber; discovered electron-positron pair production in cosmic rays Sir John Cockcroft 1897-1967 British co-invented the first particle accelerator Irène Joliot-Curie 1897-1956 French co-discovered artificial radioactivity Isador Isaac Rabi 1898-1988 Austrian-born American developed the resonance technique for measuring the magnetic properties of atomic nuclei Frédéric Joliot-Curie 1900-1958 French co-discovered artificial radioactivity Dennis Gabor 1900-1979 invented and developed the holographic method whereby it is Hungarian possible to record and display a three-dimensional display of an object Wolfgang Pauli 1900-1958 Austrian-born American discovered the exclusion principle; suggested the existence of the neutrino Enrico Fermi 1901-1954 Italian-born American performed experiments leading to first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction; developed a theory of beta decay that introduced the weak interaction; derived the statistical properties of gases that obey the Pauli exclusion principle Werner Heisenberg 1901-1976 German contributed to creation of quantum mechanics; introduced the ``uncertainty principle'' and the concept of exchange forces Ernest Orlando Lawrence 1901-1958 American invented the cyclotron Paul Adrien Maurice 1902-1984 Dirac British helped found quantum electrodynamics; predicted the existence of antimatter by combining quantum mechanics with special relativity discovered and developed optical methods for studying the Hertzian resonances that are produced when atoms interact with radio waves or microwaves Alfred Kastler 1902-1984 French Eugene Wigner 1902-1995 contributed to theoretical atomic and nuclear physics; introduced Hungarian-born concept of the nuclear cross section American Cecil F. Powell 1903-1969 British developed the photographic emulsion method of studying nuclear processes; discovered the charged pion Ernest Walton 1903-1995 Irish co-invented the first particle accelerator Pavel Cerenkov 1904-1990 Soviet discovered the ``Cerenkov effect'' whereby light is emitted by a particle passing through a medium at a speed greater than that of light in the medium Carl David Anderson 1905-1991 American discovered the positron and the muon Felix Bloch 1905-1983 Swiss-born American contributed to development of the NMR technique; measured the magnetic moment of the neutron; contributed to the theory of metals Sir Nevill F. Mott 1905-1996 British contributed to theoretical condensed-matter physics by applying quantum theory to complex phenomena in solids; calculated cross section for relativistic Coulomb scattering Emilio Segrè 1905-1989 Italian-born American co-discovered the antiproton; discovered technetium Hans Bethe 1906-2005 German-born American contributed to theoretical nuclear physics, especially concerning the mechanism for energy production in stars Maria GoeppertMayer 1906-1972 German-born American advanced shell model of nuclear structure Ernst Ruska 1906-1988 German designed the first electron microscope Shin-Ichiro Tomonaga 1906Japanese co-developed quantum electrodynamics J. Hans D. Jensen 1907-1973 German advanced shell model of nuclear structure Edwin M. McMillan 1907-1991 American made discoveries concerning the transuranium elements Hideki Yukawa 1907-1981 Japanese predicted existence of the pion John Bardeen 1908-1991 American co-discovered the transistor effect; developed theory of superconductivity Lev Landau 1908-1968 Soviet contributed to condensed matter theory on phenomena of superfluidity and superconductivity Subramanyan Chandrasekhar 1910-1995 Indian-born American made important theoretical contributions concerning the structure and evolution of stars, especially white dwarfs William Shockley 1910-1989 American co-discovered the transistor effect Luis Walter Alvarez 1911-1988 American constructed huge bubble chambers and discovered many shortlived hadrons; advanced the impact theory for the extinction of the dinosaurs William Fowler 1911-1995 American studied nuclear reactions of astrophysical significance; developed, with others, a theory of the formation of chemical elements in the universe Polykarp Kusch 1911-1993 American experimentally established that the electron has an anomalous magnetic moment and made a precision determination of its magnitude Edward Mills Purcell 1912-1997 American developed method of nuclear resonance absorption that permitted the absolute determination of nuclear magnetic moments; codiscovered a line in the galactic radiospectrum caused by atomic hydrogen Glenn T. Seaborg 1912-1999 American co-discovered plutonium and all further transuranium elements through element 102 Willis E. Lamb, Jr. 1913-2008 American made discoveries concerning fine structure of hydrogen Robert Hofstadter 1915-1990 American measured charge distributions in atomic nuclei with high-energy electron scattering; measured the charge and magnetic-moment distributions in the proton and neutron Richard P. Feynman co-developed quantum electrodynamics; created a new 1918-1988 formalism for practical calculations by introducing a American graphical method called Feynman diagrams Frederick Reines established, together with Clyde L. Cowan, Jr., the 1918-1998 existence of the electron antineutrino by detecting them American using a reactor experiment Julian Schwinger 1918-1994 co-developed quantum electrodynamics American Others Wallace Clement Sabine 1868-1919 founded the science of architectural acoustics American Arnold Sommerfeld generalized the circular orbits of the atomic Bohr model to elliptical 1868-1951 orbits; introduced the magnetic quantum number; used statistical German mechanics to explain the electronic properties of metals Lise Meitner 1878-1968 co-discovered the element protactinium and studied the effects of Austrianneutron bombardment on uranium; introduced term ``fission'' for born splitting the atomic nucleus Swedish Paul Ehrenfest 1880-1933 applied quantum mechanics to rotating bodies; helped develop the Austrian modern statistical theory of nonequilibrium thermodynamics Theodor von Kármán 1881-1963 Hungarian- provided major contributions to our understanding of fluid mechanics, born turbulence theory, and supersonic flight American Walther Meissner 1882-1974 co-discovered the ``Meissner effect'', whereby a superconductor expells German a magnetic field Hans Geiger 1883-1945 helped measure charge-to-mass ratio for alpha particles; invented German Geiger counter for detecting ionizing particles Hermann Weyl attempted to incorporate electromagnetism into general relativity; 1885-1955 evolved the concept of continuous groups using matrix representations German and applied group theory to quantum mechanics Arthur Jeffrey Dempster 1886-1950 Canadiandiscovered the isotope uranium-235 born American Henry Moseley 1887-1915 developed the modern form of the period table of elements based on British their atomic numbers Sir Robert Watson- 1892-1973 developed radar Watt Scottish Satyendra Bose 1894-1974 worked out statistical method of handling bosons (a group of particles Indian named in his honor) Oskar Klein introduced the physical notion of extra dimensions that helped develop the Kaluza-Klein theory; co-developed the Klein-Gordon equation 1894-1977 describing the relativistic behavior of spinless particles; co-developed Swedish the Klein-Nishina formula describing relativistic electron-photon scattering Vladimir A. Fock 1898-1974 made fundamental contributions to quantum theory; invented the Russian Hartree-Fock approximation method and the notion of Fock space Leo Szilard 1898-1964 Hungarianfirst suggested possibility of a nuclear chain reaction born American Pierre Auger discovered the Auger effect whereby an electron is ejected from an 1899-1993 atom without the emission of an x-ray or gamma-ray photon as the French result of the de-excitation of an excited electron within the atom; discovered cosmic-ray air showers Ernst Ising 1900-1998 Germandeveloped the Ising model of ferromagnetism born American Fritz London 1900-1954 co-developed the phenomenological theory of superconductivity; coGermandeveloped the first quantum-mechanical treatment of the hydrogen born molecule; determined that the electromagnetic gauge is the phase of the American Schrödinger wave function Charles Francis Richter 1900-1985 established the Richter scale for the measurement of earthquake American intensity George E. Uhlenbeck 1900-1988 co-discovered that the electron has an intrinsic spin Dutch Robert J. Van de Graaf 1901-1967 invented the Van de Graaf electrostatic generator American Samuel Abraham Goudsmit 1902-1978 co-discovered that the electron has an intrinsic spin Dutch Igor Vasilievich Kurchatov 1903-1960 headed the Soviet atomic and hydrogen bomb programs Soviet 1903-1957 Hungarian- formulated a fully quantum mechanical generalization of statistical John von Neumann born mechanics American George Gamow 1904-1968 Russianfirst suggested hydrogen fusion as source of solar energy; introduced born the term ``Big Bang'' American J. Robert Oppenheimer 1904-1967 headed Manhattan Project to develop the nuclear fission bomb American Sir Rudolf Peierls 1907-1995 Germanmany contributions in theoretical physics, including an improved born calculation of the critical mass needed to make a fission bomb British Edward Teller 1908-2003 Hungarianhelped develop atomic and hydrogen bombs born American Victor F. Weisskopf 1908Austrianborn American Homi Jehangir Bhabha initiated nuclear research programs in India; carried out experiments in 1909-1966 cosmic rays; calculated cross section for elastic electron-positron Indian scattering Nikolai N. 1909-1992 theoretical physicist and mathematician who contributed to the made theoretical contributions to quantum electrodynamics, nuclear structure, and elementary particle physics Bogolubov Russian 1911AustrianMaurice Goldhaber born American microscopic theory of superfluidity; also contributed to theory of elementary particles, including the S-matrix and dispersion relations, and to nonlinear mechanics and the general theory of dynamical systems first measured (with James Chadwick) an accurate mass for the neutron; participated in experiments proving that beta rays are identical to atomic electrons; developed (with Edward Teller) the concept of coherent oscillations of protons and neutrons in nuclei leading to the giant dipole resonance; performed an experiment showing that neutrinos are created with negative helicity, which provided conclusive evidence for the V-A theory of weak interactions; participated in experiments that obtained an upper limit on the rate of proton decay and that provided evidence for neutrino oscillations Chien-Shiung Wu 1912-1997 Chineseexperimentally proved that parity is not conserved in nuclear beta born decay American Henry Primakoff 1914-1983 Russianborn American Robert Rathbun Wilson driving force behind creation of Fermilab and Cornell University's Laboratory of Nuclear Studies; a leader in the formation of the 1914-2000 Federation of Atomic Scientists; did extensive measurements of kaon American and pion photoproduction in which he made the first observation of a new state of the nucleon, N(1440) Vitaly L. Ginzburg 1916Russian Robert E. Marshak contributed to theoretical particle physics; independently proposed 1916-1993 (with George Sudarshan) the V-A theory of weak interactions; American developed explanation of how shock waves behave under conditions of extremely high temperatures Wolfgang K. H. Panofsky 1919-2007 co-discovered the neutral pion via photoproduction; studied gamma Germanrays from pi- captured in hydrogen and first measured the ``Panofsky born ratio'' American co-developed the theory of spin waves; first described the process that became known as the ``Primakoff effect'' (the coherent photoproduction of neutral mesons in the electric field of an atomic nucleus); contributed to understanding of various manifestations of the weak interaction, including muon capture, double-beta decay, and the interaction of neutrinos with nuclei contributed to theory of superconductivity and theory of high-energy processes in astrophysics; co-discovered transition radiation, emitted when charged particles traverse interface between two different media
