Physicists
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James Clerk Maxwell
James Clerk Maxwell Scottish physicist best known for his formulation of electromagnetic theory. He is regarded by most modern physicists as the scientist of the 19th century who had the greatest influence...
Hermann von Helmholtz
Hermann von Helmholtz, German scientist and philosopher who made fundamental contributions to physiology, optics, electrodynamics, mathematics, and meteorology. He is best known for his statement of the...
Enrico Fermi
Enrico Fermi Italian-born American scientist who was one of the chief architects of the nuclear age. He developed the mathematical statistics required to clarify a large class of subatomic phenomena, explored...
Max Planck
Max Planck German theoretical physicist who originated quantum theory, which won him the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1918. Planck made many contributions to theoretical physics, but his fame rests primarily...
Werner Heisenberg
Werner Heisenberg German physicist and philosopher who discovered (1925) a way to formulate quantum mechanics in terms of matrices. For that discovery, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for 1932....
Carl Friedrich Gauss
Carl Friedrich Gauss German mathematician, generally regarded as one of the greatest mathematicians of all time for his contributions to number theory, geometry, probability theory, geodesy, planetary...
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein German-born physicist who developed the special and general theories of relativity and won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921 for his explanation of the photoelectric effect. Einstein...
Ernest Rutherford
Ernest Rutherford New Zealand-born British physicist considered the greatest experimentalist since Michael Faraday (1791–1867). Rutherford was the central figure in the study of radioactivity, and with...
Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton English physicist and mathematician who was the culminating figure of the Scientific Revolution of the 17th century. In optics, his discovery of the composition of white light integrated the...
Joseph Black
Joseph Black, British chemist and physicist best known for the rediscovery of “fixed air” (carbon dioxide), the concept of latent heat, and the discovery of the bicarbonates (such as bicarbonate of soda)....
Guglielmo Marconi
Guglielmo Marconi Italian physicist and inventor of a successful wireless telegraph, or radio (1896). In 1909 he received the Nobel Prize for Physics, which he shared with German physicist Ferdinand Braun....
P.A.M. Dirac
P.A.M. Dirac English theoretical physicist who was one of the founders of quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics. Dirac is most famous for his 1928 relativistic quantum theory of the electron and...
al-Bīrūnī
Al-Bīrūnī Muslim astronomer, mathematician, ethnographist, anthropologist, historian, and geographer. Al-Bīrūnī lived during a period of unusual political turmoil in the eastern Islamic world. He served...
Joseph-Louis Gay-Lussac
Joseph-Louis Gay-Lussac French chemist and physicist who pioneered investigations into the behaviour of gases, established new techniques for analysis, and made notable advances in applied chemistry. Gay-Lussac...
Galileo
Galileo Italian natural philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician who made fundamental contributions to the sciences of motion, astronomy, and strength of materials and to the development of the scientific...
John Dalton
John Dalton English meteorologist and chemist, a pioneer in the development of modern atomic theory. Dalton was born into a Quaker family of tradesmen; his grandfather Jonathan Dalton was a shoemaker,...
Niels Bohr
Niels Bohr Danish physicist who is generally regarded as one of the foremost physicists of the 20th century. He was the first to apply the quantum concept, which restricts the energy of a system to certain...
Michael Faraday
Michael Faraday English physicist and chemist whose many experiments contributed greatly to the understanding of electromagnetism. Faraday, who became one of the greatest scientists of the 19th century,...
Henry Cavendish
Henry Cavendish, natural philosopher, the greatest experimental and theoretical English chemist and physicist of his age. Cavendish was distinguished for great accuracy and precision in research into the...
William Thomson, Baron Kelvin
William Thomson, Baron Kelvin Scottish engineer, mathematician, and physicist who profoundly influenced the scientific thought of his generation. Thomson, who was knighted and raised to the peerage in...