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 …
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List of the most influential people in Physics,
#6351
Ralf Jaumann
#146105
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
#6352
Liu Chen
#50972
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Liu Chen is an American theoretical physicist who has made original contributions to many aspects of plasma physics. He is known for the discoveries of kinetic Alfven waves, toroidal Alfven eigenmodes, and energetic particle modes; the theories of geomagnetic pulsations, Alfven wave heating, and fishbone oscillations, and the first formulation of nonlinear gyrokinetic equations. Chen retired from University of California, Irvine in 2012, assuming the title professor emeritus of physics and astronomy.
Go to Profile#6353
Peter A. Markowich
#146125
Overall Influence
#6354
Kenji Hiraga
#146142
Overall Influence
#6355
Colin Norman
#146163
Overall Influence
#6356
Douglas G. Torr
#146206
Overall Influence
#6357
Hiromichi Kataura
#146227
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#6358
Kaang Bong-kiun
#99086
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Kaang Bong-Kiun was born in Jeju-do, South Korea, on November 21, 1961. He is a professor of neuroscience in the Department of Biological Sciences of Seoul National University. He is a Fellow of the Korean Academy of Science and Technology and co-director of the IBS Center for Cognition and Sociality with Changjoon Justin Lee.
Go to Profile#6359
Gerasimos Danilatos
#40463
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Gerasimos D. Danilatos is a Greek-Australian physicist and inventor of the environmental scanning electron microscope . He was born in Cefalonia, Greece. After the 1953 Ionian earthquake, his family moved to Patras, where he attended elementary and high school.
Go to Profile#6360
Jochen Feldmann
#146243
Overall Influence
#6361
Vladimir V. Konotop
#146247
Overall Influence
#6362
Helen Mason
#74991
Overall Influence
Helen Elizabeth Mason OBE is a British theoretical physicist at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge. She holds a Personal Readership in Solar Physics. Helen Mason has been involved in many solar space projects such as Skylab, Yohkoh and the Solar Maximum Mission. She has been working as a co-investigator of the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory project launched in 1995, and more recently on Hinode and the Solar Dynamics Observatory. She is a Fellow of St Edmund's College, Cambridge.
Go to Profile#6363
Leonid Sazanov
#35241
Overall Influence
Leonid A. Sazanov is a professor at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria . Sazanov research explores the structure and function of large membrane protein complexes from the domain of bioenergetics. These molecular machines interconvert redox energy and proton motive force across biological membranes using a variety of mechanisms.
Go to Profile#6364
Hassan Hassanabadi
#146282
Overall Influence
#6365
Gisbert F. Winnewisser
#146290
Overall Influence
#6366
Yoram Shapira
#146292
Overall Influence
#6367
Andrzej Niemierko
#146301
Overall Influence
#6368
Phineas Makhurane
#87892
Overall Influence
1939 - 2018 (79 years)
Phineas Makhurane was an academic and chairman of the Zimbabwe National Council for Higher Education. He was the first Vice-Chancellor of the National University of Science and Technology and a previous Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University of Zimbabwe.
Go to Profile#6369
Edward Bennett
#50449
Overall Influence
Edward Bennett was an American physicist, known from his early involvements in wireless transmission. He obtained a Ph.D. in electrical engineering at the University of Pittsburgh in 1897. The work was on spark-gap transmitters, jointly with William Bradshaw and supervised by Reginald Fessenden. Working at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, he achieved fame in the history of broadcasting from his work with Dr. Earle M. Terry that led to the first transmissions of the WHA radio station . He later headed the electrical engineering department.
Go to Profile#6370
Harry Pfeifer
#146374
Overall Influence
#6371
David E. Goldman
#57901
Overall Influence
1910 - 1998 (88 years)
David E. Goldman was a scientist famous for the Goldman equation which he derived for his doctorate degree in 1943 at Columbia University working with Kenneth Cole. In the 1950s, while employed by the United States Navy, he was part of the CHABA team, which looked at the human effects of high-intensity noise. He became an early proponent of protection against loud noise and vibration. His son Dr. James Eliot Goldman is a scientist and neuropathologist.
Go to Profile#6372
Matthieu Wyart
#113774
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (48 years)
Matthieu Wyart is a French physicist. He is a professor of physics at EPFL and the head of the Physics of Complex Systems Laboratory. Career Wyart studied physics, mathematics and economics at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris and obtained a degree with honors in physics in 2001. In 2002, he received a diploma in Advanced Studies in theoretical physics with highest honors from the École normale supérieure in Paris. He then joined Jean-Philippe Bouchaud and Marc Mézard at the Service de Physique de l'Etat Condensé at Saclay Nuclear Research Centre in Paris as a doctoral student. In 2006, he ...
Go to Profile#6373
Colin D. O’dowd
#146401
Overall Influence
#6374
Shinji Mukohyama
#146416
Overall Influence
#6375
Gerald V. Dunne
#146419
Overall Influence
#6376
Pierre‑yves Bard
#146432
Overall Influence
#6377
Peter C. Thomas
#146435
Overall Influence
#6378
Brittany Kamai
#138110
Overall Influence
Brittany Lehua Kamai is an American astrophysicist and racial justice activist. Kamai is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Santa Cruz and the California Institute of Technology. She was the founder of #ShutDownSTEM, part of the Strike for Black Lives held on June 10, 2020. A native Hawaiian, Kamai grew up in Honolulu and graduated from President Theodore Roosevelt High School and the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. She completed her Master of Arts from Fisk University and her PhD from Vanderbilt University. Kamai is only the second native Hawaiian to earn a doctorate in as...
Go to Profile#6379
Yuh Shiohara
#146459
Overall Influence
#6380
Tom Murphy
#104574
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Tom Murphy is a professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego. He is the project investigator for the Apache Point Observatory Lunar Laser-ranging Operation Project. Professor Murphy completed his Ph.D. in astrophysics at the California Institute of Technology after which he completed a postdoc at the University of Washington - Seattle before becoming a professor at the University of California, San Diego. In 2010 his group was responsible for locating the former Soviet Union's Lunokhod 1 rover.
Go to Profile#6381
Francesco Passamonti
#146477
Overall Influence
#6382
Bernd Kromer
#146487
Overall Influence
#6383
Richard F. Jr. Haglund
#146494
Overall Influence
#6384
Kazuo Kadowaki
#146531
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
#6385
Rudolf Peter Huebener
#146532
Overall Influence
#6386
Yasuhiro Hatsugai
#146544
Overall Influence
#6387
Alessandro Laio
#146545
Overall Influence
#6388
Edward T. Arakawa
#146596
Overall Influence
#6389
George Chapline Jr.
#91276
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
George Frederick Chapline Jr. is an American theoretical physicist, based at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. His most recent interests have mainly been in quantum information theory, condensed matter, and quantum gravity. In 2003 he received the Computing Anticipatory Systems award for a new interpretation of quantum mechanics based on the similarity of quantum mechanics and Helmholtz machines. He was awarded the E. O. Lawrence Award in 1982 by the United States Department of Energy for leading the team that first demonstrated a working X-ray laser.
Go to Profile#6390
Shyam Sunder Kapoor
#69415
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Shyam Sunder Kapoor is an Indian nuclear physicist and a former director of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre. Known for his research on fission and heavy-ion physics, Kapoor is an elected fellow of all the three major Indian science academies – Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian National Science Academy and National Academy of Sciences, India – as well as the Institute of Physics. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian...
Go to Profile#6391
Adam Showman
#124230
Overall Influence
1968 - 2020 (52 years)
Adam P. Showman was a planetary scientist and professor at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory of the University of Arizona. He was known for his research on the atmospheric dynamics of exoplanets, which has been the paradigm for hot gas giant atmospheric circulation models, and recognized as the world's leading authority in the field of atmospheric dynamics of exoplanets.
Go to Profile#6392
Nicole Capitaine
#107917
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Nicole Capitaine is an astronomer at the Paris Observatory who is known as an expert on astrometry and related standards. Early life and education In 1969, Capitaine received a bachelor's degree from the Faculty of Sciences in Paris in mathematics. In 1970 she graduated with a degree in astronomy from Pierre and Marie Curie University. The same year she joined the Paris Observatory as an assistant. She then held several positions there before becoming an astronomer in charge of research. In 1972, she received a PhD in astronomy at the Pierre and Marie Curie University. In 1982, she wrote h...
Go to Profile#6393
Ulrich Spengler
#146656
Overall Influence
#6394
Ranjith Ramasamy
#118347
Overall Influence
Ranjith Ramasamy is Director of the Reproductive Urology Fellowship program at the University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine. An American medical researcher and urologist, Ramasamy is known for academic contributions to reproductive medicine, including testosterone deficiency, regenerative therapy, erectile dysfunction, and prostate cancer studies. Ramasamy has co-authored a significant number of publications in the domain of male infertility and sexual dysfunction. Ramasamy is a recipient of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine Award.
Go to Profile#6395
John Kenneth Hulm
#132844
Overall Influence
1923 - 2004 (81 years)
John Kenneth Hulm was a British-American physicist and engineer, known for the development of superconducting materials with applications to high-field superconducting magnets. In 1953 with George F. Hardy he discovered the first A-15 superconducting alloy.
Go to Profile#6396
Pedro Vieira
#98562
Overall Influence
1982 - Present (44 years)
Pedro Gil Vieira is a Portuguese theoretical physicist who has done significant work in the area of quantum field theory and quantum gravity. One of his most important contributions is the exact solution for the spectrum of a four-dimensional quantum field theory, finite coupling proposal for polygonal Wilson loops and three point functions in N=4 Super Yang-Mills.
Go to Profile#6397
Rolf Michel
#99983
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Rolf Michel is a German physicist. He studied physics at the University of Cologne and became in 1984 Professor for Radiation Protection at the Leibniz-University Hanover. From 1999 till 2006 he was member of the German Commission on Radiological Protection . In 2008 he became again a member of the German Commission on Radiological Protection and was appointed as chairman. From 2008 to 2009 he was the President of the German-Swiss Radiation Protection Association.
Go to Profile#6398
Rossella Elisei
#146738
Overall Influence
#6399
Noriaki Itoh
#146746
Overall Influence
#6400
M. S. Wertheim
#146750
Overall Influence
