The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).
Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …
See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.
List of the most influential people in Physics,
#5901
Mark Allen Srednicki
#139439
Overall Influence
#5902
Shoichiro Fukao
#139457
Overall Influence
#5903
Viorel Bădescu
#139461
Overall Influence
#5904
Jerzy Langer
#103780
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Jerzy Marian Langer is a Polish physicist specializing in condensed matter physics. He is a professor at the Institute of Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Langer is currently an Ambassador for the European Innovation Council for the years 2021-2027.
Go to Profile#5905
Walter D. Gonzalez
#139520
Overall Influence
#5906
Javier Esparza
#95879
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Francisco Javier Esparza Estaun is a Spanish computer scientist. He is a professor at the Technische Universität München. Education Javier Esparza Estaun received his Master of Science degree in Theoretical Physics from the University of Zaragoza . He earned his Doctoral degree in Computer Science from the same university. He habilitated 1994 at the University of Hildesheim on the subject of Petri net unfoldings.
Go to Profile#5907
Roger O. Mcclellan
#139556
Overall Influence
#5908
Klaus Bartschat
#139563
Overall Influence
#5909
Yasuhiro Shiraki
#139574
Overall Influence
#5910
Werner Scheid
#139582
Overall Influence
#5911
William J. Nellis
#124912
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
William J. Nellis is an American physicist. He is an Associate of the Physics Department of Harvard University. His work has focused on ultra-condensed matter at extreme pressures, densities and temperatures achieved by fast dynamic compression. He is most well-known for the first experimental observation of a metallic phase of dense hydrogen, a material predicted to exist by Eugene Wigner and Hillard Bell Huntington in 1935.
Go to Profile#5912
Maurizio Gasperini
#139624
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
#5913
Gino Isidori
#139646
Overall Influence
#5914
Vinod Kumar Aswal
#139668
Overall Influence
#5915
George W. Kattawar
#139671
Overall Influence
#5916
John Jeffrey Clement
#139673
Overall Influence
#5917
Kunihito Koumoto
#139683
Overall Influence
#5918
J. Randy Jokipii
#139688
Overall Influence
#5919
Gennady Leonov
#111367
Overall Influence
1947 - 2018 (71 years)
Gennady Alexeyevich Leonov was a Russian scientist, Correspondent Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences , Professor at the Saint Petersburg State University, Doctor of Sciences. Laureate of the 1986 USSR State Prize and 2012 Aleksandr Andronov Russian Academy of Sciences Prize.
Go to Profile#5920
Charles Marcus
#139695
Overall Influence
#5921
Gregory E. Tucker
#139715
Overall Influence
#5922
Takaharu Otsuka
#139747
Overall Influence
#5923
Aline Auroux
#139753
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
#5924
Lay Nam Chang
#108065
Overall Influence
1943 - 2020 (77 years)
Lay Nam Chang was an American theoretical physicist. Over the course of his career, he published research on topics in particle physics, nuclear physics, general relativity, and quantum cosmology. In the mid-1970s, he also published pioneering work on the foundations of string theory. In 2003, he served as the founding dean of the College of Science at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and held that position until 2016.
Go to Profile#5925
Torsten Bumgarner
#139799
Overall Influence
#5926
Rudolf Hilfer
#139803
Overall Influence
#5927
Ivan Hubený
#139805
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
#5928
Peter James Dobson
#139808
Overall Influence
#5929
Steven A. Leibel
#139828
Overall Influence
#5930
Franz Prof Pfeiffer
#139840
Overall Influence
#5931
Mauricio D. Sacchi
#139858
Overall Influence
#5932
Marjorie Williamson
#51950
Overall Influence
1913 - 2002 (89 years)
Dame Elsie Marjorie Williamson, DBE was a British academic, educator, physicist and university administrator. Education The only child of middle-aged parents she attended Wakefield Girls' High School and went up to read physics at Royal Holloway College, University of London in 1932, graduating in 1936.
Go to Profile#5933
Fazley Bary Malik
#81000
Overall Influence
1901 - 2014 (113 years)
Fazley Bary Malik was a Bangladeshi physicist. He was a professor of theoretical nuclear and atomic physics at Southern Illinois University Carbondale from 1980 until 2014. He was a Fellow of Bangladesh Academy of Sciences. He was awarded John Wheatley Award by American Physical Society in 2007.
Go to Profile#5934
Liliane Schoofs
#139889
Overall Influence
#5935
Madappa Prakash
#110670
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Madappa Prakash is an Indian-American nuclear physicist and astrophysicist, known for his research on the physics of neutron stars and heavy-ion collisions. Education and career Prakash grew up in Mysore. At the University of Mysore he graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1971 and a master's degree in 1973. At the University of Bombay , he received his PhD in 1979 with a dissertation on nuclear fission. From 1974 to 1981, he held a position as a scientific officer at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre. As a postdoc, he was from 1979 to 1981 on leave of absence for study and research at Copenhagen's Niels Bohr Institute.
Go to Profile#5936
Mario Bertolotti
#139901
Overall Influence
#5937
Kiyoyuki Terakura
#139916
Overall Influence
#5938
Jr.
#139920
Overall Influence
#5939
Gerhard Krieger
#139921
Overall Influence
#5940
Richard B. Firestone
#139937
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
#5941
Pierre‐henri Chavanis
#139956
Overall Influence
#5942
Harald Fuchs
#82489
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Harald Fuchs is a Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Münster, Germany, Scientific Director of the Center of Nanotechnology in Münster, and co-director of the Institute of Nanotechnology in Karlsruhe. His research focuses on nanoscale science and nanotechnology, ranging from scanning probe microscopy to self organized nanostructure fabrication, and nano–bio systems. He has published more than 450 scientific articles in various journals as an author or co-author. He was awarded the Philip Morris Research Prize "Challenge Future" in 1994 and the Münsterland Innovation Prize in 2001.
Go to Profile#5943
María Teresa Dova
#133743
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
María Teresa Dova is an Argentine physicist. She is a senior researcher at National Scientific and Technical Research Council in Argentina and professor in the Physics Department of the Faculty of Exact Sciences at the National University of La Plata.
Go to Profile#5944
Javier Escaned
#140004
Overall Influence
#5945
Martin Kuball
#97091
Overall Influence
Martin Kuball is the chair of the Royal Academy of Engineering in Emerging Technologies, professor in physics at the University of Bristol, United Kingdom, and director of the Centre for Device Thermography and Reliability .
Go to Profile#5946
Jerome Wolken
#74810
Overall Influence
1917 - 1999 (82 years)
Jerome Jay Wolken was an American biophysicist who used his research in vision in deep sea creatures to develop a kind of eyeglasses that used specially designed lenses to gather more light, which provided vision to some people who were legally blind.
Go to Profile#5947
Jeffrey Siewerdsen
#94004
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Jeffrey Harold Siewerdsen is an American physicist and biomedical engineer who is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Computer Science, Radiology, and Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University. He is Co-Director of the Carnegie Center for Surgical Innovation at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and is a member of the Malone Center for Engineering in Healthcare. He is among the original inventors of cone-beam CT-guided radiotherapy as well as weight-bearing cone-beam CT for musculoskeletal radiology and orthopedic surgery. His work also includes the early development of flat-panel detectors on mobile C-arms for intraoperative cone-beam CT in image-guided surgery.
Go to Profile#5948
Dmitriy G. Stankevich
#131349
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Dmitriy G. Stankevich is a Ukrainian astronomer, specialist in computer modeling of light scattering by regoliths of planets and the Moon, as well as in digital processing of astronomical images. Winner of the State Prize of the Ukrainian SSR in Science and Technology .
Go to Profile#5949
Graham A. Webb
#140032
Overall Influence
#5950
Matthew B. Hastings
#140033
Overall Influence
