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Famous Scientists
Build your taste profile and get better suggestions. You've rated 0 of 63 topics. Want more suggestions? Launch Quick Rate- Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (April 15, 1452 - May 2, 1519) was an Italian polymath, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician and writer. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance man, a man whose...
- Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was ethnically Jewish, German-born theoretical physicist. He is best known for his theory of relativity and specifically mass/energy equivalence, expressed by the equation E = mc2. His many contributions to physics include the special and general theories of relativity, the founding...
- Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847 – October 18, 1931) was an American inventor, scientist and businessman who developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb.
- Marie Curie
Marie Skłodowska Curie (November 7, 1867 – July 4, 1934) was a physicist and chemist of Polish upbringing and, subsequently, French citizenship. She was a pioneer in the field of radioactivity, the first person honored with two Nobel Prizes, and the first female professor at the University of...
- Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS (4 January 1643 – 31 March 1727 [OS: 25 December 1642 – 20 March 1727]) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is perceived and considered by a substantial number of scholars and the general public as one of...
- Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS (12 February 1809 - 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist who realised and presented compelling evidence that all species of life have evolved over time from common ancestors, through the process he called natural selection. The fact that evolution occurs became...
- Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations, and support for...
- Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin (January 17, 1706 [O.S. January 6, 1705] – April 17, 1790) was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author and printer, satirist, political theorist, politician, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman...
- Stephen Hawking
Stephen William Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS, FRSA (born 8 January 1942) is a British theoretical physicist. He is known for his contributions to the fields of cosmology and quantum gravity, especially in the context of black holes. He has also achieved success with works of popular science in which he...
- Jane Goodall
Dame Jane Goodall, DBE (born Valerie Jane Morris Goodall on 3 April 1934) is an English UN Messenger of Peace, primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist. She is well-known for her 45-year study of chimpanzee social and family interactions in Gombe Stream National Park, Tanzania, and for...
- Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla (10 July 1856 – 7 January 1943) was an inventor and a mechanical and electrical engineer. Tesla was born in the village of Smiljan near the town of Gospić, Vojna Krajina, in the territory of today's Croatia. He was an ethnic Serb subject of the Austrian Empire and later became an...
- Archimedes
Archimedes of Syracuse (Greek: Ἀρχιμήδης) (c. 287 BC – c. 212 BC) was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the leading scientists in classical antiquity.
- Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud (German pronunciation: [ˈziːkmʊnt ˈfʁɔʏt]), born Sigismund Schlomo Freud (6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939), was an Austrian neurologist who founded the psychoanalytic school of psychology. Freud is best known for his theories of the unconscious mind and the defense mechanism...
- Pythagoras
Pythagoras of Samos (Greek: Ὁ Πυθαγόρας ὁ Σάμιος, O Pūthagoras o Samios, "Pythagoras the Samian", or simply Ὁ Πυθαγόρας; born between 580 and 572 BC, died between 500 and 490 BC) was an Ionian Greek mathematician and founder of the religious movement called...
- Nicolaus Copernicus
Nicolaus Copernicus (19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was the first astronomer to formulate a comprehensive heliocentric cosmology, which displaced the Earth from the center of the universe. His epochal book, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres)...
- Carl Sagan
Carl Edward Sagan, Ph.D. (November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, astrochemist, author, and highly successful popularizer of astronomy, astrophysics and other natural sciences. He pioneered exobiology and promoted the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI).
- Gregor Mendel
Gregor Johann Mendel (July 20, 1822 – January 6, 1884) was an Augustinian priest and scientist, and is often called the father of genetics for his study of the inheritance of certain traits in pea plants. Mendel showed that the inheritance of these traits follows particular laws, which were later...
- Ivan Pavlov
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (Russian: Иван Петрович Павлов, September 14, 1849 – February 27, 1936) was a Russian, and later Soviet, physiologist, psychologist, and physician. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1904 for research pertaining to the digestive...
- Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung (26 July 1875 - 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist, an influential thinker and the founder of analytical psychology known as Jungian psychology. Jung's approach to psychology has been influential in the field of depth psychology and in countercultural movements across the globe.
- Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal (pronounced [blɛz paskal]), (June 19, 1623, in Clermont-Ferrand, France – August 19, 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a civil servant. Pascal's earliest work was in the natural and applied...
- Michael Faraday
Michael Faraday, FRS (22 September 1791 – 25 August 1867) was an English chemist and physicist (or natural philosopher, in the terminology of the time) who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. Faraday studied the magnetic field around a conductor carrying a DC...
- Niels Bohr
Niels Henrik David Bohr (7 October 1885 - 18 November 1962) was a Danish physicist who made fundamental contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum mechanics, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. Bohr mentored and collaborated with many of the top physicists of...
- Euclid
Euclid (Greek: Εὐκλείδης — Eukleídēs), fl. 300 BC, also known as Euclid of Alexandria, was a Greek mathematician and is often referred to as the "Father of Geometry." He was active in Hellenistic Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy I (323–283 BC). His Elements is the most...
- Erwin Schrödinger
Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger (German pronunciation: [ˈɛrviːn ˈʃrøːdɪŋɐ]; 12 August 1887 – 4 January 1961) was an Austrian theoretical physicist who achieved fame for his contributions to quantum mechanics, especially the Schrödinger equation, for which he received the...
- Dmitri Mendeleev
Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleyev (8 February [O.S. 27 January] 1834 - 2 February [O.S. 20 January] 1907), was a Russian chemist and inventor. He is credited as being the creator of the first version of the periodic table of elements. Using the table, he predicted the properties of elements yet to be...
- Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky (pronounced /ˌnoʊm ˈtʃɒmski/; born December 7, 1928) is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, political activist, author, and lecturer. He is an Institute Professor and professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
- James D. Watson
James Dewey Watson, born April 6, 1928, in Chicago, Illinois, is an American molecular biologist, best known as one of the co-discoverers of the structure of DNA. Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins were awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries concerning...
- Alan Turing
Alan Mathison Turing, OBE, FRS (pronounced /ˈtjʊərɪŋ/, TYOOR-ing; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954), was an English mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist. He was influential in the development of computer science and provided an influential formalisation of the concept of...
- Max Planck
Max Planck (April 23, 1858 – October 4, 1947) was a German physicist. He is considered to be the founder of the quantum theory, and thus one of the most important physicists of the twentieth century. Planck was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918.
- Richard Feynman
Richard Phillips Feynman (pronounced /ˈfaɪnmən/; May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988) was an American physicist known for the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as work in...
- Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970), was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, social reformer, and pacifist. Although he spent the majority of his life in England, he was born in Wales, where he also died.
- Enrico Fermi
Enrico Fermi (29 September 1901 – 28 November 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, nuclear and particle physics, and statistical mechanics.
- Werner Heisenberg
Werner Heisenberg (5 December 1901 – 1 February 1976) was a German theoretical physicist who made foundational contributions to quantum mechanics and is best known for asserting the uncertainty principle of quantum theory. In addition, he also made important contributions to nuclear physics...
- Tim Berners-Lee
Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee, OM, KBE, FRS, FREng, FRSA (London, 8 June 1955), is an English engineer and computer scientist and MIT professor credited with inventing the World Wide Web, making the first proposal for it in March 1989. On 25 December 1990, with the help of Robert Cailliau and a...
- Adam Smith
Adam Smith (baptised 16 June 1723 – 17 July 1790 [OS: 5 June 1723 – 17 July 1790]) was a Scottish moral philosopher and a pioneer of political economy. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and...
- Rosalind Franklin
Rosalind Elsie Franklin (25 July 1920 – 16 April 1958) was an English biophysicist and X-ray crystallographer who made important contributions to the understanding of the fine molecular structures of DNA, RNA, viruses, coal and graphite. Franklin is still best known for her work on the X-ray...
- Ada Lovelace
Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (10 December 1815, London – 27 November 1852, Marylebone, London), born Augusta Ada Byron, was the only legitimate child of poet Lord Byron. She is widely known in modern times simply as Ada Lovelace. She is mainly known for having written a description of...
- Francis Crick
Francis Harry Compton Crick OM FRS (8 June 1916 – 28 July 2004), was a British molecular biologist, physicist, and neuroscientist, and most noted for being one of the co-discoverers of the structure of the DNA molecule in 1953. He, James D. Watson and Maurice Wilkins were jointly awarded the 1962...
- Joseph Fourier
Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier (March 21, 1768 – May 16, 1830) was a French mathematician and physicist best known for initiating the investigation of Fourier series and their application to problems of heat transfer. The Fourier transform and Fourier's Law are also named in his honour.
- Leonhard Euler
Leonhard Paul Euler (15 April 1707 – 18 September 1783) was a pioneering Swiss mathematician and physicist who spent most of his life in Russia and Germany. His surname is pronounced /ˈɔɪlər/ OY-lər in English (German pronunciation: [ˈɔʏlɐ]); the common English pronunciation /ˈjuːlər/...
- James Clerk Maxwell
James Clerk Maxwell (13 June 1831 - 5 November 1879) was a Scottish theoretical physicist and mathematician. His most important achievement was classical electromagnetic theory, synthesizing all previous unrelated observations, experiments and equations of electricity, magnetism and even optics...
- Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze
Marie-Anne Pierette Paulze (20 January 1758 – 10 February 1836), was born in the town of Montbrison, in a small province in France. She is most commonly known as the wife of Antoine Lavoisier (Madame Lavoisier) but many do not know of her accomplishments in the field of chemistry.
- Pierre de Fermat
Pierre de Fermat (French pronunciation: [pjɛːʁ dəfɛʁˈma]; 17 August 1601 or 1607/8 – 12 January 1665) was a French lawyer at the Parlement of Toulouse, France, and an amateur mathematician who is given credit for early developments that led to modern calculus.
- Stephen Wolfram
Stephen Wolfram (born 29 August 1959 in London) is a British physicist, mathematician, author and businessman, known for his work in theoretical particle physics, cosmology, cellular automata, complexity theory, computer algebra and the Wolfram Alpha computational knowledge engine.
- Wolfgang Pauli
Wolfgang Ernst Pauli (25 April 1900 – 15 December 1958) was an Austrian theoretical physicist noted for his work on spin theory, and for the discovery of the exclusion principle underpinning the structure of matter and the whole of chemistry. Pauli was born in Vienna to Wolfgang Joseph Pauli...
- Kurt Gödel
Kurt Gödel (German pronunciation: [kʊɐ̯t ˈɡøːdl̩]; April 28, 1906, Brno – January 14, 1978, Princeton, New Jersey) was an Austrian-American logician, mathematician and philosopher. One of the most significant logicians of all time, Gödel made an immense impact upon scientific and...
- John Stewart Bell
John Stewart Bell (28 June 1928 ? 1 October 1990) was a physicist, and the originator of Bell's Theorem, one of the most important theorems in quantum physics. He was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and graduated in experimental physics at the Queen's University of Belfast, in 1948.
- William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin (or Lord Kelvin), OM, GCVO, PC, PRS, FRSE, (26 June 1824 – 17 December 1907) was an Irish-born British mathematical physicist and engineer. At Glasgow University he did important work in the mathematical analysis of electricity and thermodynamics, and did much to...
- Roger Penrose
Sir Roger Penrose, OM, FRS (born 8 August 1931) is an English mathematical physicist and Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford and Emeritus Fellow of Wadham College. He is renowned for his work in mathematical physics, in particular his...
- Ludwig Boltzmann
Ludwig Eduard Boltzmann (February 20, 1844 – September 5, 1906) was an Austrian physicist famous for his founding contributions in the fields of statistical mechanics and statistical thermodynamics. He was one of the most important advocates for atomic theory when that scientific model was still...
- Henri Poincaré
Jules Henri Poincaré (29 April 1854 – 17 July 1912) (French pronunciation: [ˈʒyl ɑ̃ˈʁi pwɛ̃kaˈʁe]) was a French mathematician and theoretical physicist, and a philosopher of science. Poincaré is often described as a polymath, and in mathematics as The Last Universalist, since he...
- Caroline Herschel
Caroline Lucretia Herschel (16 March 1750 - 9 January 1848) was a German astronomer, the sister of astronomer Sir Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel with whom she worked throughout both of their careers. Her most significant contribution to astronomy was the discovery of several comets and in particular...
- Mary Somerville
Mary Fairfax Somerville (26 December 1780 - 28 November 1872) was a Scottish science writer and polymath, at a time when women's participation in science was discouraged. She studied mathematics and astronomy, and was the second woman scientist to receive recognition in the United Kingdom after...
- Maria Mitchell
Maria Mitchell (August 1, 1818 – June 28, 1889) was an American astronomer. Maria Salmon Mitchell was born on August 1, 1818, in Nantucket, Massachusetts, and was a first cousin four times removed of Benjamin Franklin. She had nine brothers and sisters.
- Norbert Wiener
Norbert Wiener (November 26, 1894, Columbia, Missouri – March 18, 1964, Stockholm, Sweden) was an American pure and applied mathematician. A famous child prodigy, Wiener went on to become a pioneer in the study of stochastic and noise processes, contributing work relevant to electronic...
- Chien-Shiung Wu
Chien-Shiung Wu (simplified Chinese: ; traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: Wú Jiànxíong, lived May 29 1912 – February 16 1997) was a Chinese-American physicist with an expertise in the techniques of experimental physics and radioactivity. Wu worked on the Manhattan Project (in the process for...
- David Hilbert
David Hilbert (January 23, 1862 – February 14, 1943) was a German mathematician, recognized as one of the most influential and universal mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries. He discovered and developed a broad range of fundamental ideas in many areas, including invariant theory...
- Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot
Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot (1 June 1796 – 24 August 1832) was a French physicist and military engineer who, in his 1824 Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire, gave the first successful theoretical account of heat engines, now known as the Carnot cycle, thereby laying the foundations of the...
- Paul Erdős
Paul Erdős (occasionally spelled Erdos or Erdös; Hungarian: Erdős Pál, pronounced [ˈɛrdøːʃ ˈpaːl]; 26 March 1913 – 20 September 1996) was an immensely prolific and famously eccentric Hungarian mathematician. With hundreds of collaborators, he worked on problems in combinatorics, graph...
- Joseph Schumpeter
Joseph Alois Schumpeter (February 8, 1883 – January 8, 1950) was an economist and political scientist born in Moravia, then Austria-Hungary, now Czech Republic. He popularized the term "creative destruction" in economics. Born in Triesch, Moravia , Schumpeter was a brilliant student praised by...
- Herbert Simon
Herbert Alexander Simon (June 15, 1916 – February 9, 2001) was an American psychologist whose research ranged across the fields of cognitive psychology, computer science, public administration, economics, management, philosophy of science and sociology and was a professor, most notably, at...
- Alonzo Church
Alonzo Church (June 14, 1903 – August 11, 1995) was an American mathematician and logician who made major contributions to mathematical logic and the foundations of theoretical computer science. He is best known for the lambda calculus, Church–Turing thesis, Church Frege ontology, and the...
- Gregory Chaitin
Gregory John Chaitin (born 1947) is an Argentine-American mathematician and computer scientist. Beginning in the late 1960s, Chaitin made contributions to algorithmic information theory and metamathematics, in particular a new incompleteness theorem in reaction to Gödel's incompleteness theorem.
