Scientists

Wolfgang Pauli

Austrian theoretical physicist who was one of the pioneers of quantum physics. He received the 1945 Nobel Prize in physics for his discovery of the this Exclusion Principle.

Werner Heisenberg

German theoretical physicist who was one of the three man credited with the discovery of modern mechanics. His break though paper on quantum mechanics was published in 1925. He is also known for this uncertainty principle (1927)

Ernest Rutherford

in a series of experiments (gold foil experiments) performed between 1908 and 1913 with his colleagues Geiger and Marsden showed that over 99.9% of the mass of the atom is located in the small positively charged region at the nucleus

Linus Carl Pauling

American chemist, biochemist, chemical engineer, peace activist, author, and educator. In 1939 he published his famous text The nature of the Chemical Bond. His contributions to the theory of the chemical bond include the concept of orbital hybridization and the first accurate scale of electronegativities of the elements.

Robert Millikan

American physicist who in 1909 deduced the charge of a single electron with his now famous oil drop experiment.

Erwin Schrodinger

Austrian-Irish physicist who was one of the three men credited with the discovery of modern quantum mechanics. his break through paper on the wave mechanics formalism of quantum mechanics which presented what is now known as the _________________ equation. Also known for the cat thought experiment

J. J. Thompson

British physicist who measured the charge to mass ratio of the electron in 1897. His work showed that cathode rays were composed of particles and showed that the atom was not indivisible. He proposed the plum-pudding model of the atom.

Thomas Young

British polymath who made notable contributions to the fields of vision, light, solid mechanics, energy, physiology, language, musical harmony, and Egyptology. His now famous Double-Slit experiment of 1801 proved that light behaves as a wave and produces and interference pattern

Niels Bohr

Danish physicist who created the old quantum theory in 1913 which envisioned electrons orbiting the nucleus in quantized orbits and emitting radiation only when falling from a higher orbit to a lower one. this theory reproduced line spectra for the hydrogen atom and the helium cation, but failed for multielectron systems. For this work, he won the 1922 Nobel Prize in physics. He became chief spokesman for modern quantum theory once it was discovered in 1925 and 1926

John Dalton

English chemist who published the law of multiple proportions in 1804 and combined this law with the law of definite proportions and the law of conservation of mass and formulated a coherent atomic theory in 1808.

Henry Mosely

English physicist who proposed that the atom contains in its nucleus a number of positive nuclear charges that is equal to its atomic number in the periodic table. Proposed the periodic table be ordered by atomic number rather than atomic mass. Was killed in WWI

Albert Einstein

Used Planck's idea to solve the problem of the photoelectric effect in 1905 for which he later won the 1921 Nobel Prize in physics. His solution showed that the energy of the light was quantized and that light had particle nature as well as wave nature.

Paul Dirac

English theoretical physicist who was one of the three men credited with the discovery of modern quantum mechanics. His formulation of quantum mechanics allowed him to obtain the quantization rules in a more direct manner. Proposed the this equation as a relativistic equation of motion for the wave function of the electron. This led to the prediction of the positron.

Max Planck

First introduced the concept of quantized energy in a paper in 1900.

Joseph Proust

French chemist who formulated the law of definite proportions in 1797.

Antoine Lavoisier

French chemist who is often known as the father of modern chemistry; formulated the law of conservation of mass in 1789.

Louis de Broglie

French physicist and aristocrat who postulated in his 1924 PhD thesis the wave nature of electrons and suggested that all matter has wave properties. This concept is known as the _______________ hypothesis, an example of wave-particle duality, and forms a central part of the theory of quantum mechanics. He won the 1929 Nobel Prize in physics, after the wave-like behavior of matter was first experimentally demonstrated in 1927

Dmitri Mendeleev

Russian chemist who formulated the periodic law which states that when the elements are arranged in order of increasing mass, certain sets of properties recur periodically. He arranged the known elements into the first periodic table.

Svante August Arrhenius

Swedish physicist and chemist who was one of the founders of the science of physical chemistry in 1884. Based on his work on the conductivities of electrolytes he submitted an 150 page dissertation to the University of Uppsala for his doctorate. The most important idea in the dissertation was the fact that solid crystalline salts disassociate into paired charged particles or ions when dissolved. Also proposed definitions for acids and bases.

Marie Curie

coined the word "radioactivity"; first woman to win a Nobel Prize; first person to win two Nobel Prizes; only person in history to win the Nobel Prize in two different sciences.