|
Hint
|
|
Lifespan
|
|
Origin
|
|
Answer
|
|
"If a triangle is inscribed in a circle and one of its sides is the diameter of the circle, then the angle opposite of that side is a right angle."
|
|
624 BCE - 546 BCE
|
|
Greek
|
|
Thales
|
|
"In a right triangle, the square of the hypotenuse equals the sum of the squares of the other two sides."
|
|
570 BCE - 495 BCE
|
|
Greek
|
|
Pythagoras
|
|
One of the earliest hypotheses about atoms.
|
|
460 BCE - 370 BCE
|
|
Greek
|
|
Democritus
|
|
Developed theory of four elements which dominated until other discoveries made by other great scientists.
|
|
384 BCE - 322 BCE
|
|
Greek
|
|
Aristotle
|
|
The "father of geometry".
|
|
300 BCE
|
|
Greek
|
|
Euclid
|
|
"An object submerged in a fluid experiences an upward force equal to the weight of the fluid it displaces."
|
|
287 BCE - 212 BCE
|
|
Greek
|
|
Archimedes
|
|
Calculated Earth's diameter using stick and the Sun.
|
|
276 BCE - 212 BCE
|
|
Greek
|
|
Eratosthenes
|
|
Known for his work on conic sections.
|
|
c. 262 BCE - c. 190 BCE
|
|
Greek
|
|
Apollonius
|
|
For a triangle with side lengths a, b, and c, and semi- perimeter s (which is half of the perimeter), the area can be found by taking the square root of s multiplied by (s minus a), (s minus b), and (s minus c).
|
|
c. 10 CE - c. 70 CE
|
|
Greek
|
|
Heron
|
|
"If a line intersects the sides of a triangle (or their extensions), the product of the ratios of the segments it divides each side into is equal to -1."
|
|
70 CE - c. 140 CE
|
|
Greek
|
|
Menelaus
|
|
"In a cyclic quadrilateral (a quadrilateral inscribed in a circle), the product of the lengths of the diagonals is equal to the sum of the products of the lengths of the opposite sides."
|
|
c. 100 CE - c. 170 CE
|
|
Greek
|
|
Claudius Ptolemy
|
|
The "father of algebra".
|
|
c. 201 CE - c. 285 CE
|
|
Greek
|
|
Diophantus
|
|
Invented the astrolabe and the hydrometer, and first well- recorded female mathematician.
|
|
c. 360 CE - 415 CE
|
|
Egyptian
|
|
Hypatia
|
|
Introduced systematic equations of quadratic equations.
|
|
c. 780 CE - c. 850 CE
|
|
Persian
|
|
al-Khwarizmi
|
|
The "father of modern optics".
|
|
965 - 1040
|
|
Arabic
|
|
Ibn al-Haytham
|
|
The "father of modern geodesy".
|
|
973 - 1048
|
|
Persian
|
|
Al-Biruni
|
|
Introduced the sequence of in which each number is the sum of the two preceding ones.
|
|
c. 1170 - c. 1250
|
|
Italian
|
|
Fibonacci
|
|
Formulated the heliocentric model of the solar system.
|
|
1473 - 1543
|
|
Polish
|
|
Nicolaus Copernicus
|
|
Discovered the solution for the cubic equation.
|
|
1500 - 1557
|
|
Italian
|
|
Nicolo Tartaglia
|
|
Published the solution for the cubic equation.
|
|
1501 - 1576
|
|
Italian
|
|
Gerolamo Cardano
|
|
The father of "modern science" and scientific method.
|
|
1564 - 1642
|
|
Italian
|
|
Galileo Galilei
|
|
Discovered laws of planetary motion.
|
|
1571 - 1630
|
|
German
|
|
Johannes Kepler
|
|
Developed a coordinate system that laid the foundation for analytical geometry.
|
|
1596 - 1650
|
|
French
|
|
Rene Descartes
|
|
"There are no three positive integers that can satisfy the equation x^n+y^n=z^n when n is greater than 2."
|
|
1601 - 1665
|
|
French
|
|
Pierre de Fermat
|
|
One of the founders of probability theory.
|
|
1623 - 1662
|
|
French
|
|
Blaise Pascal
|
|
Discovered the law describing the relationship between pressure and volume of confined gas.
|
|
1627 - 1691
|
|
Irish
|
|
Robert Boyle
|
|
Invented modern microscope.
|
|
1635 - 1703
|
|
English
|
|
Robert Hooke
|
|
Was first to discover laws of motion and gravity.
|
|
1643 - 1727
|
|
English
|
|
Isaac Newton
|
|
Developed present day notation for the differential and integral calculus.
|
|
1646 - 1716
|
|
German
|
|
Gottfried Leibniz
|
|
Developed alternative notation for nth roots and formulated a theorem used in proof of the mean value theorem.
|
|
1651 - 1719
|
|
French
|
|
Michael Rolle
|
|
Discovered a general method to determine evolutes of a curve as the envelope of its circles of curvature.
|
|
1654 - 1705
|
|
Swiss
|
|
Jacob Bernoulli
|
|
Developed a theorem to evaluate limits which result in 0/0 or infinity/infinity, by instead evaluating the limit of the fraction between the derivatives of the numerator and denominator.
|
|
1661 - 1704
|
|
French
|
|
Guillaume l'Hôpital
|
|
Summed series, and discovered addition theorems for trigonometric and hyperbolic functions using the differential equations they satisfy.
|
|
1667 - 1748
|
|
Swiss
|
|
Johann Bernoulli
|
|
Formulated series that express functions as infinite sums of their derivates.
|
|
1685 - 1731
|
|
English
|
|
Brook Taylor
|
|
Significantly improved the design and manufacture of thermometers; his were accurate and consistent enough that different observers, each with their own thermometers, could reliably compare temperature measurements with each other.
|
|
1686 - 1736
|
|
Polish/German
|
|
Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit
|
|
Proved the equality of mixed second-order partial derivatives.
|
|
1687 - 1759
|
|
Swiss
|
|
Nicolaus Bernoulli
|
|
Contributed to the study of elliptic integrals, reducing many intractable integrals to problems of finding arcs for hyperbolas.
|
|
1698 - 1746
|
|
Scottish
|
|
Colin Maclaurin
|
|
"An increase in the speed of a parcel of fluid occurs simultaneously with a decrease in either the pressure or the height above a datum."
|
|
1700 - 1782
|
|
Swiss
|
|
Daniel Bernoulli
|
|
In 1742 proposed (an inverted form of) the centigrade temperature scale, which was later renamed in his honor, and is the dominating temperature scale across the world.
|
|
1701 - 1744
|
|
Swedish
|
|
Anders Celsius
|
|
Established a mathematical basis for probability inference.
|
|
1702 - 1761
|
|
British
|
|
Thomas Bayes
|
|
Known for his experiments with electricity.
|
|
1706 - 1790
|
|
American
|
|
Benjamin Franklin
|
|
One of the most important constants is named after him.
|
|
1707 - 1783
|
|
Swiss
|
|
Leonhard Euler
|
|
Known for the a rule to approximate definite integrals.
|
|
1710 - 1761
|
|
British
|
|
Thomas Simpson
|
|
The "father of Russian science".
|
|
1711 - 1765
|
|
Russian
|
|
Mikhail Lomonosov
|
|
A formula for obtaining solutions to the wave equation is named after him.
|
|
1717 - 1783
|
|
French
|
|
Jean le Rond d'Alembert
|
|
Measured Earth's density.
|
|
1731 - 1810
|
|
British
|
|
Henry Cavendish
|
|
He is best known as the eponymous discoverer of a law, the description of the electrostatic force of attraction and repulsion.
|
|
1736 - 1806
|
|
French
|
|
Charles-Augustin de Coulomb
|
|
Found special-case solution for the three body problem.
|
|
1736 - 1813
|
|
Italian/French
|
|
Joseph-Louis Lagrange
|
|
Noted for his discovery of the role oxygen plays in combustion, opposing the prior phlogiston theory of combustion.
|
|
1743 - 1794
|
|
French
|
|
Antoine Lavoisier
|
|
Invented battery.
|
|
1745 - 1827
|
|
Italian
|
|
Alessandro Volta
|
|
"An all-knowing intellect which, if it knows the precise location and momentum of every atom in the universe at a given time, could predict the future and retrodict the past with absolute certainty."
|
|
1749 - 1827
|
|
French
|
|
Pierre-Simon Laplace
|
|
Provided basic analytical tools for mathematical physics.
|
|
1752 - 1833
|
|
French
|
|
Adrien-Marie Legendre
|
|
Most famous for a theorem, which showed that the Fourier transform is unitary.
|
|
1755 - 1836
|
|
French
|
|
Marc-Antoine Parseval
|
|
Introduced atomic theory into chemistry.
|
|
1766 - 1844
|
|
British
|
|
John Dalton
|
|
"A periodic signal is composed of a superposition of pure sine waves, with suitably chosen amplitudes and phases, whose frequencies are harmonics of the fundamental frequency of the signal."
|
|
1768 - 1830
|
|
French
|
|
Joseph Fourier
|
|
The "father of electrodynamics".
|
|
1775 - 1836
|
|
French
|
|
Andre-Marie Ampere
|
|
"Equal volumes of gases under the same conditions of temperature and pressure will contain equal numbers of molecules."
|
|
1776 - 1856
|
|
Italian
|
|
Amadeo Avogadro
|
|
The "Prince of Mathematicians".
|
|
1777 - 1855
|
|
German
|
|
Carl Friedrich Gauss
|
|
Known mostly for his discovery that water is made of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen by volume, and for two laws related to gases,
|
|
1778 - 1850
|
|
French
|
|
Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac
|
|
Known for his work in probability theory.
|
|
1781 - 1840
|
|
French
|
|
Siméon Denis Poisson
|
|
Gave the first purely analytic proof of the fundamental theorem of algebra.
|
|
1781 - 1848
|
|
German
|
|
Bernard Bolzano
|
|
The first astronomer who determined reliable values for the distance from the Sun to another star by the method of parallax. Certain important mathematical functions were first studied systematically by him and were named after him in his honor.
|
|
1784 - 1846
|
|
German
|
|
Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel
|
|
The electric current through a conductor between two points is directly proportional to the voltage across the two points.
|
|
1789 - 1854
|
|
German
|
|
Georg Ohm
|
|
Formalized and proved key theorems of calculus.
|
|
1789 - 1857
|
|
French
|
|
Augustin-Louis Cauchy
|
|
Greatest experimental physicist.
|
|
1791 - 1867
|
|
English
|
|
Michael Faraday
|
|
Independently developed non-Euclidean geometry.
|
|
1792 - 1856
|
|
Russian
|
|
Nikolai Lobachevsky
|
|
He was the first person to create a mathematical theory of electricity and magnetism and his theory formed the foundation for the work of other scientists. Introduced the current idea of potential functions.
|
|
1793 - 1841
|
|
British
|
|
George Green
|
|
Developed the first successful theory of the maximum efficiency of heat engines.
|
|
1796 - 1832
|
|
French
|
|
Sadi Carnot
|
|
Discovered the electromagnetic phenomenon of self-inductance.
|
|
1797 - 1878
|
|
American
|
|
Joseph Henry
|
|
Known for his pioneering work in the theory of elliptic functions and for proving the insolubility of the general quintic equation by radicals.
|
|
1802 - 1829
|
|
Norwegian
|
|
Niels Henrik Abel
|
|
"The observed frequency of a wave depends on the relative speed of the source and the observer."
|
|
1803 - 1853
|
|
Austrian
|
|
Christian Doppler
|
|
In 1829, he discovered the theorem that bears his name, and concerns real-root isolation, that is the determination of the number and the localization of the real roots of a polynomial.
|
|
1803 - 1855
|
|
French
|
|
Jacques Charles François Sturm
|
|
Made fundamental contributions to elliptic functions, dynamics, differential equations, determinants and number theory.
|
|
1804 - 1851
|
|
German
|
|
Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi
|
|
One of the founders of non-Euclidean geometry.
|
|
1804 - 1860
|
|
Hungarian
|
|
János Bolyai
|
|
Devised an electromagnetic telegraph.
|
|
1804 - 1891
|
|
German
|
|
Wilhelm Eduard Weber
|
|
"If more than n rabbits must be put into n hutches, then at least in one hutch there will be more than one (so, at least 2) rabbits."
|
|
1805 - 1859
|
|
German
|
|
Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet
|
|
Invented quaternions.
|
|
1805 - 1865
|
|
Irish
|
|
William Rowan Hamilton
|
|
Worked in a number of different fields in mathematics, including number theory, complex analysis, differential geometry and topology, but also mathematical physics and astronomy.
|
|
1809 - 1882
|
|
French
|
|
Joseph Liouville
|
|
Founded abstract algebra and group theory.
|
|
1811 - 1832
|
|
French
|
|
Evariste Galois
|
|
Worked mainly on algebraic invariants, and geometry.
|
|
1811 - 1874
|
|
German
|
|
Otto Hesse
|
|
10^(-10) metres is named after him and he is one of the founders of the science of spectroscopy.
|
|
1814 - 1874
|
|
Swedish
|
|
Anders Jonas Ångström
|
|
Often considered the first computer programmer.
|
|
1815 - 1852
|
|
British
|
|
Ada Lovelace
|
|
True / False.
|
|
1815 - 1864
|
|
English
|
|
George Boole
|
|
The "father of modern analysis".
|
|
1815 - 1897
|
|
German
|
|
Karl Weierstrass
|
|
Established that the various types of energy are the same.
|
|
1818 - 1889
|
|
English
|
|
James Joule
|
|
Proved that the Earth rotates on its axis.
|
|
1819 - 1868
|
|
French
|
|
Léon Foucault
|
|
The greater part of his life was concerned with waves and the transformations imposed on them during their passage through various media.
|
|
1819 - 1903
|
|
Irish
|
|
George Gabriel Stokes
|
|
Made significant contributions in several scientific fields, particularly hydrodynamic stability.
|
|
1821 - 1894
|
|
German
|
|
Hermann von Helmholtz
|
|
"Every square matrix is a root of its own characteristic polynomial."
|
|
1821 - 1895
|
|
English
|
|
Arthur Cayley
|
|
Considered one of the central founding fathers of the science of thermodynamics.
|
|
1822 - 1888
|
|
German
|
|
Rudolf Clausius
|
|
Invented international system of absolute temperature.
|
|
1824 - 1907
|
|
British (Scottish)
|
|
(William Thomson) Lord Kelvin
|
|
Put forward a hypothesis on zeta function that stays unproved til these days.
|
|
1826 - 1866
|
|
German
|
|
Bernhard Riemann
|
|
The founder of electromagnetic theory.
|
|
1831 - 1879
|
|
Scottish
|
|
James Maxwell
|
|
Made contributions to mathematical analysis and differential geometry, as well as number theory, algebras with involution and classical mechanics.
|
|
1832 - 1903
|
|
German
|
|
Rudolf Lipschitz
|
|
Created a version of the periodic table of elements.
|
|
1834 - 1907
|
|
Russian
|
|
Dmitri Mendeleev
|
|
He is best known for originating a law in 1879, a physical power law stating that the total radiation from a black body is proportional to the fourth power of its thermodynamic temperature.
|
|
1835 - 1893
|
|
Slovene
|
|
Josef Stefan
|
|
Received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1910 "for his work on the equation of state for gases and liquids".
|
|
1837 - 1923
|
|
Dutch
|
|
Johannes Diderik van der Waals
|
|
Developed the ... normal form and the ... matrix.
|
|
1838 - 1922
|
|
French
|
|
Camille Jordan
|
|
His 1867 exposition on complex numbers and quaternions is particularly memorable.
|
|
1839 - 1873
|
|
German
|
|
Hermann Hankel
|
|
Together with other prominent physicists, he created statistical mechanics (a term that he coined), explaining the laws of thermodynamics.
|
|
1839 - 1903
|
|
American
|
|
Josiah Willard Gibbs
|
|
Discovered argon. Provided the first theoretical treatment of the elastic scattering of light by particles much smaller than the light's wavelength which notably explains why the sky is blue.
|
|
1842 - 1919
|
|
British
|
|
(John Strutt) Lord Rayleigh
|
|
One of the founders of statistical mechanics.
|
|
1844 - 1906
|
|
Austrian
|
|
Ludwig Boltzmann
|
|
One of the founders of set theory.
|
|
1845 - 1918
|
|
German
|
|
Georg Cantor
|
|
Discovered X-rays.
|
|
1845 - 1923
|
|
German
|
|
Wilhelm Röntgen
|
|
Known for the famous determinantal identities governing elliptic functions, and for developing the theory of biquadratic forms.
|
|
1849 - 1917
|
|
German
|
|
Ferdinand Georg Frobenius
|
|
Known for his work in group theory, complex analysis, non-Euclidean geometry, and the associations between geometry and group theory.
|
|
1849 - 1925
|
|
German
|
|
Felix Klein
|
|
"On series expansions determined by the methods of least squares, and Investigations of the number of primes less than a given number."
|
|
1850 - 1916
|
|
Danish
|
|
Jørgen Pedersen Gram
|
|
Invented a new technique for solving differential equations, independently developed vector calculus, and rewrote Maxwell's equations in the form commonly used today.
|
|
1850 - 1925
|
|
British
|
|
Oliver Heaviside
|
|
Shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of radioactivity.
|
|
1852 - 1908
|
|
French
|
|
Henri Becquerel
|
|
Clarified connections between electricity, light, and magnetism.
|
|
1853 - 1928
|
|
Dutch
|
|
Hendrik Lorentz
|
|
"Every three-dimensional topological manifold which is closed, connected, and has trivial fundamental group is homeomorphic to the three-dimensional sphere."
|
|
1854 - 1912
|
|
French
|
|
Henri Poincare
|
|
He was co-developer of a method to approximate solutions to differential equations, in the field of what is today known as numerical analysis.
|
|
1856 - 1927
|
|
German
|
|
Carl Runge
|
|
Contributed to development of AC electrical systems.
|
|
1856 - 1943
|
|
Serbian/American
|
|
Nikola Tesla
|
|
Proved the existence of electromagnetic waves.
|
|
1857 - 1894
|
|
German
|
|
Heinrich Hertz
|
|
Creator of quantum theory.
|
|
1858 - 1947
|
|
German
|
|
Max Planck
|
|
"Pionereed research on radioactivity alongside his wife."
|
|
1859 - 1906
|
|
French
|
|
Pierre Curie
|
|
Developed the explicit trapezoidal rule, and worked on functions solving certain differential equations.
|
|
1859 - 1929
|
|
German
|
|
Karl Heun
|
|
23 unsolved problems.
|
|
1862 - 1943
|
|
German
|
|
David Hilbert
|
|
Used theories about heat and electromagnetism to deduce a law, which calculates the emission of a blackbody at any temperature from the emission at any one reference temperature.
|
|
1864 - 1928
|
|
German
|
|
Wilhelm Wien
|
|
First to win two Nobel Prizes.
|
|
1867 - 1934
|
|
Polish/French
|
|
Marie Curie
|
|
He co-developed a method, used to solve ordinary differential equations numerically
|
|
1867 - 1944
|
|
German
|
|
Martin Kutta
|
|
The "father of nuclear physics".
|
|
1871 - 1937
|
|
New Zealander
|
|
Ernest Rutherford
|
|
Co-author of Principia Mathematica.
|
|
1872 - 1970
|
|
British
|
|
Bertrand Russell
|
|
He applied his type of matrix decomposition to solve the normal equations arising in least squares problems.
|
|
1875 - 1918
|
|
French
|
|
André-Louis Cholesky
|
|
Together with another notable mathematician he made important contributions to functional analysis.
|
|
1876 - 1959
|
|
Baltic/German
|
|
Erhard Schmidt
|
|
He made important contributions in many areas of physics, including quantum theory, the theory of radiation and stellar evolution.
|
|
1877 - 1946
|
|
English
|
|
James Jeans
|
|
Instrumental in the discovery of nuclear fission.
|
|
1878 - 1968
|
|
Austrian/Swedish
|
|
Lise Meitner
|
|
"Energy equals mass multiplied by the speed of light squared."
|
|
1879 - 1955
|
|
German/American
|
|
Albert Einstein
|
|
The "father of nuclear chemistry".
|
|
1879 - 1968
|
|
German
|
|
Otto Hahn
|
|
"Let N be the largest positive integer. If N>1, then N^2>N, contradicting the definition of N. Hence N = 1."
|
|
1880 - 1975
|
|
German
|
|
Oskar Perron
|
|
"For any continuous function f mapping a nonempty compact convex set to itself, there is a point x such that f(x) = x."
|
|
1881 - 1966
|
|
Dutch
|
|
L.E.J Brouwer
|
|
"The most important woman in the history of mathematics." As one of the leading mathematicians of her time, she developed theories of rings, fields, and algebras.
|
|
1882 - 1935
|
|
German
|
|
Emmy Noether
|
|
Instrumental in the development of quantum mechanics. He also made contributions to solid-state physics and optics, and supervised the work of a number of notable physicists.
|
|
1882 - 1970
|
|
German/British
|
|
Max Born
|
|
Proposed a model of the atom.
|
|
1885 - 1962
|
|
Danish
|
|
Niels Bohr
|
|
Worked in the areas of mathematical analysis, mathematical physics and algebra, and is known for a theorem in harmonic analysis.
|
|
1885 - 1967
|
|
Swiss
|
|
Michel Plancherel
|
|
The Man Who Knew Infinity.
|
|
1887 - 1920
|
|
Indian
|
|
Srinivasa Ramanujan
|
|
Made a thought experiment involving a cat.
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1887 - 1961
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Austrian
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Erwin Schrödinger
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Found galaxies other than the Milky Way.
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1889 - 1953
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American
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Edwin Hubble
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Received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1935 for his discovery of the neutron.
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1891 - 1974
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British
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James Chadwick
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Known for an effect that demonstrated the particle nature of electromagnetic radiation.
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1892 - 1962
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American
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Arthur Compton
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He was awarded India's second highest civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan, in 1954 by the Government of India.
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1894 - 1974
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Indian
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Satyendra Nath Bose
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In 1926, he discovered an equation, the simplest and prototypical example of relativistic wave equation.
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1894 - 1977
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Swedish
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Oskar Klein
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Major contributions in the study of the biological effects of ionizing radiation.
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1896 - 1966
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Swedish
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Rolf Sievert
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|
Received the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with her husband for their discovery of induced radioactivity.
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1897 - 1956
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|
French
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Irène Joliot-Curie
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|
"Two or more identical particles with half-integer spins cannot simultaneously occupy the same quantum state within a system that obeys the laws of quantum mechanics."
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1900 - 1958
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Austrian
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Wolfgang Pauli
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The first to split the atom.
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1901 - 1954
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Italian/American
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Enrico Fermi
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|
"It is impossible to simultaneously know the exact position and exact momentum of a particle. The more precisely one of these properties is known, the less precisely the other can be known."
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1901 - 1976
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German
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Werner Heisenberg
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Formulated a fully relativistic quantum theory.
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1902 - 1984
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British
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Paul Dirac
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|
Outlined the design for modern electronic computers.
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1903 - 1957
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Hungarian/American
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|
John von Neumann
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|
The "father of the atomic bomb".
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1904 - 1967
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American
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|
J. Robert Oppenheimer
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|
Jointly discovered new findings concerning nuclear shell structure.
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|
1906 - 1972
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|
German/American
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|
Maria Goeppert-Mayer
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|
"In any consistent formal system that is capable of expressing basic arithmetic, there are true statements that cannot be proven within the system."
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|
1906 - 1978
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|
Austrian/American
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|
Kurt Gödel
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|
Credited with being the first to produce a transuranium element, neptunium.
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|
1907 - 1991
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|
American
|
|
Edwin McMillan
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|
Made many contributions to plasma physics, including theories describing the behavior of aurorae, the Van Allen radiation belts, the effect of magnetic storms on the Earth's magnetic field, the terrestrial magnetosphere, and the dynamics of plasmas in the Milky Way galaxy.
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|
1908 - 1995
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|
Swedish
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|
Hannes Alfvén
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|
The "father of the hydrogen bomb".
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|
1908 - 2003
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|
Hungarian/American
|
|
Edward Teller
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|
Made important contribution in advancing the understanding of nuclear physics and computer science. He also participated in the Manhattan Project.
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|
1909 - 1984
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|
Polish/American
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|
Stanisław Ulam
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|
Provided the concept that describes fundamental models of computations.
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|
1912 - 1954
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|
British
|
|
Alan Turing
|
|
He led the development of rocket technology in Nazi Germany, and later of rocket and space technology in the US.
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|
1912 - 1977
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|
German
|
|
Wernher von Braun
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|
The principal or co-discoverer of ten elements: plutonium, americium, curium, berkelium, californium, einsteinium, fermium, mendelevium, nobelium and element 106, then called unnilhexium.
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|
1912 - 1999
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|
American
|
|
Glenn T. Seaborg
|
|
Made important theoretical discoveries regarding energy production in stars from nuclear fusion processes.
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|
1912 - 2007
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|
German
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|
Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker
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|
Known for his discovery of spontaneous fission and his important contribution towards crystallography and material science, for which, he was honored with many awards.
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|
1913 - 1990
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|
Russian
|
|
Georgy Flerov
|
|
Graphically represented interaction of light and matter.
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|
1918 - 1988
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|
American
|
|
Richard Feynmann
|
|
Her calculations of orbital mechanics as a NASA employee were critical to the success of the first and subsequent U.S. crewed spaceflights.
|
|
1918 - 2020
|
|
American
|
|
Katherine Johnson
|
|
Discovered the particle that gives mass to other fundamental particles.
|
|
1929 - 2024
|
|
British
|
|
Peter Higgs
|
|
Graphically described black holes through relativity theory.
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|
1931 -
|
|
British
|
|
Roger Penrose
|
|
Discovered that black holes emit radiation.
|
|
1942 - 2018
|
|
British
|
|
Stephen Hawking
|
|
He contributed to studies on dwarf galaxies, exploding stars, and the "iron peak" elements. He notably helped redefine Pluto as a dwarf planet.
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|
1958 -
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|
American
|
|
Neil deGrasse Tyson
|
|
Solved one of the Millennium Prize problems.
|
|
1966 -
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|
Russian
|
|
Grigori Perelman
|
- Max Plank (one of the fathers of quantum physics)
- Enrico Fermi (how could you forget him!)
- Wernher von Braun (one of the most important figures of early rocket science, but I understand if you don't want to include him because of his... past)
- Joseph Luis Gay-Lussac (known for the law that bears his name and the discovery of the composition of water)
- Antoine Lavoisier (known for... a LOT of things)
- Jean Le Rond d'Alembert (known for d'Alembert's formula and more)
- Dmitri Mendeleev (more of a chemist rather than a physicists, but I still think he's worth considering for his invention of the periodic table)
Andrey Kolmogorov - probability axioms
John Nash - game theory, Nash equilibrium
Christiaan Huygens - lots of things
François Viète - modern algebraic notation
Stefan Banach - father of functional analysis
Richard Dedekind - Dedekind cuts
Alfred Tarski - formal logic, semantic theory of truth, Banach-Tarski paradox
Émile Borel - Borel sets, foundational measure theory
Eduard Heine - Heine-Borel theorem, uniform continuity
Aristarchus of Samos - first heliocentric model
Tycho Brahe - unprecedentedly accurate astronomical observations
Alexander Grothendieck - leading figure in the creation of modern algebraic geometry
Ernest Lawrence - Nobel Prize in Physics in 1939 for his invention of the cyclotron, Manhattan Project, Lawrencium is named after him
Paul Erdős - Erdős problems, other things
Felix Hausdorff - one of the founders of modern topology, tragic end of his life