Famous People in Science and Mathematics

In one year — 1905, called his annus mirabilis, or "miracle year" — He authored four papers that revolutionized modern physics. The first explained the photoelectric effect in terms of quantized electromagnetic radiation. The second formed the foundation for modern statistical physics by explaining the seemingly-random motion of particles in a fluid, a behavior called Brownian motion. The third reconciled Maxwellian electrodynamics with classical mechanics by positing a finite, constant speed of light, a theory now known as special relativity. The fourth paper contained his statement that the energy of a body is equal to its mass times the speed of light squared (that is, E = mc2). Ten years later, in 1915, he published his theory of general relativity, which generalized special relativity to account for gravitational fields.

Albert Einstein

He is best known for proving the Taniyama-Shimura conjecture that all rational semi-stable elliptic curves are modular forms. When combined with work already done by other mathematicians, this immediately implied Fermat's last theorem

Andrew Wiles (1953-present, British)

He is best known for his "eureka" moment, in which he realized he could use density considerations to determine the purity of a gold crown; nonetheless, he was the preeminent mathematician of ancient Greece. He found the ratios between the surface areas and volumes of a sphere and a circumscribed cylinder, accurately estimated pi, and developed a calculus-like technique to find the area of a circle, his method of exhaustion.

Archimedes (287-212 BC, Syracusan Greek)

He is considered the "Prince of Mathematicians" for his extraordinary contributions to every major branch of mathematics. His Disquisitiones Arithmeticae systematized number theory and stated the fundamental theorem of arithmetic (every integer greater than 1 has a prime factorization that is unique not withstanding the order of the factors). In his doctoral dissertation, he proved the fundamental theorem of algebra (every non-constant polynomial has at least one root in the complex numbers), though that proof is not considered rigorous enough for modern standards. He later proved the law of quadratic reciprocity, and the prime number theorem (that the number of primes less than n is is approximately n divided by the natural logarithm of n). He may be most famous for the (possibly apocryphal) story of intuiting the formula for the summation of an arithmetic sequence when his primary-school teacher gave him the task — designed to waste his time — of adding the first 100 positive integers

Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855, German)

He created modern taxonomy.

Carl Linnaeus

A Russian chemist and inventor. He is best known for formulating the Periodic Law and creating a version of the periodic table of elements. He used the Periodic Law not only to correct the then-accepted properties of some known elements, such as the valence and atomic weight of uranium, but also to predict the properties of three elements that were yet to be discovered. In an attempt at a chemical conception of the aether, he put forward a hypothesis that there existed two inert chemical elements of lesser atomic weight than hydrogen. Of these two proposed elements, he thought the lighter to be an all-penetrating, all-pervasive gas, and the slightly heavier one to be a proposed element, coronium.

Dmitri Mendeleev

He is best known to the public as a main contributor to the Manhattan Project. His work with statistical physics laid the groundwork for modern electronics and solid-state technologies. He applied the Pauli exclusion principle to subatomic particles to create (his name)-Dirac statistics, which accurately predicted the low-temperature behavior of electrons. Particles that obey (his name)-Dirac statistics are called fermions in his honor. He also suggested the existence of the neutrinoin order to balance nuclear beta-decay chains.

Enrico Fermi

He was an Italian and later naturalized American physicist and the creator of the world's first nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1. He has been called the "architect of the nuclear age" and the "architect of the atomic bomb". He was one of very few physicists to excel in both theoretical physics and experimental physics. He was awarded the 1938 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on induced radioactivity by neutron bombardment and for the discovery of transuranium elements. With his colleagues, he filed several patents related to the use of nuclear power, all of which were taken over by the US government. He made significant contributions to the development of statistical mechanics, quantum theory, and nuclear and particle physics.

Enrico Fermi

His gold-foil experiment provided the first evidence that each atom is made up of a large, positively-charged nucleus, surrounded by a cloud of negatively-charged electrons. He won the 1908 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this work. He was also an early leader in nuclear fission techniques, having discovered the decay of carbon-14 and providing the impetus for modern carbon dating. As part of this research, he discovered the proton and neutron, the latter in cooperation with James Chadwick. He is also the only native New Zealander with an element named after him (his element, atomic number 104).

Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937)

He contributed to the early formulations of quantum theory as a foil to Werner Heisenberg, Niels Bohr, and Paul Dirac, criticizing their Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics with thought experiments like his famous Cat argument. He formulated both the time-independent and time-dependent these namesake equations, which are partial differential equations that describe how quantum systems behave. His work was the basis for Heisenberg's matrix formalism, Feynman's path-integral formalism, and quantum mechanical perturbation theory, which considers the effects of a small disturbance to a quantum system.

Erwin Schrödinger (1887-1961)

He is principally known for the Elements, a textbook on geometry and number theory, that has been used for over 2,000 years and which grounds essentially all of what is taught in modern high school geometry classes. The Elements includes five postulates that describe what is now called his namesake space (the usual geometric space we work in); the fifth postulate — also called the parallel postulate — can be broken to create spherical and hyperbolic geometries, which are collectively called non-namesake geometries. The Elements also includes a proof that there are infinitely many prime numbers

Euclid (c. 300 BC, Alexandrian Greek)

He was one of the first to explain the implications of the Big Bang theory of cosmology. He correctly predicted the abundance of hydrogen and helium in the early universe, nicknamed Alpher-Bethe-(namesake) theory (an intentional pun on the first three letters of the Greek alphabet, alpha, beta, and gamma, for which the otherwise unrelated physicist Hans Bethe was included), and also theorized that the the heat from the Big Bang would still be visible as the cosmic microwave background radiation. Although He received no Nobel for this prediction, the CMB's discoverers, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, as well as two later observers, John Mather and George Smoot, did receive Nobels.

George Gamow (1904-1968)

In 1927, he proposed the Big Bang Theory, He was the first to theorize that the recession of nearby galaxies can be explained by an expanding universe, which was observationally confirmed soon afterwards by Edwin Hubble. He first derived "Hubble's law", now called the Hubble-namesake law by the IAU, and published the first estimation of the Hubble constant in 1927, two years before Hubble's article. He also proposed the "Big Bang theory" of the origin of the universe, calling it the "hypothesis of the primeval atom", and later calling it "the beginning of the world"

Georges Lemaitre

He is known for his independent invention of calculus and the ensuing priority dispute with Isaac Newton. Most modern calculus notation, including the integral sign and the use of d to indicate a differential, originated with him. He also did work with the binary number system and did fundamental work in establishing boolean algebra and symbolic logic.

Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716, German)

He used pea plants to understand how genetics worked and the inheritance behind it. He was a monk in the Austrian Empire. Father of Modern Genetics.

Gregor Mendel

Italian inventor of the radio, he shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Karl Ferdinand Braun "in recognition of their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy." known for his creation of a practical radio wave-based wireless telegraph system.

Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937)

his achievements in pure math include generalizing the binomial theorem to non-integer exponents, doing the first rigorous manipulation with power series, and creating his namesake method for finding roots of differentiable functions. He is best known, however, for a lengthy feud between British and Continental mathematicians over whether he or Gottfried Leibniz invented calculus (whose differential aspect he called the method of fluxions). It is now generally accepted that they both did, independently

Isaac Newton (1643-1727)

Oversaw much of the Manhattan Project, but was later stripped of his security clearance during the McCarthy-era Red Scare, as a result of his acquaintance with communists and his enmity with Edward Teller. Was an American theoretical physicist. A professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, he was the wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory and is often credited as the "father of the atomic bomb" for his role in the Manhattan Project—the World War II undertaking that developed the first nuclear weapons. He was among those who observed the Trinity test in New Mexico, where the first atomic bomb was successfully detonated on July 16, 1945. He later remarked that the explosion brought to mind words from the Bhagavad Gita: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." In August 1945, the weapons were used in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967)

Found the structure of the DNA Doublehelix,

James Watson, Francis Crick and Rosalind Franklin

He was a German astronomer, mathematician, astrologer, natural philosopher and writer on music. He is a key figure in the 17th-century Scientific Revolution, best known for his laws of planetary motion, and his books Astronomia nova, Harmonice Mundi, and Epitome Astronomiae Copernicanae. These works also provided one of the foundations for Newton's theory of universal gravitation. he did fundamental work in the field of optics, invented an improved version of the refracting telescope, and was mentioned in the telescopic discoveries of his contemporary Galileo Galilei. Created Celestial Physics.

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)

This man invented the first successful Polio vaccine in 1954

Jonas Salk

He was a logician best known for his two incompleteness theorems, which state that if a formal logical system is powerful enough to express ordinary arithmetic, it must contain statements that are true yet unprovable. He developed paranoia late in life and eventually refused to eat because he feared his food had been poisoned; he died of starvation

Kurt Gödel (1906-1978, Austrian)

He is known for his prolific output and the fact that he continued to produce seminal results even after going blind. He invented graph theoryby solving the Seven Bridges of Königsberg problem, which asked whether there was a way to travel a particular arrangement of bridges so that you would cross each bridge exactly once. (He proved that it was impsosible to do so.) He introduced the modern notation for e, an irrational number about equal to 2.718, which is now called namesake's number in his honor (but don't confuse it for namesake's constant, which is different); he also introduced modern notation for i, a square root of -1, and for trigonometric functions. He proved namesake's formula, which relates complex numbers and trigonometric functions: ei x = cos x + i sin x, of which a special case is the fact that ei π = -1, which Richard Feynman called "the most beautiful equation in mathematics" because it links four of math's most important constants.

Leonhard Euler (1707-1783, Swiss)

A French chemist and microbiologist renowned for his discoveries of the principles of vaccination, microbial fermentation, and pasteurization, the last of which was named after him. His research in chemistry led to remarkable breakthroughs in the understanding of the causes and preventions of diseases, which laid down the foundations of hygiene, public health and much of modern medicine. His works are credited with saving millions of lives through the developments of vaccines for rabies and anthrax. He is regarded as one of the founders of modern bacteriology and has been honored as the "father of bacteriology" and the "father of microbiology." which was a minor medical concept at the time. His many experiments showed that diseases could be prevented by killing or stopping germs, thereby directly supporting the germ theory and its application in clinical medicine. He is best known to the general public for his invention of the technique of treating milk and wine to stop bacterial contamination, a process now called pasteurization. He also made significant discoveries in chemistry, most notably on the molecular basis for the asymmetry of certain crystals and racemization. Early in his career, his investigation of tartaric acid resulted in the first resolution of what is now called optical isomerism. His work led the way to the current understanding of a fundamental principle in the structure of organic compounds.

Louis Pasteur (1822-1895)

His work quantifying the wave-particle duality of quantum mechanics earned him the 1929 Nobel Prize in Physics. His doctoral thesis, which proposed that all particles have a characteristic wavelength dependent on their momentum, was so groundbreaking that the reviewers passed it directly to Albert Einstein, who endorsed it. In opposition to the probabilistic interpretation of quantum mechanics, he later worked to define a purely causal interpretation, but his work remained unfinished until David Bohm refined it in the 1950s.

Louis de Broglie

On April 20, 1902, they successfully isolated radioactive radium salts from the mineral pitchblende in their laboratory in Paris. In 1898, they discovered the existence of the elements radium and polonium in their research of pitchblende. They both won Noble's, but she is the first woman to win one and the only person ever to win two. Conducted the world's first studies into the treatment of neoplasms by the use of radioactive isotopes. Her body was so radioactive, that she was buried in a lead casket. Created the first mobile x-ray unit and described the term radioactivity.

Marie and Pierre Curie

He allowed quantum theory to move forward in the early 20th century by correctly modeling how an object radiates heat, solving the ultraviolet catastrophe, which was a predicted unbounded increase in the amount of radiation emitted at high frequencies. His Law of Radiation superseded the Rayleigh-Jeans Law. He suggested that electromagnetic energy could only be emitted in specific packages, called quanta (singular quantum, from the Latin for "how much"), positing that the energy of this photon was equal to its frequency times a fixed value h, now known as this constant

Max Planck (1858-1947)

He was an English natural philosopher who contributed to the study of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. His main discoveries include the principles underlying electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism and electrolysis. It was by his research on the magnetic field around a conductor carrying a direct current that he established the concept of the electromagnetic field in physics. He also established that magnetism could affect rays of light and that there was an underlying relationship between the two phenomena. He similarly discovered the principles of electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism, and the laws of electrolysis. His inventions of electromagnetic rotary devices formed the foundation of electric motor technology, and it was largely due to his efforts that electricity became practical for use in technology. As a chemist, he discovered benzene, investigated the clathrate hydrate of chlorine, invented an early form of the Bunsen burner and the system of oxidation numbers, and popularized terminology such as "anode", "cathode", "electrode" and "ion". He ultimately became the first and foremost Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution, a lifetime position.

Michael Faraday (1791-1867)

He predicted the existence of quarks, which compose protons, neutrons, and other, heavier particles. Was an American physicist who received the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the theory of elementary particles. He was the Robert Andrews Millikan Professor of Theoretical Physics Emeritus at the California Institute of Technology, a distinguished fellow and one of the co-founders of the Santa Fe Institute, a professor of physics at the University of New Mexico, and the Presidential Professor of Physics and Medicine at the University of Southern California.

Murray Gell-Mann (1929-2019)

Reconciled Rutherford's results from the gold foil experiment with Max Planck's quantum theory to create a model of the atom (the namesake model) in which electrons resided in specific energy levels at specific stable radii (proposed that energy levels of electrons are discrete and that the electrons revolve in stable orbits around the atomic nucleus but can jump from one energy level (or orbit) to another). This model was the basis for Johann Balmer's work with spectroscopy and Johannes Rydberg's energy formula, which explicitly stated the frequency of light that an electron would emit if it went from a higher energy to a lower energy. He and his son fled to the U.S. in World War II under the pseudonym "Baker," and contributed to the Manhattan Project. Won the 1922 Noble Prize in Physics. He conceived the principle of complementarity: that items could be separately analysed in terms of contradictory properties. After Denmark was occupied by the erman Nazis, he fled to Sweden.

Neils Bohr

He was a Renaissance polymath, active as a mathematician, astronomer, and Catholic canon, who formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than Earth at its center. In all likelihood, he developed his model independently of Aristarchus of Samos, an ancient Greek astronomer who had formulated such a model some eighteen centuries earlier. His book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres), just before his death in 1543, was a major event in the history of science, triggering the namesake Revolution and making a pioneering contribution to the Scientific Revolution HELIOCENTRIC THEORY.

Nicholas Copernicus 1473-1543

He had one of the first attempts to generalization of quantum theory to relativistic speeds, the result of which was his namesake equation. Made fundamental contributions to the early development of both quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics. Among other discoveries, he formulated the namesake equation which describes the behavior of fermions and predicted the existence of antimatter. He shared the 1933 Nobel Prize in Physics with Erwin Schrödinger "for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory". He also made significant contributions to the reconciliation of general relativity with quantum mechanics

Paul Dirac (1902-1984)

He is remembered for his contributions to number theory including his little theorem, which states that if p is a prime number and a is any number at all, then ap - a will be divisible by p. He studied his namesake primes, which are prime numbers that can be written as 22n + 1 for some integer n, but is probably most famous for his "last theorem," which he wrote in the margin of Arithmetica by the ancient Greek mathematician Diophantus with a note that "I have discovered a marvelous proof of this theorem that this margin is too small to contain." The theorem states that there is no combination of positive integers x, y, z, and n, with n > 2, such that xn + yn = zn, and mathematicians struggled for over 300 years to find a proof until Andrew Wiles completed one in 1995. (It is generally believed that he did not actually have a valid proof.) He and Blaise Pascal corresponded about probability theory.

Pierre de Fermat (1601-1665, French)

He developed a mathematical formalism called the path integral formulation of quantum theory that utilized the "sum over histories," taking into account all possible paths a particle could take. This constituted the creation of quantum electrodynamics and earned him the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics. He also used the sum over histories in developing (his name) diagrams, which illustrate the interaction of subatomic particles. Aside from being a prolific physicist, He was also an accomplished bongo player and sketch artist.

Richard Feynman (1918-1988)

Founded the idea of a cell by looking at an alcohol cork through a microscope. He was an impoverished scientific inquirer in young adulthood, who found wealth and esteem by performing over half of the architectural surveys after London's great fire of 1666. He also created the law of elasticity.

Robert Hooke

He determined the charge of the electron by meticulously observing oil droplets in an electric field and noting the time it took them to fall a certain distance. He left the University of Chicago to become director of the Norman Bridge Laboratory of Physics at the California Institute of Technology(Caltech) in Pasadena, California. There he undertook a major study of the radiation that the physicist Victor Hess had detected coming from outer space. He proved that this radiation is indeed of extraterrestrial origin, and he named it "cosmic rays."

Robert Millikan (1868-1953; not to be confused with Robert Mullikan, a chemist)

He was the last major astronomer before the invention of the telescope. He established himself as Europe's leading astronomer with his detailed observations of the new star of 1572. Under the patronage of the king of Denmark, he built the most sophisticated observatory of his day. When the king died, he acquired a new patron in the Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolph II, and built a new observatory in Prague. He pledged to create new and improved tables of planetary motions, dubbed the Rudolphine Tables. For twenty years, he complied much more complete and accurate data than ever before. However, his limited understanding of mathematics and his sudden death in 1601 prevented him from making much sense out of his mass of data. He believed that all the planets except the earth revolved around the sun and that the entire group of sun and planets revolved in turn around the earth-moon system. In 1597, he was forced by the new king, Christian IV, to leave Denmark. He was invited to Prague, where he became the official imperial astronomer, and built an observatory at Benátky nad Jizerou. Prior to his death in 1601, he was assisted for a year by Johannes Kepler, who went on to use his data to develop his own three laws of planetary motion.

Tycho Brahe (1546-1601)

He is most known for his matrix interpretation of quantum theory, which constructs observable quantities as operators that act on a system. His famous uncertainty principle (better translated, however, as "indeterminacy principle") states that the more accurately an object's position can be observed, the less accurately its momentum can. This is because shorter wavelengths of light (used as a sort of measuring-stick) have higher energies, and disrupt a particle's momentum more strongly. He earned the 1932 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering the allotropic forms of hydrogen. He was a principal scientist in the German nuclear weapons program during World War II. He was also instrumental in planning the first West German nuclear reactor at Karlsruhe, together with a research reactor in Munich, in 1957.

Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976)

namesake exclusion principle prohibits most types of particles from occupying the same state, and forms the basis for chemical bonds. was an Austrian theoretical physicist and one of the pioneers of quantum physics. In 1945, after having been nominated by Albert Einstein, he received the Nobel Prize in Physics for his "decisive contribution through his discovery of a new law of Nature, the exclusion principle or namesake principle". The discovery involved spin theory, which is the basis of a theory of the structure of matter.

Wolfgang Pauli (1900-1958)