10 Great Scientists of the World

Scientists have enormous contribution in the advancement of human civilization. Throughout the
history of the world, many scientists have dedicated their lives for research and innovation. Some
of them even faced a lot of torture for their theories but they continued their mission and thus we
are now in a modern world. I have made a list of 10 great scientists in the history. Well,
naturally, I had to leave out a lot of great figures. However, I feel that my list represents some of
the greatest scientists ever.
Aristotle
Aristotle is the Great philosopher who had a vast knowledge in different disciplines. Studying
different subject he contributed a lot in each of those subjects. He contributed in physics, poetry,
zoology, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, and biology. This laurel Greek philosopher
was born in Stagira in 384 BC. His father Nicomachus was a physician to the king Amyntas III
of Macedons court and it is believed that their ancestors also held this position. Earlier in his life
he was taught by his father at home and the medical knowledge he got from his father led him to
investigate natural phenomenon later on. At the age of 18 he admitted in to the young Greek
aristocracy run by Plato, another Great Greek philosopher, and Aristotle became the most
favorite student of Plato.
As a scientist Aristotle made a good contribution which was very influential for the development
of the science over the year. Mainly he spent most of his life researching the natural science and
he did the researches without making reference to the Mathematics which was later proven as the
weakness of his research by the scientists. His natural science oriented research includes botany,
zoology, physics, astronomy, chemistry, and meteorology, geometry and many more. He was
also the teacher of the Great warrior Alexander the Great. This great philosopher died n 322 BC.


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Sir Isaac Newton
Newton was also a man of versatile quality. He was physicist, mathematician, astronomer,
alchemist, and natural philosopher in a row. His contribution in the development of science is a
special one. He I best known for his explanation of Universal Gravitation and three laws of
motion, and he was able to prove that the reason of both the motion of objects on Earth and of
celestial bodies are controlled by the same Neutral laws. These findings could make a
revolutionary change in the development of science. In mechanical science his great contribution
was in optics. He could make a reflecting telescope. He also made some research on light and
stars. His research on General binomial Theorem helped to be introduced todays Calculus.
Newton was born to a farmer family but before three months of his birth his father died and then
he was brought up to his maternal grandmother as her mother remarried. Newton could show his
talent from his early life in The Kings School in Grantham and later he joined to the Cambridge
University where he took his higher degrees.

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Galileo Galilei
Galileo is considered as one of the greatest contributor to the development of Science. It is
undoubtedly true that Galileo could first helped science to come out of the trend of Aristotle. He
was physicist, astronomer, and philosopher and his best known contributions lie in the
development of Telescope, first two laws of motion and also in Astronomy. He is also
considered as the father of astronomy, father of physics and father of science.
He was born to a mathematician and musician father Vincenzo Galilei and his mother was Giulia
Ammannati in Italy. He was taught form his very early life. He was the first scientist who
followed the way of quantitative experiments in his research where the result was based on
mathematics. He had to suffer a lot from the church for his theories.

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Charles Robert Darwin
There can be debate about whether Charles Darwin (12 February 1809 19 April 1882) is the
greatest scientist of all time but there is no doubt that he is the most controversial scientist of all
time. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859)- this is the book that has
made Darwin immortal in the world history. This book has changed the course of science
radically. It is perhaps an irony that Darwin studied theology and instead of becoming a clergy,
he became naturalist.
Darwin went to different parts of the world and carried out extensive research. His theory about
origin of human beings caused widespread controversy. Darwin stated that human beings have
evolved through many changes and survival of the fittest was in important factor in the
development of animal world. Darwins theory still causes passionate debate among his
supporters and opponents.

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Albert Einstein
Einstein is the great scientist of the twentieth century and notable physicist of all time. It is told
that he had learning disability in his childhood. He could not talk till he was three and could not
read till he was eight. Despite such problems he later became the noble prize winner for his
contribution to the Physics. His theory of relativity is considered as a revolutionary development
of Physics. He got Noble Prize in Physics in 1921 for his explanation of the Photoelectric Effect
and for his research in Theoretical physics.

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Thomas Edison
Edison is the great inventor who has over 1000 patents and his inventions are in various fields
used in our daily life. In his early life he was thought to have a learning disability and he could
not read till he was twelve and later he himself admitted that he became deaf after pulling up to a
train car by his ears. He first could able to turn the attention of the world after inventing
Phonograph. His one of the most popular invention is the Electric Bulb. He also developed the
telegraph system. His invention of carbon telephone transmitter developed the carbon
microphone which was used in the telephoned till 1980. He also became a prominent
businessman and his business institution produced his inventions and marketed the products to
the general people.




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Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta
Volta was Italian physicist and he is best known for his contribution to the development of
electric battery. This benevolent scientist is also regarded as one of the founder of the electric
age. His parents sent him to the Jesuit school intending to make him a Jurist. He also taught in
the University of Pavia for 25 year. After that in 1800 he could make voltaic pile which could
produce steady electric current. He then worked on to develop the electric bulb. For his work in
the electric development he was given a count by Napoleon. Emperor of Austria honored him
naming him a professor of Philosophy at Padova. For his honor an electric unit Volt was named
after him.

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Stephen Hawking
This famous scientist is considered as the greatest scientist of the twentieth century after
Einstein. Haw kings big bang theory and black hole theory has turned the attention of the world.
He is the professor of Mathematics of the University of Cambridge. Though he is now about to
be paralyzed, he is teaching through a computer supported a machine by which his world are
compiled. His physical illness could not make him stop form his research. His famous book is A
Brief History of Time.

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Louis Pasteur
He is one of the most famous contributors in the medical science. He first introduced the germ
theory of diseases. This is regarded as the base of todays microbiology. He found out some of
the notion of the microbe and he could find out that the viruses were not detectable through
microscope. Another important contribution of Pasteur is to protect harmful microbes in a way
called Pasteurization where harmful microbes are destroyed by hitting the food. He is
undoubtedly the most influential scientist in medical science.

Image Link: Louis Pasteur

Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose
He was the first renowned Bengali scientist who had an important contribution in the invention
of Radio and microwave optics. He was born in Mymensingh in Bengal which is the current
Munshiganj District in Bangladesh. He studied in Hare school in Kolkata and then he got his
B.A. in Science degree from Calcutta University. Then he went to England and got a B.A. degree
from Cambridge University and a B.Sc. from London University. After coming back to the
country he started teaching Physics in the Presidency College at Kolkata. In his teaching career
he had to prove his quality and talent as he was the first Indian to teach Science at the college. In
1894 he started to research on Radio wave to make wireless communication equipments. At the
same time Italys Marconi also was researching on this project. He first invented "iron-mercury-
iron coherer with telephone detector" and he is the first person to use a semiconductor junction to
catch the radio waves. It is said that his work on millimeter wavelength made him 50 years
ahead. Considering such things it is said that he was the real inventor of Radio but due to his less
seriousness towards patent and the communication gap made Marconi to be regarded as the
inventor of Radio.
After that he contributed in plant where he could make some vital theory of ascent of sap. In this
research he showed that some living cells in the endodermis junction are the reason for the ascent
of sap.




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Guglielmo Marchese Marconi
Marconi is a Nobel laureate physicist from Italy. He is best known for his invention of Radio and
he first introduced wireless telegraph system. He was born to a landowner father Giuseppe
Marconi and his mother was Annie Jameson. He was very interested to science form his early
life. He initially started working on electromagnetic wave or radio waves invented by Heinrich
Hertz. Then after a long research he could figure out such a technology to communicate without
wire. After his invention, he marketed this equipment for the commercial purpose and at that
time he got a competitor free market in the U.S.






638-548 B.C. Thales of Miletus - Greek philosopher; developed theory of matter based
upon water; recorded the attractive properties of rubbed amber and lodestone. c.540-475
B.C. Heraclitus - Greek philosopher; first of the Greeks to develop a theory of the human
soul; he praised its creative resources and spoke of the importance of self-exploration; he
spoke of the logos that is common to all and said that the universe is ruled by logos; he
always urged that close attention be given to the polarites and concealed structures
emodied in language.
His famous claim that an idividual can and cannot step into the same river twice reveals an
interest in criteria of unity and identity; even though all material constituents have
undergone change, it is still, in a sence, the same river. Preoccupied with change, he declared
that fire is the central element of the universe, and he postulated a world with no beginning
and no end...
581-497 B.C. Pythagoras - Greek philosopher and mathematician; held that numbers were
basic to matter; the Pythagorean Theorem is named for his geometric formulation;
developed atomic theory; students of his philosophy emphasized geometrical form as a
basic property of atoms; developed mathematical relationships which led to musical
harmony. c.490-c.430 B.C. Empedocles - Some suggest (c.484-c.424) - Greek doctor, poet
and philosopher. To account for real change, he assumed that there must be more than one
kind of matter, and he postulated four roots as elements; earth, air, fire, and water. Love
and hate were considered principles of attraction and repulsion that alternately dominated
the universe in a recurring cycle. Empedocles presented a kind of biological theory of
natural selection in an imaginative poem, On Nature. He also played an importqant role in
the development of the Western or Sicilian school of Greek medicine. He cured a plague at
the Sicilian city of Selinus and claimed he was a god. One legend, which forms the basis of
Matthew Arnold's poem Empedocles on Etna, held the Empedocles, tired of life and
wanting people to believe that the gods had taken him with them, committed suicide by
leaping into the crater of Mt. Etna. 470-399 B.C. Socrates - Greek philosopher; emphasized
the study of human nature in relationship to society; influence the growth of science
through standards for clear definitions and classifications, for logic and order, and for
prudent skepticism. 460-370 B.C. Democritus of Abdera - Greek philosopher; pupil of
Leucippus; developed atomic theory; elaborated idea that matter consisted of atoms having
physical size and shape which constantly moved in a void and interacted in different ways;
Greek word atoma means indivisible. c.450 B.C. Leucippus - proposed an atomic concept
of matter. 428-347 B.C. Plato - Greek philosopher; pupil of Socrates; dealt with the nature
of the universe; developed atomic theory of chemical change; ascribed geometric forms
composed of bounding planes to the elements of earth, fire, air and water based upon their
physical properties; held that elements could convert into one another through
rearrangement of bounding planes; used deductive reasoning as a learning method. 384-
322 B.C. Aristotle - updated engraving; Greek philosopher, educator and scientist;
undertook a large-scale classification of plants and animals; introduced a method of
scientific thinking that still plays a role today. 341-270 B.C. Epicurus - Greek philosopher;
founded the system known as Epicureanism. He studied with followers of Plato and
Democritus before opening his school in Athens. The school, later called the Garden,
accepted women and slaves. This, coupled with Epicurus' teachings concerning pleasure,
led to public criticism of the school as a scene of debauchery. In reality, life there was fairly
austere. Most of the writings of Epicurus have been lost. Fragments from his most
important work, Peri physeos (On Nature), were recovered from the charred papyri of
Herculaneum, buried by an eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79. c.336-264 B.C. Zeno of Cition -
Greek philosopher; founded the Stoic school of philosophy which held that matter, space,
etc. were continuous. c.95-c.55 B.C. Titus Lucretius Carus 69-30 B.C. Cleopatra VII -
experimented with poisons; influenced alchemists. 354-430 Aurelius Augustinus - (Saint
Augustine) - North Africa; was the first to report that the forces exerted by rubbed amber
and by lodstone are different properties. c.760-c.815 Jabir ibn-Hayyan - "Geber" c.850-
c.925 Al-Razi - "Rhazes" 979-1037 Ibn-Sina - Avicenna - Islamic physician and
philosopher; author of nearly 200 works in medicine, alchemy, language, philosophy and
religion. c.1397-c.1468 Johann Gutenberg - a craftsman from Mainz, Germany. Between
1430 and 1444 he was in Strasbourg, probably working as a goldsmith, and here he may
have begun printing.
In 1438 he entered a contract with three others to develop a refined printing technique and
became the inventor of moveable-type mechanical printing in Europe. He printed the 42-
line Gutenberg Bible (c.1455) but in the end he lost a suit from one of his creditors, who
confiscated the type for the Bible. The suit left Gutenberg financially ruined. Aided by
Konrad Humery, he was able to set up another press, but little is known of his work
thereafter.
The impact of printing was enormous - it led to an almost instant mass production of books
and truly initiated the information age. The Reformation, the Renaissance, and the
scientific period of the 17th century can hardly be contemplated without printed books.
1473-1543 Nicholas Copernicus - Polish astronomer; regarded the founder of modern
astronomy.
He was born in Torunac, Poland. He studied mathematics and optics at Cracow, then
canon law at Bologna, before becoming canon of Frombork.
Copernicus discovered the mathematically yet unproven heliocentric solar system. In his
treatise, 'On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres' he postulated that the planets,
including the earth, revolve around the sun, and that the earth revolved around its axis
once every day. The work had a hostile reception when it was published (1543), as it
challenged the ancient teaching of the Earth as the centre of the universe. In the 1600'
Galileo and Kepler began to develop the physics that would prove Copernicus right.
1493-1541 Phillippus Aureolus Paracelsus (Theophrastus Bombast von Hohemheim) -
Swiss physician; controversial figure in medicine and alchemy; promoted the production of
chemical medicines for illnesses of the human body; saw the human body as a chemical
system monitored by spiritual alchemists; developed many medical remedies; developed
theoretical chemistry through sets of metal experiments which produced salt solutions;
added salt to mercury and sulphur as components of metals. 1494-1555 Georg Bauer -
"Agricola" - German educator, city official, and physician Georgius Agricola (Latinized
for of George Bauer) is best known as the author of De re metallica (1556), a treatise on
mining and metallurgy. The treatise was translated into English in 1912 by future U.S.
president Herbert Hoover and his wife, Lou Henry Hoover. Agricola studied medicine at
Leipzig University. He became a devoted follower of Erasmus, who wrote a foreward to
Agricola's first book on mining and metallurgy (1930). While town physician of
Joachimsthal (now Jachymov, Czech Republic), he became intensely interested in all
aspects of the mining and metallurgy industry by which the town thrived and began a 25-
year study of the subject, which culminated in hos posthumously published masterpiece.
The 12-chapter treatise included 292 woodcult illustrations carfully executed by Blasius
Weffring. Agricola also wrote a number of works on medicine, geology, mineralogy,
politics, and economics. 1514-1564 Andreas Vesalius 1540-1603 William Gilbert - Some say
(1544-1603) - English physician; known for his early studies on electricity and magnetism.
His De magnete(1600) propounded the theory that the earth was a giant lodestone with
north and south magnetic poles. His theory that the earth exerted a magnetic influence
throughout the solar system was a precursor to the modern conception of gravity as an
attracting force between masses. Gilbert was among the first to divide substances into
electrics (spar, glass, amber) and nonelectrics. c.1540-1616 Andreas Libau - "Libavius"
1561-1626 Francis Bacon - English philosopher and scientist; introduced the idea that an
understanding of the natural world could be gained from direct observation and
experimentation. 1564-1642 Galileo Galilei 1579-1644 Johann Baptista van Helmont -
Flemish chemist; first to distinguish chemically produced gases; processes studied included
combustion and fermentation; coined the term "gas". 1592-1655 Pierre Gassendi 1596-
1650 Rene Descartes - French mathematician and philosopher; developed atomic theory
through explanations of properties of matter. 1602-1686 Otto von Guericke 1604-1668
Johann Rudolf Glauber 1608-1647 Evangelista Torricelli - Italian physicist and
mathematician; invented the barometer (1643). 1614-1672 Franz De le Boe (Latin name,
Franciscus Sylvius; also, Francois Du Bois) - German physician, anatomist and chemist;
based diagnoses and treatment of patients on blood acids, alkali and salts. 1620-1682 Jean
Picard - French scientist; observed the luminous glow in the Torricellian vacuum of a
barometer produced by motion of the mercury wen the untstrument was carried from
place to place. 1623-1662 Blaise Pascal - French mathematician and scientist for whom the
SI unit of pressure (Pascal) was named. 1627-1691 Robert Boyle - English physicist and
chemist; experimented in pneumatics; through research, he rejected the accepted definition
of matter; proposed Boyle's Law (1662). ?-1692 Hennig Brand 1630-1684 Edme Mariotte
1635-1682 Johann Joachim Becher 1642-1727 Issac Newton - English mathematician and
scientist; developed theory of matter; first to demonstrate the color components of white
light with a prism and the reconstruction of these colors into white light with a second
prism; researched the optical characteristics of chemical substances; studied gravitation
and motion; developed the law of gravitation. 1644-1710 Ole Christensen Roemer -
Denmark; was the first to show that the velocity of light is finite. His conclusion was based
on the variations of the time intervals between consecutive eclipses of one of the moons of
Jupiter during the course of the revolution of the earth around the sun. c.1650-1715
Thomas Savery 1656-1743 Edmund Halley - English astronomer; discovered the proper
motion of stars and the periodicity of comets. His activities also ranged from the studying
of archaeology to serving as deputy comptroller of the mint at Chester. He was a very
important part of the English scientific community at the height of its activity. A graduate
of Oxford, he became a member of the Royal Society at the age of twenty two. In 1676 to
1678 from the island of Saint Helena, he cataloged the positions of about 350 Southern
Hemisphere stars and observed a transit of Mercury. He worked out a theory of cometary
orbits and concluded that the comet of 1682, otherwise known as Halley's comet, was
periodic and correctly predicted that it would return in 76 years. In 1710, he compared
current star positions with those listed in Ptolemy's catalog, he determined that the stars
must have a slight motion of their own.
Halley was appointed Savilian professor of geometry at Oxford in 1704, and in 1720 he
succeeded John Flamsteed as astronomer royal. At the Greenwich Observatory he used the
first transit intrucment and devised a method for determining longitude at sea by means of
lunar observations.
Halley played an active role in the events and controversies of his time. He supported Isaac
Newton morally and financially, pacified astronomer Johannes Hevelius regarding the
disputed accuracy of methods for measuring stellar positions, and infuriated Flamsteed by
scheming with Newton to publish Flamsteed's observations before they were complete.
Among Halley's hardships were the murdering of his father, a prosperous salter and
soapmaker, in 1684, and the death of his mother in 1672.
1660-1734 Georg Ernest Stahl 1663-1729 Thomas Newcomen - He is famous for inventing a
steam engine in which steam admitted to a cylinder was condensed by cold water and the
piston driven by atmospheric pressure. It was the first engine of it's time that would work
on low-pressure steam. He worked on this with John Calley at first and then joined with
Thomas Savery.
Thomas Savery invented a steam engine also, but his ran on high-pressure steam which
was very dangerous. Newcomen's engine was further improved near the end of the
eighteenth century by a man named James Watt.
Nevertheless Newcomen's invention was important because man no longer had to depend
on horses or the wind or the non-consistent energy source of constantly running water.
Instead man could count on the steam produced by simply boiling of water. The steam
energy was the key factor in what became known as the Industrial Revolution.
Newcomen's steam engine was especially useful in mines. It was used for transporting
metals and other mining products. It did this very well and very efficiently. Savery and
Newcomen combined their ideas to come up with the invention that started an entire new
branch of discoveries; because of the steam engine, chemists now wondered about other
chemicals and fire. Why some things would burn and others would not.
1668-1738 Hermann Boehaave 1677-1761 Stephen Hales 1694-1768 George Brandt 1698-
1739 Charles Francois de Cisternay du Fay 1700-1782 Daniel Bernoulli - Switzerland; was
the first to devise a quantitative kinetic theory of gases. 1706-1790 Benjamin Franklin -
American statesman and philosopher; experimented with electricity; introduced the terms
"positive" and "negative", instrumental in establishing the American Philosophical Society
of Philadelphia, the first U.S. science society; showed that electricity could magnetize and
demagnetize iron needles. 1711-1765 Mikhail Vasilievich Lomonosov 1722-1765 Axel
Fredric Cronstedt 1728-1799 Joseph Black - Scottish chemist; laid the foundations for
thermodynamics; worked with gases and showed that a gas could combine with a solid;
recognized the importance of accurate weighing in chemical research. 1731-1810 Henry
Cavendish - English physicist and chemist; discovered hydrogen (1766); discovered nitric
acid. 1733-1804 Joseph Priestley - English clergyman and chemist; researched the relation
among plants, animals and air; discovered hydrochloric and sulfuric acid (1775); isolated
oxygen (1774); obtained water by igniting hydrogen and oxygen; made seltzer water by
dissolving carbon dioxide in water. 1735-1784 Torbern Olof Bergman 1736-1806 Charles
Augustin de Coulomb - French physicist; discovered the law of force between two charged
bodies. After his graduation from the Ecole du Genie at Mezieres in 1761, he served as a
military engineer in the West Indies and in other obscure French posts. In 1781 he was
permanently stationed in Paris and was able to devote more time to research.
Coulomb then turned his attention to physics and published (1785-91) seven memoirs on
electricity and magnetism. He adapted a torsion balance to measure electrical forces and
demonstrated (1785) the inverse-square law for attractive and repulsive forces in both
electricity and magnetism, and he later showed that the force is also proportional to the
product of the charges--a relationship now called Coulomb's Law. Coulomb may be
considered to have extended Newtonian mechanics to a new realm of physics. The unit of
electrical charge is named for him.
1736-1819 James Watt 1737-1798 Luigi Galvani - Italian physician and physicist;
researched the relation between animal organisms and electricity; produced an electric
current using a circuit made up of dissimilar metals; this type of electric current
production, using two metals in a moist environment, is known as "galvanism". 1737-1816
Louis Bernard Guyton de Morveau 1742-1786 Karl Wilhelm Scheele - Scheele was a
pharmacist-chemist famous for discovering chlorine. He also prepared oxygen but didn't
receive credit because he hadn't published his work in a timely manner. Instead an English
scientist named Joseph Priestly is credited with the discovery of oxygen..
Scheele is also famous for finding many different acids, all organic. His discoveries include
the following acids: tartaric, gallic, oxalic, citric, malic, lactic, and prussic. He was very
tedious in his investigation. He also discovered copper arsenate, hydrogen sulfide gas,
hydrofluoric acid, and hydrocyanic.
1743-1794 Antoine Laurent Lavoisier - French chemist; stated the first version of the law of
conservation of matter; recognized and named oxygen (1778); disproved phlogiston theory;
helped to reform chemical nomenclature. Often referred to as the father of modern
chemistry. He was the first to grasp the true explanation of combustion. Lavoisier
contended that fire was the result of rapid union of the burned material with oxygen.
Nothing, however, he maintained, was lost through this action. His theory directly opposed
the phlogistic notion that combustible bodies lost something when burned. Founded on
Lavoisier's oxygen theory, a new system of nomenclature was evolved; one which held that
oxygen was an essential constituent of all acids. This we know today to be erroneous. His
theories were the basis for great advances in chemistry. As a young man of many interests,
he studied astronomy, botany, and mathematics, as well as chemistry at the College
Mazarin near his Paris home. Of key significance in his later life was his study of law and
his admission to the bar. This led to an interest in French politics, whereupon he obtained a
position as tax collector at the age of 26. While in government work he helped develop the
metric system to secure uniformity of weights and measures throughout France. His
governmental interests, however, eventually proved his undoing. As one of 28 French tax
collectors Lavoisier was branded a traitor by revolutionists in 1794 and guillotined at the
age of 51. Ironically, Lavoisier was one of the few liberals in his position and had striven
for many years to alleviate the hardships of the peasants. 1743-1817 Martin Heinrich
Klaproth 1745-1818 Johann Gottlieb Gahn 1745-1827 Alessandro Volta - Italian physicist;
physics professor; experimented with electrical forces; invented first practical battery
using cells made from two kinds of metals; this verified his theory of differing electrical
potentials for unlike metals; electric potential difference is known as voltage and its unit is
the Volt (V). 1746-1813 Peter Jacob Hjelm 1746-1823 Jacques-Alexandre-Cesar Charles -
French chemist, physicist, and inventer; invented the hydrogen balloon (1783); developed
Charle's Law which states the relationship between temperature and the volume of a gas
(1787). 1748-1822 Claude Louis Berthollet 1749-1819 Daniel Rutherford 1749-1827 Pierre
Somon de Laplace 1753-1815 William Nicholson 1754-1826 Joseph Louis Proust b.ca. 1757
Marie-Anne Lavoisier - French linguist; translated the work of English chemists, drew
Antoine's sketches and illustrations, kept his notes and published his final manuscript after
his death. 1755-1809 Antoine Francois de Fourcroy 1760-1852 Johan Gadolin 1761-1815
Smithson Tennant 1762-1807 Jeremias Benjamin Richter 1764-1833 Gottlieb Sigismund
Kirchhoff 1765-1833 Joseph Nicephore Niepce c.1765-1847 Charles Hatchett 1766-1828
William Hyde Wollaston - English physician and chemist; discovered palladium and
rhodium through his work with platinum metals (1803); invented the reflecting goniometer
which measured the angles between crystal faces (1809). 1766-1844 John Dalton - English
chemist and physicist; professor of mathematics and natural philosophy (1793); developed
atomic theory; his theory (1805) accounts for the law of conservation of mass, law of
definite proportions and law of multiple proportions; produced the first table of atomic
weights; colorblind and mostly self-taught. 1767-1813 Anders Gustaf Ekebert 1768-1840
Anthony Carlisle 1773-1829 Thomas Young 1773-1858 Robert Brown 1774-1836 William
Henry - English chemist; formulated Henry's Law which states: the amount of a gas that
will be absorbed by water increases as the gas pressure increases. 1774-1862 Jean Baptiste
Biot 1775-1812 Etienne Louis Malus 1776-1856 Amedeo Avogadro - His hypothesis stated
that equal volumes of gases, at the same temperature and pressure, contain an equal
number of molecules (1811). 1777-1838 Bernard Courtois 1777-1857 Louis Jacques
Thenard 1778-1829 Humphry Davy - (Also See) 1778-1850 Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac -
French chemist and physicist; developed the law of volumes concerning the combination of
gases; discovered boron. 1779-1848 Jons Jakobs Berzelius - Swedish physician and
chemist; discovered cerium, selenium, lithium, silicon, titanium and thorium; coined the
terms "isomer" and "isomerism"; published a revised version of the periodic table with
atom weights very close to today's table (1828); proposed system of elemental symbols and
chemical notation. 1780-1849 Johann Wolfgang Dobereiner - German chemist; recognized
the catalytic property of platinum; recognized the relationship between the elements and
their atomic weight; made the earliest known attempt to organize the elements by their
properties. c.1781-1859 John Walker 1785-1838 Pierre Louis Dulong 1785-1859 William
Prout 1786-1889 Michael Eugene Chevreul - French chemist; studied the composition of
fats which led to the investigation of new compounds. 1787-1826 Joseph von Fraunhofer
1788-1827 Augustin Jean Fresnel 1789-1851 Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre - French
artist and inventor; developed the daguerreotype photochemical process. 1791-1820 Alexis
Therese Petit 1791-1867 Michael Faraday - English chemist and physicist; developed a
process for liquefying chlorine; discovered benzene; introduced the laws of electrolysis
(1833); developed a primitive electric motor; developed the voltmeter and the coulometer;
devised terminology used in electrochemistry in collaboration with William Whewell. 1794-
1863 Eihardt Mitscherlich 1794-1866 William Whewell 1797-1832 Nicolas Leonard Sadi
Carnot 1797-1858 Carl Gustav Mosander 1799-1868 Christian Friedrich Schonbein 1800-
1860 Charles Goodyear - American inventor; developed a process for vulcanization of
rubber. 1800-1877 William Henry Fox Talbot 1800-1882 Friedrich Wohler (Woehler) -
German chemist; professor of chemistry (1836-1882); synthesized the first organic
compound (urea). 1800-1884 Jean-Baptist-Andre Dumas - French chemist; studied
periodicity; developed method for determining vapor densities; isolated methanol;
developed method for determining he nitrogen content of organic compounds. 1801-1868
Julius Plucker 1802-1850 Germain Henri Hess 1802-1876 Antoine Jerome Balard 1802-
1887 Jean-Baptist Boussingault - French agricultural chemist; studied the nutritive value
of foods fed to domestic animals. 1803-1873 Justin von Liebig 1805-1869 Thomas Graham -
Scottish chemist; studied diffusion of gases which led to the formulation of Graham's Law;
developed a process to separate crystalloids from colloids, which he named "dialysis"; did
research using phosphoric acid; studied diffusion of liquids. 1807-1853 Auguste Laurent
1810-1878 Henri Victor Regnault 1811-1899 Robert Wilhelm Bunsen - German chemist;
helped to develop the spectroscope; introduced the Bunsen burner that was developed by
his laboratory assistant, Peter Desaga (1855); discovered the elements cesium (1860) and
rubidium (1861). 1812-1888 Ascanio Sobrero 1813-1878 Claude Bernard - French
physiologist; studied biochemical phenomena. 1813-1885 Thomas Andrews 1813-1891 Jean
Servais Stas 1813-1898 Henry Bessemer - English engineer and inventor; developed an
inexpensive steel-making process that burned off the impurities in molten pig iron through
the use of a hot-air blast. 1814-1878 Julius Robert von Mayer - Mayer was born in the town
of Heilbronn, Germany. He was a German physician and physicist. He and James Joule
shared the credit for the discovery of the universal law of conservation of energy, or the
first law of thermodynamics. This principle says that energy cannot be destroyed, energy in
other forms tends to be converted to heat energy, and that a pure crystal at absolute zero
would have a completely ordered arrangement of atoms. There are three other ways to
express this law:
1. Energy may change its form, but it cannot be created nor destroyed.
2. When work is transformed into heat, or heat into work, the quantity of work is
mechanically equivalent to the quantity of heat.
3. The heat entering a system is equal to the increase in energy of the system plus the
external work done by the system during the entry.
Mayer published an article on heat and energy in 1842. Joule, an English physicist, made
the same discovery while working independently.
There is another law of Thermodynamics that goes along with the universal law of
conservation of energy. It is the Law of Degradation of Energy which states that it is
impossible to completely convert a given amount of heat energy into an exact amount of
another form.
1814-1879 Heinrich Geissler 1815-1848 Horace Wells - American dentist; first to
experiment with nitrous oxide as an anesthetic (1844). 1817-1884 Charles Adolphe Wurtz
1818-1881 Henri Etienne Sainte-Claire Deville 1818-1884 Adolph Wilhelm Herman Kolbe
1818-1989 James Prescott Joule - English physicist; determined the mechanical equivalent
of heat; proposed Joule's Law which describes the rate at which heat is produced by an
electric current. 1818-1892 August Wilhelm von Hofmann 1819-1880 Edwin Laurentine
Drake 1820-1886 Alexandre Emile Beguyer de Chancourtois 1820-1893 John Tyndall -
Irish physicist; studied the diffusion of light by large molecules and dust, known as the
Tyndall effect. 1821-1894 Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz - German physicist,
anatomist and physiologist; developed principle of conservation of energy; studied nerve
cells and fibers and determined the speed of nerve impulses; investigated sight and hearing.
1822-1888 Rudolph Julius Emmanuel Clausius - German mathematical physicist; restated
the second law of thermodynamics; coined the term "entropy". 1822-1895 Louis Pasteur -
French chemist and microbiologist; developed the process of pasteurization. 1823-1883
Charles William Siemens - English industrialist; born in Germany; improved the
regenerative furnace used in the process of making steel. 1824-1887 Gustav Robert
Kirchhoff 1824-1904 William Williamson 1824-1907 William Thompson (Lord Kelvin) -
English mathematician and physicist; derived the second law of thermodynamics;
recognized the existence of absolute zero; proposed the Kelvin temperature scale (1851).
1824-1907 Pierre Jules Cesar Janssen 1824-1914 Johann Wilhelm Hittorf 1825-1899
Edward Frankland 1826-1909 Hans Peter Jorgen Julius Thomsen 1826-1910 Stanislao
Cannizzaro 1826-1911 George Johnstone Stoney 1827-1902 Frederick Augustus Abel 1827-
1907 Marcelin Berthelot - French chemist; synthesized organic compounds. 1828-1886
Alexander Mikhailovich Butlerov 1828-1914 Joseph Wilson Swan - developed a process for
making nitrocellulose fibers used in early electric lamps (1933). 1829-1886 Friedrich
August Kekule von Stradonitz - German chemist; demonstrated that carbon formed four
bonds and that this could account for the formation of isomers (1858) 1830-1895 Julius
Lothar Meyer 1830-1901 Francois Marie Raoult - formulated Raoult's Law which states
that colligative properties are determined by the number of particles in solution rather
than by the type of particle in solution. The properties so affected are vapor pressure,
freezing point, boiling point, and the rate of diffusion through a membrane. 1831-1879
James Clerk Maxwell - Scottish physicist; developed the field theory of electricity and
magnetism; developed electromagnetic wave theory of light; developed a theory on
viscosity of gases based on the statistical behavior of gas molecules. 1831-1892 Archibald
Scott Couper 1832-1913 Louis Paul Cailletet 1832-1919 William Crookes - English chemist
and physicist; His investigations of the photographic process in the 1850s motivated his
work in the new science of spectroscopy. Using its techniques, Crooks discovered (1861) the
element thallium, which won him election to the Royal Society. His efforts in determining
the weight of thalium in an evacuated chamber led to his research in vacuum physics.
Crooks invented the radiometer in 1875 and, beginning in 1878, investigated electrical
discharges through highly evaculated "Crookes tubes." These studies laid the foundation
for J. J. Thomson's research in the late 1890's concerning discharge-tube phenomena. At
the age of 68, Crookes began investigating the phenomenon of radioactivity, which had
been discovered in 1896, and invented a device that detected alpha particles emitted from
radioactive material. Crookes maintained an interest in agriculture and warned in 1898
that the world's population would face starvation unless new fertilizer sources were
discovered. He was also interested in psychic phenomena. He was knighted in 1897.
1833-1896 Alfred B. Nobel - Swedish engineer, chemist and industrialist; commercially
manufactured chemical explosives throughout the world and did other chemical research;
manufactured glyceryl nitrate - nitroglycerine (1862); the difficulty and danger of handling
liquid nitroglycerine led him to experiment with ways of making it safer; he mixed
nitroglycerine with powder, kieselguhr, and called it "dynamite" (1866); received a patent
for dynamite (1867); establish a fund in his ill for the annual Nobel Prizes, awarded in the
areas of chemistry, physics, physiology or medicine, literature and international peace.
1833-1900 Peter Waage 1834-1907 Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev - Russian chemist;
developed the periodic table by placing the elements in order of increasing atomic weight
(1869); predicted the existence and properties of elements that would fill the gaps left in his
chart (1871); these elements were discovered between 1875 and 1885. 1835-1902 Johannes
Adolf Wislicenus 1835-1917 Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf von Baeyer 1836-1902 Cato
Maximillian Guldberg 1836-1920 Joseph Norman Lockyer 1837-1898 John Alexander
Reina Newlands 1837-1920 John Wesley Hyatt - American inventor and businessman;
developed celluloid. 1837-1923 Johannes Diderik Van der Waals 1838-1904 Clemens
Alexander Winkler 1838-1906 Friedrich Konrad Beilstein 1838-1907 William Henry
Perkin- English chemist; produced first synthetic dye, mauve (1856). 1838-1912 Paul Emile
Lecoq de Boisbaudran 1838-1916 Ernst Mach 1839-1903 Josiah Willard Gibbs - American
physicist; research let to basic theories for physical chemistry; stated the Phase Rule of
thermodynamics. 1839-1924 Louis-Marie-Hilaire Bernigaud, Count of Chardonnet -
developed a process for making silk like fiber, later called rayon (1878). 1840-1899 Lars
Fredrick Nilson 1840-1905 Per Theodor Cleve 1841-1927 Karl Graebe 1842-1919 John
William Strutt (Lord Rayleigh) 1842-1923 James Dewar 1844-1906 Ludwig Boltzmann
1845-1920 Wilhelm Pfeffer 1845-1923 Wilhelm Roentgen - German physicist; studied the
transmission and photographic capabilities of rays he called "x rays" (1895); received the
first Nobel Prize (1901). 1846-1927 Ira Remsen - American chemist and educator; carried
out investigations in both organic and inorganic chemistry. 1846-1929 Raoul Pictet 1847-
1930 Joseph Achille Le Bel 1847-1931 Otto Wallach - German chemist; research on
chemical composition of camphors, perfumes and essential oils. 1848-1897 Viktor Meyer
1848-1916 Friedrich Ernst Dorn 1850-1930 Eugen Goldstein 1850-1936 Henri Louis Le
Chatelier - French industrial chemist; in 1888 made the observation: "Any change in one of
the variables that determines the state of a system in equilibrium causes a shift in the
position of equilibrium in a direction that tends to counteract the change in the variable
under consideration." 1852-1907 Ferdinand Frederic Henri Moissan 1852-1908 Antoine-
Henri Becquerel - French physicist; discovered natural radioactivity (1896); shared the
Nobel Prize for physics for this discovery (1903). 1852-1911 Jacobus Hendricus Van't Hoff
1852-1916 William Ramsay - English chemist; president of the Society of Chemical
Industry; shared discovery of argon (1894), Krypton (1898), and xenon (1898);
independently discovered helium on earth (1895); received Nobel Prize for chemistry for
discoveries of these rare, or "noble" elements (1904). 1852-1919 Emil Hermann Fischer -
German organic chemist; analyzed structures of carbohydrates, proteins, enzymes and
amino acids. 1853-1926 Heike Kamerlingh Onnes 1853-1932 Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald
1854-1907 Hendrik Willem Bakhius Roozeboom 1854-1915 Paul Ehrlich - German chemist
and bacteriologist; proposed a chemical explanation of immunity. 1854-1932 George
Eastman 1856-1940 Joseph John Thomson - English physicist; researched atomic
structure; discovered that atoms contained particles which he called "electrons";
developed the "plum pudding" or "raisin muffin," model of the atom which consisted of
electrons embedded in a positive sphere of matter (1904); received Nobel Prize for physics
(1907); developed the mass spectrograph with Francis William Aston (1919). 1856-1931
Edward Goodrich Acheson 1857-1894 Heinrich Rudolf Hertz 1857-1925 Elwood Hayes
1858-1929 Carl Auer (Baron von Welsbach) 1858-1940 Robert Abbot Hadfield 1859-1906
Pierre Curie - French physicist; researched radioactivity, he and wife, Marie, discovered
radium and polonium (1898); they shared the Nobel Prize for physics (1903) with Antoine-
Henri Becquerel. 1859-1927 Svante August Arrhenius - Swedish physicist and chemist;
originated the modern theory of ionization of electrolytes; received the Nobel Prize for
chemistry (1903). 1862-1947 Philipp Eduard Lenard 1863-1914 Paul Louis Toussaint
Heroult 1863-1914 Charles Martin Hall - American chemist and manufacturer; first to
invent a practical electrolytic process to extract aluminum from ores; formed the
Pittsburgh Reduction Company (1888) which eventually became the Aluminum Company
of America, ALCOA. 1863-1944 Leo Hendrik Baekeland 1863-1949 Frederick Stanley
Kipping 1864-1941 Walther Hermann Nernst 1864-1943 George Washington Carver -
American agricultural chemist. 1866-1919 Alfred Werner 1866-1947 Moses Gomberg 1867-
1934 Marie Curie - French physicist; researched radioactivity; she and husband, Pierre,
discovered radium and polonium (1898); they shared the Nobel Prize for physics (1903)
with Becquerel; Marie received the Nobel Prize for chemistry (1911). 1867-1952 Vladimir
Nikolaevich Ipatieff 1868-1928 Theodore William Richards - American chemist -
recognized during his lifetime as the leading authority in atomic-weight determinations. A
Harvard University graduate, he served as full professor at Harvard from 1901 to 1928.
Using superior gravimetric methods and applying physicochemical principles, he
determined the atomic weights of a large number of elements with an accuracy never
surpassed. His detection of the varying atomic weight of lead in 1913 coincided with the
discovery of isotopes by Frederick Soddy. Richards was awarded the 1914 Nobel Prize for
chemistry. (January 31, 1868 - April 2, 1928) 1868-1934 Fritz Haber 1868-1953 Robert
Andrews Milikan 1869-1910 Richard Abegg 1869-1930 Fritz Pregl 1869-1940 Phoebus
Aaron Theodor Levene 1870-1927 Bertram Borden Boltwod 1870-1939 William Jackson
Pope 1870-1942 Jean Baptiste Perrin 1870-1954 Kotaro Honda 1870-1960 Georges Claude
1871-1937 Ernest Rutherford (Baron Rutherford of Nelson) (Lord Ruthorford) - British
physicist from New Zealand; discovered several radioactive isotopes with colleagues (1899-
1905); classified forms of radiation as alpha, beta, and gamma; received Nobel Prize for
chemistry (1908); worked on submarine detection during WWII; developed atomic theory
(1911); researched transmutational effects of alpha particles on gases (ca. 1919) and other
elements. 1872-1919 Mikhail Semenovich Tsvett 1872-1938 Georges Urbain 1872-1942
Richard Willstatter 1873-1952 Nevil Vincent Sidgwick 1874-1940 Karl Bosch 1874-1949
Andre Louis Debierne 1874-1952 Chaim Weizmann - Russian-born chemist who worked in
Great Britain. 1875-1946 Gilbert Newton Lewis - American physical chemist; developed
atomic theory; proposed the octet rule and the electron dot method of showing valence
electrons; important contributor to acid-base theory and thermodynamics. 1876-1946
Alfred Stock 1876-1959 Adolf Windaus 1877-1944 Charles Glover Barkla 1877-1945
Francis William Aston - English physicist and chemist - discovered in 1919 that stable
elements of low atomic weight are mixtures of isotopes. Using a mass spectrograph, which
he developed while working with Sir Joseph John Thomson in Cambridge, and for which
he received the 1922 Nobel Prize for chemistry. Aston also found that the masses of most
atoms could be expressed as whole numbers when compared with oxygen (mass 16). With a
more accurate spectrograph, however, Aston detected in 1927 a slight deviation from this
whole-number rule. By graphing an index of the deviation (called the packing fraction)
against the closest whole-number mass of an element, Aston derived important information
concerning its structure and stability. (September 1, 1877 - November 20, 1945) 1877-1956
Frederick Soddy - British physicist received (1921) the Nobel Prize for chemistry for the
conception of isotopes and the displacement law of radioactive change. With Ernest
Rutherford he developed the disintegration theory of radioactivity, which explained
radioactivity as the decay of atoms to form other elements. Soddy proposed the isotope
concept--that atoms could have the same chemical identity but different atomic weights.
His displacement law of radioactive change suggests that an element emitting an alpha
particle becomes a new element with a lower atomic number, whereas emission of a beta
particle raises the element's atomic number. (September 2, 1877 - September 22, 1956)
1877-1957 Heinrich Otto Wieland 1878-1936 Julius Arthur Nieuwland 1878-1968 Lise
Meitner - Austrian physicist; together with her nephew Otto R. Frisch, published a
theoretical interpretation of nuclear fission in 1939; collaborated with Otto Hahn of
Germany to discover protactinium (1917) the element from which actinium is formed;
became head (1917-1938) of the physics department of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for
Chemistry in Berlin; also collaborated with Hahn and Fritz Strassmann to accomplish the
fission of uranium (1938); Fleeing Nazi persecution, she resumed her work at Sweden's
Nobel Institute; her theoretical work helped clarify the relationships between beta and
gamma rays and stimulated Hahn and Fritz Strassmann in their discovery of the fission of
heavy nuclei.. 1879-1947 Johannes Nicolaus Bronsted - Danish chemist, best known for his
theory of acids and bases (1923), according to which an acid is a proton donor and a base is
a proton acceptor. While professor (1908-1947) of physical and inorganic chemistry at the
University of Copenhagen, he produced outstanding papers in thermodynamics (heat and
its relationship to other forms of energy) and kinetics (the effect of forces upon the motion
of material bodies. 1879-1955 Albert Einstein - American physicist born in Germany;
explained Brownian movement; published a paper that explained the photoelectric effect
(1905) which provided the foundation for quantum theory and resulted in the invention of
the photoelectric cell; published his general theory of relativity (1915) which contained a
new description of gravity; received the Nobel Prize for physics for his work in quantum
physics (1921). 1879-1960 Max Theodor Felix von Laue 1879-1968 Otto Hahn - German
chemist-physicist; shared the 1944 Nobel Prize with Fritz Strassmann in chemistry for
their discovery of the fission of heavy nuclei (first to recognize nucleur fission). He began
his research work in radiochemistry in Sir William Ramsay's laboratory at University
College, London, 1904. There, in the process of extracting radium from a sample of barium
salt, Hahn discovered radiothorium. He obtained a research position at McGill University
with Sir Ernest Rutherford, and in 1905 he again exhibited his talent for discovery by
finding radioactinium.
Returning to Germany in 1906, Hahn was appointed professor at the University of Berlin
in 1910. After he was named (1912) head of the radioactivity department at the Kaiser
Wilhelm (later Max Planck) Institute, Hahn and Lise Meitner, his collaborator of 30 years
who joined him in 1907, discovered more radioelements. In 1917 they discovered the most
stable isotope of element 91 (protactinium), the substance that helped resolve the complex
actinium series. Hahn then became involved in the identification of artifical radioactive
materials and their decay patterns. In collaboration with Fritz Strassmann, Hahn
discovered (1938) that the transformation of uranium (element 91) artificially induced by
neutron bombardment produced barium (element 56). Because barium is far removed
from the original parent element, this discovery was considered at the time contrary to all
theoretical expectations. This phenomenon, known as fission, led directly to the
development of the atomic bomb.
1881-1945 Hans Fischer 1881-1955 Alexander Fleming - Scottish bacteriologist; isolated
lysozyme from tears (1922); observed a mold, he named penicillin, that prevented bacterial
growth. 1881-1957 Irving Langmuir - American chemist; improved incandescent lamp
(1913); received Nobel Prize for chemistry (1932) for his study of monomolecular films;
experimented with cloud-seeding (1950); helped refine theory of chemical bonding. 1881-
1965 Hermann Staudinger 1882-1945 Johannes Hans Wilhelm Geiger - German physicist;
occasionally collaborated with Ernest Rutherford; helped to develop first successful
counter of alpha particles (1908); improved design of this instrument became known as the
Geiger counter (1928). 1882-1961 Percy William Bridgman 1882-1970 Max Born - German
physicist; received the Nobel Prize for physics for his work in quantum mechanics (1954).
1884-1949 Friedrich Karl Rudolf Bergius 1884-1971 Theodor Svedberg - Swedish colloid
chemist. 1885-1962 Niels Henrik David Bohr - Danish physicist; his model of atomic
structure proposed that electrons orbit the nucleus in fixed orbits that are discrete energy
states; received the Nobel Prize for physics for his work in atomic structure and radiation
(1922). 1886-1950 Arthur Jeffrey Dempster 1886-1956 Clarence Birdseye - American
inventor and businessman; developed method for preserving foods by quick-freezing
(1916-1928); formed General Foods Company (1924). 1886-1975 Robert Robinson 1887-
1915 Henry Gwyn-Jeffreys Moseley - English physicist; discovered Moseley's law of
characteristic x-ray spectra of elements (1913); demonstrated that the number of electrons
in an element is the same as the atomic number, establishing the significance of the atomic
number. 1887-1961 Erwin Schroedinger - Austrian physicist; developed atomic theory of
wave mechanics (1926); shared Nobel Prize for physics with P.A.M.Dirac (1933). 1888-1970
Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman - Indian physicist; developed a spectroscopic technique
named after him (1928); the scattering effect of light that a compound causes during
Raman spectroscopy gives information about its molecular structure; received Nobel Prize
for physics (1930). 1888-1973 Selman A Waksman - American; soil bacteriologist;
Professor of microbiology. 1889-1944 Thomas Midgley Jr. 1890-1984 John Rock -
American obstetrician-gynecologist; performed first successful in vitro fertilization of a
human ovum (1944). 1891-1957 Walther Wilhelm Bothe - German physicist, received the
1954 Nobel Prize for physics for developing and applying the coincidence method. Using
this method, Bothe and Hans Geiger demonstrated (1924) that the conservation of
momentum and energy is valid in certain elementary processes and discredited the
hypothesis that these physical properties are conserved only statistically. In 1929, Bothe
and Werner Kolhorster demonstrated the existence of high-energy particles in cosmic
radiation, and the following year Bothe, with H. Becker, detected a new radiation, which
James Chadwick identified as the neutron. Bothe taught physics in Berlin and Giessen and
directed the Max Planck Institute at Heidelberg, Germany, from 1934 until his death.
(January 8, 1891 - February 8, 1957) 1891-1974 Sir James Chadwick - English physicist;
discovered the neutron; received the Nobel Prize for physics for this discovery (1935). 1892-
1958 Louis-Victor de Broglie - French physicist; demonstrated mathematically that
electrons and other subatomic particles exhibit wavelike properties (1927); this particle-
wave duality was derived from the work of Albert Einstein and Max Planck; received
Nobel Prize for physics (1929). 1892-1962 Arthur Holly Compton - American physicist;
discovered the Compton Effect, which showed that a proton has momentum. He was
awarded the Nobel prize for physics jointly with C.T.R. Wilson (1927). 1892- Dmitri
Vladimirovich Skobeltsyn - Russian physicist; obtained the first cloud-chamber
photographs of cosmic rays. These showed that the rays either were, or produced, many
charged, high energy particles. 1893- Christopher Ingold 1893-1981 Harlold Clayton Urey -
was awarded the 1934 Nobel Prize for chemistry for the discovery and isolation of
deuterium (heavy hydrogen). Because of this recognition as a Nobel laureate and his
experience in isotope separation, Urey was brought into the wartime Manhattan Project as
head of the gaseous-diffusion project for uranium separation. Soon after the war he began
to speak out against the misuse of nuclear energy. His later research involved such diverse
fields as geochemistry, astrophysics, and the origin of life. 1894-1970 Marietta Blau -
Austrian physicist; was the first to use nuclear track plates. 1895-1964 Gerhard Domagk
1895-1982 William Francis Giauque - American physical chemisty; did significant work in
chemical thermodynamics, particularly on the behavior of substances at very low
temperatures, for which he was awared the 1949 Nobel Prize for chemistry.
Giauque determined accurately the entropy of a large number of substances near absolute
zero, and he proved that the third law of thermodynamics, which states that at absolute
zero a perfect crystal has a zero entropy, was a fundamental law of nature. He also
discovered how a strong magnet could be used to produce temperature very close to
absolute zero.
1896-1937 Wallace Hume Carothers 1896-1957 Gerty Cori - American biochemist born in
Czechoslovakia. 1897-1956 Irene Joliot-Curie - French physicist; daughter of Marie and
Pierre Curie; discovered artificial radioactivity along with husband Frederic Joliet-Curie.
1897-1967 John Douglas Cockcroft - English physicist known for his early work with
Ernest Walton on atomic particle accelerators, for which they received the 1951 Nobel
Prize for physics. A graduate of Cambridge University (1934), Cockcroft served as
professor of natural philosophy at Cambridge (1934-1946), director of the Atomic Energy
Research Establishment (1946), and president of the University of Manchester Institute of
Science and Technology. In 1932, Cockcroft and Walton achieved the first successful
disintegration of atomic nuclei by artificial means. Using a voltage multiplier to generate
150,000 volts of electricity, they bombarded lithium atoms with accelerated protons to
produce beryllium. The beryllium immediately split into two alpha particles, which were
identified by bright scintillations on a zinc-sulfide screen and by the density of their tracks.
1897-1974 Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett - English physicist; obtained the first cloud-
chamber tracks of the induced transmutation of nitrogen and of other elements, and late
made many cosmic-ray studies. He was awarded the Nobel prize for physics (1948). 1898-
1941 Rudolf Schoenheimer 1898-1968 Sir Howard Walter Florey, Baron Florey - British
pathologist and codiscoverer of penicillin. Born in Adelaide, Australia, and educated in
medicine at the University of Adelaide, he later studied and taught in England. In 1935 he
was appointed director of the Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford. Florey
studied naturally occurring antibacterials, of which the Penicillum mold discovered by Sir
Alexander Fleming seemed the most promising. In 1939 Florey and the German-British
biochemist Ernst Boris Chain isolated the active agent, penicillin, from a fraction of the
mold and formulated procedures for extraction and production. With British industries
affected by World War II, Florey took his process to the United States, where private and
government laboratories produced sufficient quantities to combat bacterial infection in
wounded soldiers. For his work he was knighted in 1944, shared the Nobel Prize in
physiology or medicine n 1945 with Chain and Fleming and was elected president of the
Royal Society in 1960. 1898-1973 Karl Ziegler - German chemist; Nobel Laureate in
Chemistry (1963) for their discoveries in the field of the chemistry and technology of high
polymers. 1898- Isidor Isaac Rabi - Austrian, American physicist; made prescise
determinations of nuclear magnetic moments in beams of atoms by his radio frequency
resonance method. He was awarded the Nobel prize for physics (1944). 1899-1975 Percy
Lavon Julian - American chemist; researched the Calabar bean plant; successfully
synthesized physostigmine, which was used to treat glaucoma (1935). 1899-1998 Thomas
Hope Johnson - American physicist; in 1931 he obtained crystal deffraction of a beam of
hydrogen atoms. In 1933 Johnson and Jabez Curry Street (1906-1989) observed that the
cosmic-ray intensity from the west exceeded that from the east. This east-west asymmetry
shows that there is an excess of positively charged particles in the primary cosmic-ray
beam. 1900-1958 Frederic Joliot-Curie - French nuclear physicist; Nobel Laureate in
Chemistry (1935) in recognition of the synthesis of new radioactive elements. 1900-1958
Wolfgang Pauli - Austrian theoretical physicist; one of the founders of modern physics.
He is most famous for his "Pauli exclusion principle." which states that no two electrons in
an atom can have the same four quantum numbers. For his work in this area he was
awarded the 1945 Nobel Prize for physics.
While an undergraduate student in physics at Munich, Pauli wrote a comprehensive article
on the theory of relativity that became the classic treatment of the subject. In 1924 he
proposed a new quantum number (related to spin) for electrons, and the following year he
enunciated the exclusion principle. In 1928, Pauli was named professor of theoretical
physics at the Zurich Technical University, where, in 1931, he predicted that conservation
laws demanded the existence of the neutrino, a particle later found. After being at Princton
University during World War II, Pauli became a U.S. citizen, but he spent his last years in
Zurich.
1900-1965 Paul Muller - Swiss chemist; discovered that dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane or
DDT, a known synthetic chemical substance, was useful as an insecticide (1939). 1900-1967
Richard Kuhn - Swiss chemist; Nobel Laureate in Chemistry (1938) for his work on
carotenoids and vitamins. (Caused by the authorities of his country to decline the award
but later received the diploma and the medal.) 1901-1954 Enrico Fermi - American
physicist born in Rome; researched the transmutation of elements through neutron
bombardment; his team produced the first controlled nuclear chain reaction at the
University of Chicago; received the Nobel Prize for physics for the development of neutron-
induced nuclear reactions (1938). 1901-1958 Ernest Orlando Lawrence - American
physicist; received Nobel Prize for physics for the invention and development of the
cyclotron "atom smasher" (1939). 1901-1967 Robert Jemison Van De Graaff - American
physicist; constructed the first reliable, high voltage, electrostatic generator for nuclear
research - "Van De Graaff Generator". 1901-1976 Werner Karl Heisenberg - German
physicist; published the first theory of quantum mechanics (1925); postulated the
"uncertainty principle (1927); received Nobel Prize for physics (1932). 1901-1978 Vincent
du Vigneaud - American chemist; Nobel Laureate in Chemistry (1955) for his work on
biochemically important sulphur compounds, especially for the first synthesis of a
polypeptide hormone. 1901-1982 Rene Jules Dubos - American bacteriologist born in
France. 1901-1994 Linus Carl Pauling - American biochemist; applied X-ray diffraction,
electron diffraction and quantum mechanics to chemistry; developed theories of rare gas
compounds; developed mechanistic theory of enzymes (1946); determined the physical
structure of proteins as helical (1951); developed and applied some of the laws of structural
chemistry in work with proteins; researched the structure of DNA; received Nobel Prize
for chemistry(1954) for research of the nature of chemical bonds; received Nobel Prize for
peace (1962) for work in banning nuclear weapons testing; received National Medal of
Honor (1975); shared in the quantum mechanical development of valence and resonance
theory; introduced concept of electronegativity; founded the Linus Pauling Institute of
Science and Medicine (1973); researched Vitamin C and nutrition. 1901-2000 Louis
LePrince-Ringuet - French physicist; obtained the first cloud chamber photograph of a
meson-electron collision, from which the mass of the meson could be deduced. 1902-1971
Arne Wilhelm Kaurin Tiselius - Swedish chemist; Nobel Laureate in Chemistry (1948) for
his research on electrophoresis and adsorption analysis, especially for his discoveries
concerning the complex nature of the serum proteins. 1902-1984 Paul Adrien Maurice
Dirac - English physicist; published Principles of Quantum Mechanics (1930); received
Nobel Prize for physics for his research in wave mechanics (1933). 1902-1995 Eugene Paul
Wigner - Hungarian physicist; published the first of a long series of important papers on
the application of group theory in quantum mechanics. He was awarded the Nobel prize
for physics jointly with Maria Mayer and J.H.D. Jenson (1963) 1903-1969 Cecil Frank
Powell - English physicist; discovered the pi-meson. Powell was awarded the Nobel prize
for physics in 1950. 1903-1979 Giulio Natta - Italian Chemist; investigated catalytic
reactions like the synthesis of methanol, of formaldehyde from methanol and of
butylaldehyde from propylene, which were used on an industrial scale. He also worked on
synthetic rubber and on the polymerisation of olefins with organometallic catalysts
developed by Karl Ziegler by which he obtained polypropylenes of highly regular
molecular structure. Awarded the Nobel Prize (1963) in chemistry, jointly with Karl
Ziegler. 1903-1995 Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton - Irish physicist; shared the 1951 Nobel
Prize for physics with Sir John D. Cockcroft for achieving (1932) the first artificial
transmutation of elements. Walton received his Ph.D. from Trinity College, Dublin, and
joined Sir Ernest Rutherford at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge University. There,
with Cockcroft, he devised a method of accelerating protons with high voltages and used
them to bombard lithium nuclei. He correctly interpreted the appearance of helium nucei
as a result of the splitting of the lithium atoms. 1904-1967 Julius Robert Oppenheimer -
American physicist; director of the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, NM (1942-
1945);director of The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ (1947-1966). 1904-
1968 George Gamow - Russian born American physicist - contributed significantly to
increasing the knowledge of nuclear reactions within stars. After graduating (1928) from
the University of Leningrad, he traveled in Europe. Gamow worked with Niels Bohr and
Ernest Rutherford before coming to the United States in 1934. He taught at George
Washington Univeristy until 1956; thereafter, he was a professor at the University of
Colorado. (March 4, 1904 - August 19, 1968) 1904-1979 Otto Frisch - Austrian-English
physicist; advanced the theory that uranium, when bombarded by neutrons, breaks into
smaller atoms; coined the term "fission" for this process. 1905-1989 Emilio Segre - Italian
born American physicist; known for his discovery of the antiproton, a negatively charged
particle with the mass of a proton. In 1938 he began a life-long association with the
University of California at Berkeley. From 1943 to 1946 he was a group leader at the Los
Alamos division of the Manhattan Project. In 1955, Segre and Owen Chamberlain
succeeded in producing and identifying the antiproton, for which they shared the Nobel
Prize for physics in 1959. During his career, Sergre contributed to various fields of physics
including study of the Zeeman effect, atomic spectroscopy, molecular beams, neutron
physics, nuclear fission, and elementary particle physics. He collaborated with other
physicists in the discovery of the elements technetium, astatine, and plutonium-239. 1905-
1991 Carl David Anderson - American physicist; won the 1963 Nobel Prize for physics for
his work on cosmic rays. In his cloud chamber studies, Anderson found decisive proof of
the existence of the positron, a positively charged electron. In 1938 he and Seth H.
Neddermeyer announced the discovery of the meson, a type of subatomic particle whose
existence had earlier been predicted by Hideki Yukawa. In 1948, Cecil Powell found that in
reality another meson, called the pi-meson, or pion, had the properties of Yukawa's model
and decayed to the known meson discovered by Anderson. 1905-1993 Bruno Benedetto
Rossi - Italian, American physicist; found and initial increase with thickness in the cosmic-
ray intensity "transmitted" by an obsorber and explained this by cosmic-ray showers. A
transition to decreasing intensities was observed beyond a certain thickness. 1906-1979 Sir
Ernst Boris Chain - German, English biochemist; Nobel Laureate in Medicine (1945) for
the discovery of penicillin and its curative effect in various infectious diseases. 1906- Luis F.
Leloir - Argentine biochemist, born in France; received the Nobel Prize for chemistry for
the discovery of sugar nucleotides and the biosynthesis of carbohydrates (1970). 1907-1981
Hideki Yukawa - Japanese nuclear physicist; postulated the existence of a short-lived
subatomic particle that had a greater mass than the electron (1935); these intermediate
particles were discovered two years later and named "mesotrons"; the term was then
shortened to "mesons"; received Nobel Prize for physics (1949). 1907-1991 Edwin Mattison
McMillan - American nuclear chemist; known for his contributions to the discovery of the
transuranium elements neptunium and plutonium in 1940, and for developing the
synchrotron in 1945. McMillan taught at the University of California at Berkeley from
1932 until retiring as professor emeritus in 1973; shared Nobel Prize for chemistry (1951)
with Glenn T. Seaborg for the discovery and isolation of neptunium (93) of plutonium (94).
1907-1997 Sir Alexander Robertus Todd - Engish Biochemist; 1908-1980 Willard Frank
Libby - American chemist; won the 1960 Nobel Prize for chemistry for his radiometric age-
dating technique (1947), which uses the isotope carbon-14 to date archaeological specimens.
He described his work in his book Radiocarbon Dating (1952; 2d ed., 1955). He taught at
the University of California at Berkeley (1933-1945) and worked on the Manhattan Project
(1941-1945). He then joined the Institute for Nuclear Studies at the University of Chicago
(1945-1959) and finally the University of California at Los Angeles (1959-1980), where he
directed the Institute for Geophysics and Panetary Physics. Libby twice served on the U.S.
Atomic Energy Commission. 1908-2001 George Dixon Rochester - English physicist;
discovered V-particles and hyperons. 1910-1994 Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin - English
chemist; used X-ray crystallography to determine the structure of organic substances,
including penicillins. She was the first person to discover the crystalline structure present
in insulin, penicillin and vitamin B-12. For this discovery she was awarded a Nobel Prize.
1910-2002 Archer John Porter Martin - British biochemist; was awarded (with R.L.M.
Synge) the Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1952) for development of paper partition
chromatography, a quick and economical analytical technique permitting extensive
advances in chemical, medical, and biological research.
1911-1988 Luis Walter Alvarez - American physicist; produced free protons with a particle
accelerator; headed a team which designed a bubble chamber for detecting short-lived
subatomic particles; received the Nobel Prize for physics (1968) for his 1960 discovery of
these particles, called "resonances". 1911-1993 Polykarp Kusch - German physicist; made
high precision determinations of the magnetic moment of the electron and found a small
but theoretically significant difference between the predicted value and the experimental
results. Kusch was awarded the Nobel prize for physics jointly with W.R. Lamb (1955).
1911-1997 Melvin Calvin - American chemist; awarded the 1961 Nobel Prize for chemistry
for his study of photosynthesis, a process by which green plants absorb carbon dioxide and
convert it into sugar and oxygen. After early work on the structure of organic compounds,
Calvin began using radioactive carbon-14 in the 1940's to trace the various steps of
photosynthesis. By 1957 he and his associate, James A. Bassham, had made a detailed
analysis of the many reactions that take place. Calvin then turned his attention to
formulating theories on the chemical evolution of life. He also condicted solar energy
research, including studies of the possibilities of artificial photosynthesis. With Bassham,
Calvin wrote The Photosynthesis of Carbon Compounds (1962) and Chemical Evolution
(1969). 1912-1999 Glenn Theodore Seaborg - American chemist; shared the 1951 Nobel
Prize for chemistry with Edwin McMillan for his participation in the discovery of most of
the transuranium elements. Seabort received his Ph.D. in 1937 from the University of
California at Berkeley, where he remained and did his early work on the isotopes of
common elements. He later worked with McMillan, who isolated (1940) netpunium (atomic
number 93), the first element beyond uranium. Seaborg and his associates later isolated the
next transuranium element, plutonium. They also found a plutonium isotope, which
promised to yield more fission energy than uranium.
In 1942, Seaborg moved from Berkeley to the University of Chicago to find ways of
producing plutonium for the atomic bomb project. His group discovered (1944) two new
elements, americium (95) and curium (96). These discoveries helped to confirm Seaborg's
hypothesis that the transuranium elements resembled one another and so formed a
transition series (the actinide series) similar to the lanthanide series of rare earths. In 1946
he returned to Berkeley, and during the next twelve years he and his collaborators
discovered six more transuranium elements: berkelium (97) in 1949, californium (98) in
1950, einsteinium (99) in 1952, fermium (100) in 1953, menelevium (101) in 1955, and
nobelium (102) in 1958. The discovery of these elements was made possible by new particle
accelerators that allowed heavy ions to be used as projectiles. Seabory was named (1958)
chancellor of the Berkeley campus; in 1961 he became the first scientist to be chairman of
the Atomic Energy Commission, The Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in 1971, where he
codiscovered (1974) element 106.
1913- Willis Eugene Lamb, Jr. - American physicist; observed, during the course of
spectral measurements of the fine structure of hydrogen in the microwave region, a small
displacement (the "Lamb shift") of an energy level from its theoretical position as
predicted by Dirac's quantum theory of the electron. Lamb was awarded the Nobel prize
for physics jointly with P. Kusch (1955). 1913- Philip Hague Abelson - colloborated in the
discovery of neptunium (element 93)and devised a method for large-scale synthesis of
enriched uranium for use as a power source in submarines. He served as director of the
Carnegie Institution of Washington's Geophysical Laboratory from 1953 to 1971. 1913-
2002 Martin D. Kamen - the discoverer of Carbon 14 and the originator of many of the
techniques by which radioactive tracers are used to elucidate the chemistry of biological
processes. He also carried out extensive research that underlies much of our understanding
of the process of photosynthesis. For his discovery of Carbon 14 and work on tracers, Dr.
Kamen received in 1996 the Enrico Fermi award, the highest physics honor of the United
States. 1914-1994 Richard Laurence Millington Synge - Nobel Laureate in Chemistry
(1952), jointly with Archer John Porter Martin, for their invention of partition
chromatography. 1914-2002 Max Ferdinand Perutz - Nobel Laureate in Chemistry (1962),
jointly with Sir John C. Kendrew, for their studies of the structures of globular proteins.
1914- James Alfred Van Allen - American physicist; showed from the data obtained from
instruments carried by artificial satellites that the earth is encircled by two zones, called
Van Allen radiation belts, of high-energy charged particles whic are trapped by the earth's
magnetic field. 1916- Francis Harry Compton Crick - Nobel Laureate in Medicine (1962),
jointly with James D. Watson and Maurice Wilkins, for their discoveries concerning the
molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living
material. 1916- Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins - Nobel Laureate in Medicine (1962),
jointly with James D. Watson and Francis C. Crick, for their discoveries concerning the
molecular structure of nuclear acids and its significance for information transfer in living
material. 1917-1979 Robert Burns Woodward - Nobel Laureate in Chemistry (1965) for
his outstanding achievements in the art of organic synthesis. 1917-2002 Martin Deutsch -
Austrian, American physicist; experimentally confirmed the prediction of the existence of
positronium. 1917- William von Eggers Doering - obtained from the bark of the cinchona
tree that is found in the Andes mountain range of Ecuador and Peru. They were probably
discovered by Peruvian Jesuits, who introduced quinine into Europe around 1640.
However the destruction of these trees to obtain quinine made them rare and so a way of
making it synthetically was sought. This was found in 1944 by Robert Burns Woodward
and Doering by synthesising quinine from coal tar. Quinines formula is C
20
H
24
N
2
O
2
. 1917-
1997 Sir John Cowdery Kendrew -Nobel Laureate in Chemistry (1962), jointly with Max
Ferdinand Perutz, for their studies of the structures of globular proteins. 1918-1998
Kenichi Fukui - Japanese chemist; applied the laws of quantum mechanics to chemical
reactions involved in the development of effective drugs; shared Nobel Prize for chemistry
with Roald Hoffman of the United States (1981). 1918- Frederick Sanger - Nobel Laureate
in Chemistry (1958) for his work on the structure of proteins, especially that of insulin.
Nobel Laureate in Chemistry (1980) for contributions concerning the determination of base
sequences in nucleic acids. 1920- Owen Chamberlain - American physicist; known for his
joint discovery, along with Emilio Segre, of the antiproton, for which both received the
1959 Nobel Prize for physics. His graduate studies at the University of California were
interrupted by World War II, at which time he joined the Manhattan Project to build the
Atomic bomb. In 1955 Chamberlain and Segre discovered the antiproton, a subatomic
particle with the same mass as the proton but with a negative charge. Since that time, he
has investigated the interaction of antiproton or antimatter proton with hydrogen and
deuterium. 1921-1999 Glenn T. Seaborg - American nuclear chemist; shared Nobel Prize
for chemistry (1951) with Edwin Mattison McMillan for the discovery of plutonium (94).
1921- Rosalyn S.Yalow - American biochemist; received the Nobel Prize for developing
radioimmunoassays as peptide hormones (1977); second woman to be awarded the Nobel
Prize for medicine and physiology. 1926- Donald Arthur Glaser - American physicist;
made the first bubble chamber. He was awarded the Nobel prize for physics in 1960. 1928-
James Dewey Watson - best known for his discovery of the structure of DNA
(deoxyribonucleic acid), for which he shared with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1962). They proposed that the DNA molecule takes
the shape of a double helix, an elegantly simple structure that resembles a gently twisted
ladder. The rails of the ladder are made of alternating units of phosphate and the sugar
deoxyribose; the rungs are each composed of a pair of nitrogen-containing nucleotides.
1929- Rudolph L. Mossbauer - German physicist; predicted and found an extremely small
frequency spread in the emission of low-energy gamma rays from nuclei bound in a crystal
lattice. This effect results from giving the gamma-ray recoil momentum to the whole lattice
instead of to an individual nucleus. The effect provides a very high precision frequency
standard suitable for testing several predictions of the special and general theories of
relativity. He was awarded the Nobel prize for physics jointly with R. Hofstadter (1961).
1936- Samuel Chao Chung Ting - American physicist; discovered a subatomic particle
which he named the "J particle" (1974); a parallel independent discovery of the same
particle was made by Burton Richter who named it the "psi particle"' it is now known as
the "J/psi particle"; shared Nobel Prize for physics with Richter (1976). 1936- Yuan T. Lee
- American physicist; developed a cross-beam molecular technique that gives detailed
information about chemical reactions; designed a mass spectrometer detection system to
monitor the collisions and scattering effects involved in this research technique; shared
Nobel Prize for chemistry with Dudley R. Herschback (1986).