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).

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List of the most influential people in Physics,

#6901

Hans Capel

#102668
Overall Influence
1936 - 2023 (87 years)
Hans Willem Capel was a Dutch theoretical physicist. He was a professor of theoretical physics at the Leiden University from 1979 to 1983 and subsequently the University of Amsterdam between 1983 and 1998.
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#6902

Jiming Bao

#125589
Overall Influence
Jiming Bao is a Chinese physicist. Bao studied physics at Zhejiang University, where he earned his bachelor's and master's degrees. He then completed a doctorate in applied physics at the University of Michigan. Bao teaches at the University of Houston. In 2018, Bao was elected a fellow of the Optical Society of America. In 2019, he was granted an equivalent honor by the American Physical Society, "[f]or the discovery of photoacoustic laser streaming, for seminal contributions to the understanding of basic electronic and optical properties of nanostructured materials, and the development of ne...
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#6903

Robert Michael Haberle

#153970
Overall Influence
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#6904

Bengt Gustafsson

#99944
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Bengt Gustafsson is a Swedish astronomer and emeritus professor in theoretical astrophysics at Uppsala University. He is known for his work in uniting cosmic science with culture and theology, and questioning space science from a humanistic point of view. Gustafsson received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Theology at Uppsala University in 2000. In 2002, Gustafsson was awarded the grand prize of the Royal Institute of Technology, and has also been awarded the grand prize of Längmanska kulturfonden. At one point during his career, he was a counselor working for the government of Swe...
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#6905

Shigeo Murayama

#154005
Overall Influence
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#6906

Peter Augustus Gilman

#154006
Overall Influence
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#6907

Yoshiaki Sofue

#154013
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
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#6908

Laramie Potts

#83649
Overall Influence
Laramie Potts is an American scientist who identified the Wilkes Land mass concentration in Antarctica in collaboration with Ralph von Frese. He is from South Africa. He is an associate professor in the School of Applied Engineering and Technology and teaches geomatics at the New Jersey Institute of Technology .
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#6909

Jean-Pierre Wolf

#96697
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Jean-Pierre Wolf is a French and Swiss physicist and biophotonics expert and a professor at the Applied Physics Department of the University of Geneva. Education and career Wolf was born in Lausanne and studied physics at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, where he received his diploma in 1984 and PhD in 1987 under the supervision of Ludger Wöste. He received habilitation from the University of Lyon in 1991.
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#6910

Murad Alam

#142736
Overall Influence
Murad Alam is an American physician, scientist, and author. Is a frequently cited expert in the area of cosmetic dermatology, and noted for his research in areas of cosmetic repair and barbed suture use. His work has also extended to serving on expert panels such as those dedicated to merkel cell cancer and guidelines of care. He is the current president of the Blade and Light Society for dermatologic surgeons and serves as the Chief of the Section of Cutaneous and Aesthetic Surgery at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. Serves as a regular figure, in local and national news outlets, on discussions of skin care and skin cancer.
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#6911

Francesco Pegoraro

#154043
Overall Influence
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#6912

Alan T. Tokunaga

#154052
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
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#6913

Christian Spielmann

#77537
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Christian Spielmann is an Austrian physicist and a professor at the University of Jena Education and career Spielmann obtained his Ph.D. in 1989 at the Vienna University of Technology where he also habilitated in 1999. In 2002 he became professor of experimental physics at the University of Würzburg, before moving to Jena in 2008. In 1998, Spielman received the Fritz-Kohlrausch-Physik Award from the Austrian Physical Society and in 2011 the Thuringian Research Award for his work in X-ray spectroscopy.
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#6914

O. H. Korotkova

#154063
Overall Influence
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#6915

Suzanne Madden

#154065
Overall Influence
1901 - Present (125 years)
Suzanne Madden is an American astronomer who works as a researcher at the Saclay Nuclear Research Centre in Paris, France. The American Astronomical Society honored her work by awarding her the Annie J. Cannon Prize in 1995.
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#6916

Daniel Jaffe

#83466
Overall Influence
Daniel Jaffe is an American astronomer, currently the Jane and Roland Blumberg Centennial Professor at University of Texas at Austin. He received his BA, MA, and PhD from Harvard University. He currently serves as the Interim Executive Vice President and Provost at The University of Texas at Austin. He previously served as the Vice President for Research.
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#6917

Daniel Batcheldor

#146108
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (48 years)
Daniel Batcheldor is an Anglo-American astrophysicist, a former professor at Florida Institute of Technology and Head of the Department of Aerospace, Physics and Space Sciences, and Director of the Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope.
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#6918

Thorsten Naab

#154090
Overall Influence
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#6919

Roman Personov

#81958
Overall Influence
1932 - 2002 (70 years)
Roman Ivanovich Personov was a Soviet and Russian scientist, professor, doctor, one of the founders of selective laser spectroscopy of complex molecules in solids . He was awarded the Humboldt Prize in 1998.
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#6920

Yaron Ilan

#154144
Overall Influence
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#6921

Keith A. Emery

#154147
Overall Influence
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#6922

Zoran Knežević

#103016
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Zoran Knežević is a Serbian astronomer, who has been publishing since 1982. He is the current president of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts since 2023. His major scientific contributions are in the field of movement of small Solar System bodies, their proper elements and perturbationss, as well as the identification and evolution of asteroid families. As of 2002, he is the director of Astronomical Observatory of Belgrade and the president of Serbian National Astronomy Committee.
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#6923

Zhi-zhan Xu

#154171
Overall Influence
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#6924

Paolo Giommi

#154230
Overall Influence
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#6925

John Ebling

#84162
Overall Influence
1918 - 1992 (74 years)
Francis John Govier Ebling , generally known as John Ebling, was Professor of Zoology at the University of Sheffield from 1968 to 1983, and subsequently Emeritus Professor of Dermatology 1983-1992. He is best known as a researcher in marine biology who helped to establish Lough Hyne as a field station, and is one of the lead characters in Reflections on a Summer Sea, a history of this facility. He had a second research interest on sebaceous gland function and skin. This dominated in later life, and he was editor of the 3rd to 5th editions of the Textbook of Dermatology. He also authored and ...
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#6926

Gerhard Kuhn

#154248
Overall Influence
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#6927

Adrian Wyatt

#140222
Overall Influence
Adrian Frederick George Wyatt, FRS is a British physicist, and Emeritus Professor at University of Exeter. He is a member of the Quantum Systems and Nanomaterials group. He won the 2004 Fernand Holweck Medal and Prize of the Institute of Physics.
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#6928

David Maurice Rust

#154298
Overall Influence
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#6929

Akiko Maehara

#154354
Overall Influence
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#6930

Alexander Wu Chao

#151259
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Alexander Wu Chao is a Taiwanese-American physicist, specializing in accelerator physics. Education and career Chao graduated in 1970 with a B.S. in physics from Taiwan's National Tsing Hua University. He received in 1974 his Ph.D. in physics from the University of New York at Stony Brook, where his doctoral advisor was C. N. Yang. At SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Chao was a research associate from 1974 to 1976, an experimental physicist from 1976 to 1982, and the group leader of the Beam Dynamics Group from 1982 to 1984. From 1984 to 1989 he was the division head of the Accelerator P...
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#6931

Fischer

#154362
Overall Influence
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#6932

Israel Nowik

#154394
Overall Influence
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#6933

Margaret Ann Shea

#154398
Overall Influence
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#6934

Hans Christian von Baeyer

#87936
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Hans Christian von Baeyer is a Chancellor Professor of Physics at the College of William and Mary. His books include Information: The New Language of Science, Warmth Disperses and Time Passes: The History of Heat and QBism: The Future of Quantum Physics.
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#6935

Haruo Kuroda

#154405
Overall Influence
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#6936

Ravit Helled

Ravit Helled
#141376
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Ravit Helled is a planetary scientist and a professor in the department of astrophysics and cosmology at the University of Zürich. She studies gas giant planets in the Solar System and exoplanets. She is a member of the science team of Juno, a NASA probe to study the planet Jupiter. In 2015, she accurately calculated Saturn's rotational period together with Eli Galanti and Yohai Kaspi of the Weizmann Institute of Science. In 2015, selected among the 50 most influential women of Forbes Israel.
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#6937

Robert F. Garrison

#142187
Overall Influence
1936 - 2017 (81 years)
Robert Frederick Garrison was an American astrophysicist and professor at the University of Toronto, and was well known for his work in the MK System, that was developed by Morgan and Keenan in 1943. He earned the Lifetime Teaching Achievement Award by the University of Toronto in 2001. Garrison attended Yerkes Observatory, University of Chicago in 1960, and accomplished a doctorate degree in astronomy and astrophysics six years later. It was during that era when Garrison was inspired by his director William, Morgan and started to have a strong passion in astronomy.
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#6938

Jan J. W. Lagendijk

#154416
Overall Influence
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#6939

Stephon Alexander

#117389
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Stephon Haigh-Solomon Alexander is a theoretical physicist, cosmologist, musician and author. Personal life and education Alexander was born in Trinidad and moved to the United States when he was eight. He grew up in the Bronx, New York City and attended DeWitt Clinton High School where his physics teacher Daniel Kaplan inspired him to study physics.
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#6940

Evgeny Alexeevich Ivanov

#154450
Overall Influence
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#6941

Stefano Vicini

#154458
Overall Influence
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#6942

Dieter Gerlich

#154496
Overall Influence
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#6943

David G. Grier

#88015
Overall Influence
David G. Grier is an American physicist whose research focuses on experimental soft condensed matter physics—an interdisciplinary field that includes physics, chemistry, biology, and nanotechnology, aiming to understand how objects interacting in simple ways manage to organize into sophisticated hierarchies of structure and function.
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#6944

Marzio Nessi

#142825
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Marzio Nessi , is an experimental physicist with a focus on high-energy and high-intensity particle physics. Nessi studied mathematics and physics at ETH Zurich where he obtained his Ph.D. degree on an experiment at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Since 1989, he has been working at CERN. He has been the coordinator of the CERN Neutrino Platform and a titular professor in the physics department of the University of Geneva.
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#6945

Tod E. Strohmayer

#154555
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
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#6946

Stephen Eric Strom

#154559
Overall Influence
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#6947

Scott Hudson

#99220
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Raymond Scott Hudson is a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Washington State University. Hudson was educated at Caltech, where he received his bachelor's degree in engineering and applied science in 1985, his master's degree in electrical engineering in 1986, and his PhD in electrical engineering in 1990. His research interests include radar imaging, optical signal processing, and radar astronomy.
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#6948

Hidetoshi Nishimori

#154584
Overall Influence
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#6949

Alan Kostelecký

#154597
Overall Influence
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#6950

Nicola D’angelo

#154603
Overall Influence
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