List of Famous Scientists in History
Here is a list of some of the famous scientists in history and a brief about them.
There are a very large number of famous scientists in history. If a roster of all such famous scientists were to be compiled, the work would become cumbersome. Hence, a finite number has been taken into consideration.
Famous scientist list
About 50 noted scientists are mentioned below.
Albert Einstein
He is arguably at the pinnacle if the popularity of all the scientists is taken into account. He demonstrated solutions to a trio of mind-boggling topics in Physics in 1905 and shot into limelight.
Sir Isaac Newton
“Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica” called “Principia” is acknowledged as the greatest scientific book ever published. Sir Isaac Newton wrote this in 1687.
Galileo Galilei
He was the first to use the telescope for furnishing evidence that the earth revolves around the Sun. This postulate was in contrast to that held by the majority.
Charles Darwin
“On the origin of species by means of natural selection” is Darwin’s famous book published in 1859.
Johannes Kepler
Kepler compiled the Mars data which enabled him to propose the “Three Laws of Planetary Motion”.
Louis Pasteur
Some of his works are:
- separation of mirror image molecules and effect of polarized light
- identification of the parasite that was killing silkworms
James Maxwell
He is known for the “Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism” published in 1873. Maxwell independently developed the “Maxwell-Boltzmann kinetic theory of gases”.
Edwin Hubble
“Hubble’s Law” stated that galaxies move away from each other at a speed determined by the distance that separated them. He classified galaxies as per their distance, shape, brightness patterns and content.
Emil Fisher
Some of his works are:
- synthesis of glucose, fructose, mannose starting with glycerol
- establishing structures for the 16 stereoisomers of the aldohexoses with glucose as the most prominent member
Paul Dirac
He received a Nobel prize in 1933 for the work on anti-particles. The “Dirac equation” was a version of the Schrodinger’s equation.
Archimedes
His major achievements are “The Archimedes principle in hydrostatics”, the Archimedes screw and the relation between the surface and volume of a sphere and the circumscribing cylinder.
Marie Curie
She won the 1903 Nobel price in Physics and the 1911 Nobel prize in Chemistry.
Thomas Alva Edison
He set up the first industrial research laboratory in the world and was a world record holder of 1093 patents.
Max Planck
He introduced the quantum and became the recipient of the Nobel prize for Physics in 1918.
Nikola Tesla
In 1882, he stated the rotating magnetic field principle and invented the alternating current long distance electrical transmission system six years later.
Aristotle
His works include Physics, Metaphysics, Politics, Poetics, Nicomachean Ethics and De Anima.
Leonardo da Vinci
He designed bridges, war machines, buildings, canals and forts.
Benjamin Franklin
He is arguably the most famous 18th century American after George Washington.
Niels Bohr
In 1922, he won the Nobel prize for Physics. He developed the “Bohr theory of the atom and liquid model of the atomic nucleus”.
Nicholas Copernicus
His theorized that the Sun was the fixed point around which the motions of the planets takes place. The Earth rotates around its axis once in a day and slow alterations in the direction of this axis cause the precession of the equinoxes.
Rene Descartes
He wrote “Meditationes de prima philosophia, in quibus Dei existentia, & animae a corpore distinctio, demonstratur” in 1641.
Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen
In 1901, he won the Nobel prize for Physics as he discovered X-rays.
Carl Sagan
He promoted the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence and was a pioneer of exobiology.
Jane Goodall
She is a world famous authority on chimpanzees.
Jonas Salk
He developed a vaccine for polio in 1952.
Alexander Graham Bell
He is the inventor of the telephone and the metal detector.
Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman
He developed the Raman spectroscopy that provides information regarding the molecular structure.
Ernest Rutherford
He developed atomic theory in 1911 and classified forms of radiation.
Joseph John Thomson
He received the Nobel prize for Physics in 1907 and developed the mass spectrograph.
William Ramsay
He independently discovered Helium and shared the discovery or Argon, Krypton and Xenon.
Alfred Nobel
He established a fund for the yearly Nobel prize in the areas of chemistry, physics, literature, international peace and medicine.
William Thompson
He derived the second law of thermodynamics and proposed the Kelvin temperature scale.
James Prescott Joule
One determines the rate at which heat is produced by an electric current by using Joule’s law.
Julius Robert von Mayer
Along with James Joule, he discovered the first law of thermodynamics.
Henry Bessemer
He invented an economical steel making procedure that burnt off impurities.
Robert Bunsen
He developed the spectroscope and discovered Cesium and Rubidium.
Thomas Graham
He developed the separation of crystalloids from colloids which is called “dialysis”.
Michael Faraday
He stated the laws of electrolysis in 1833.
Johann Wolfgang Dobereiner
He determined the relation between elements and their atomic weight.
Amedeo Avagadro
He concluded that equal volumes of gases at similar conditions of temperature and pressure has the same number of molecules.
William Henry
Henry’s Law states that the amount of gas absorbed by water increases as the gas pressure rises.
John Dalton
He developed the atomic theory.
Alessandro Volta
He invented the practical battery using cells of two types of metals.
Antoine Lavoisier
He recognized and named oxygen and disproved the phlogiston theory.
Charles Augustin de Coulomb
He discovered the law of force between two charged bodies.
Henry Cavendish
He discovered hydrogen and nitric acid.
Thomas Newcomen
He invented the steam engine.
Robert Boyle
He proposed the Boyle’s Law.
Blaise Pascal
The SI unit of pressure is named after him.
