Famous Physicists

Rosalind Franklin

An X-ray crystallographer who made critical contributions to the understanding of the structure of DNA. Her images of X-ray diffraction of DNA were used without her approval or knowledge. Franklin's scientific contributions to the discovery of the double helix are often overlooked.

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar

At just twenty years old, on his way to study at Cambridge University, he calculated the upper mass limit of 1.44 solar masses for a white dwarf, above which a super nova explosion occurs.

Chen-Ning Yang

He proved experimentally that one of the basic quantum-mechanics laws, conservation of parity, is violated in weak nuclear reactions. He also co-developed a gauge theory based on the SU(N) group which underpins The Standard Model of Particle Physics.

Marie Curie

She conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the only woman to win in two fields, and the only person to win in multiple sciences. She was also the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris, and in 1995 became the first woman to be entombed on her own merits in the Panthéon in Paris.

Lise Meitner

The physicist who coined the term "Nuclear Fission". She was part of the team that discovered nuclear fission, an achievement for which her colleague Otto Hahn won the Nobel Prize. Often mentioned as one of the most glaring examples of women's scientific achievement overlooked by the Nobel committee.

Stephen Hawking

The physicist who predicted that black holes emit radiation due to quantum effects near the event horizon, and author of "A Brief History Of Time".

Albert Einstein

This physicist famously said "God does not play dice". Arguably the most famous scientist of all time. He discovered relativity, mass-energy equivalence and was instrumental in developing quantum theory, which he continued to try to disprove well in to his senior years.