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,
#9801
Carl F. W. Peters
1844 - 1894 (50 years)
Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Peters was a German astronomer. His key work was on studies of chronometers and the effect of temperature and humidity on their accuracy. Peters was born in Pulkowo where his father, the astronomer Christian August Friedrich Peters worked at the observatory. The family moved to Königsberg in 1849 and later to Altona. He studied astronomy and mathematics at the Universities of Berlin, Kiel and Munich before obtaining a doctorate from the University of Göttingen with a thesis on the determination of the orbit of minor planet 87 Sylvia. He joined the Hamburg observatory in...
Go to Profile#9802
Jan Frederik Schouten
1910 - 1980 (70 years)
Jan Frederik Schouten was a Dutch physicist, and Professor at the Eindhoven University of Technology, known for his contributions to biophysics. Biography Born in Rotterdam as son of Jan Arnoldus Schouten, Schouten received his PhD cum laude in 1937 in Physics at the Utrecht University with a thesis entitled "Visuele meting van adaptatie en van de wederzijdse beïnvloeding van netvlieselementen" under supervision of Leonard Ornstein.
Go to Profile#9803
Bernard Lippmann
1914 - 1988 (74 years)
Bernard Abram Lippmann. was an American theoretical physicist. A former Professor of Physics at New York University, Lippmann is mainly known for the Lippmann-Schwinger equation, a widely used tool in non-relativistic scattering theory, which he formulated together with his doctoral supervisor Julian Schwinger
Go to Profile#9804
Cecil Reginald Burch
1901 - 1983 (82 years)
Cecil Reginald Burch, FRS was a British physicist and engineer. He was born in Leeds. He graduated from Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge in 1923 and began research at the Metropolitan-Vickers company in Trafford Park, Manchester. There he developed 'apiezon' oils which enabled high vacua to be achieved, making possible the coating of astronomical mirrors. In 1933 he was made Fellow of Optics at Imperial College London and in 1935 moved to University of Bristol as a research Fellow in the Department of Physics. There he concentrated on the development of microscopy and telescopy.
Go to Profile#9805
John Jackson
1887 - 1958 (71 years)
John Jackson was a Scottish astronomer. He was awarded The Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society for his work on stellar parallaxes and star positions. Early life and education Born on 11 February 1887 at Mossvale Street, Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland, John Jackson was educated at Paisley Grammar School, studying a range of subjects including the sciences and French and German, but not Latin or Greek, which were compulsory if he intended to sit the entrance examinations for university.
Go to Profile#9806
Georg Heinrich Thiessen
1914 - 1961 (47 years)
Georg Heinrich Thiessen was a German astronomer. After graduating, Georg Thiessen studied physics and mathematics and received his doctorate in 1940 under Richard Becker at Göttingen Georg August University. He joined the Fraunhofer Institute of the Institute for High Frequency Research in Freiburg in Breisgau in 1943, where he met Karl-Otto Kiepenheuer. In January 1945 he was transferred to the observatory in Hamburg-Bergedorf, where he was employed as assistant and later as 'Observator' from 1946 to 1953. In 1953 he habilitated on the subject of magnetic fields of the sun, he believed in the existence of a global solar magnetic field.
Go to Profile#9807
Gustaf Ising
1883 - 1960 (77 years)
Gustaf Adolf Ising was a Swedish metrologist, geophysicist, and accelerator physicist. Biography Ising earned his first academic degree at Uppsala University in 1903 and continued studying at Stockholm University receiving his Ph.D. in 1919, and receiving an honorary professor title in 1934.
Go to Profile#9808
Louis Beaufort Stewart
1861 - 1937 (76 years)
Louis Beaufort Stewart was a Canadian astronomer, civil engineer and academic. He served as the president of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada from 1912 to 1913, and played a key role in preserving the Toronto Magnetic and Meteorological Observatory building at the University of Toronto.
Go to Profile#9809
Albert Rowe
1898 - 1976 (78 years)
Albert Percival Rowe, CBE , often known as Jimmy Rowe or A. P. Rowe, was a radar pioneer and university vice-chancellor. A British physicist and senior research administrator, he played a major role in the development of radar before and during World War II.
Go to Profile#9810
Harry Yandell Benedict
1869 - 1937 (68 years)
Harry Yandell Benedict was an American astronomer and mathematician. He was born in Louisville, Kentucky, to Joseph and Adele Benedict on November 14, 1869. In 1877, Benedict's brother, Carl, mother, and maternal grandfather, H. J. Peters, moved to Texas, onto land acquired by his great-grandfather, S. W. Peters. The family library contained one thousand books. Other than eight months of formal schooling in the cities of Graham and Weatherford, H. Y. Benedict was homeschooled by his mother. Benedict studied civil engineering at the University of Texas at Austin from 1889 to 1892, and completed a master's degree in 1893.
Go to Profile#9811
Alfred Ewing
1855 - 1935 (80 years)
Sir James Alfred Ewing MInstitCE was a Scottish physicist and engineer, best known for his work on the magnetic properties of metals and, in particular, for his discovery of, and coinage of the word, hysteresis.
Go to Profile#9812
Carl Anton Bjerknes
1825 - 1903 (78 years)
Carl Anton Bjerknes was a Norwegian mathematician and physicist. Bjerknes' earlier work was in pure mathematics, but he is principally known for his studies in hydrodynamics. Biography Carl Anton Bjerknes was born in Oslo, Norway. His father was Abraham Isaksen Bjerknes and his mother Elen Birgitte Holmen. Bjerknes studied mining at the University of Oslo, and after that mathematics at the University of Göttingen and the University of Paris. In 1866 he held a chair for applied mathematics and in 1869 for mathematics. Over a fifty-year time period, Bjerknes taught mathematics at the Universit...
Go to Profile#9813
Adam Anderson
1783 - 1846 (63 years)
Adam Anderson AM LLD was a Scottish physicist and encyclopedist. He was the rector of Perth Academy from 1811 to 1839, and Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy 1839 to 1846 at St Andrews University.
Go to Profile#9814
Stuart C. Gordon
#9815
Sharaf al-Din al-Tusi
1135 - 1213 (78 years)
Sharaf al-Dīn al-Muẓaffar ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Muẓaffar al-Ṭūsī known more often as Sharaf al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī or Sharaf ad-Dīn aṭ-Ṭūsī, was an Iranian mathematician and astronomer of the Islamic Golden Age .
Go to Profile#9816
Allyne L. Merrill
1863 - 1941 (78 years)
Allyne L. Merrill was an American physicist who served as faculty secretary of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1906 to June 1934. In 1885 Merrill earned his Bachelor of Science in physics. In 1890 he played a key role in Samuel Cate Prescott's enrolment in MIT. At the time, Merrill was an instructor in mechanism at MIT. He was promoted to instructor in 1890, then assistant professor in 1903 and eventually professor during his tenure. Merrill was elected as faculty secretary in 1906 and served until 1934. Merrill and Prescott were part of the induction ceremony of Karl Taylor C...
Go to Profile#9817
William Hallock
1857 - 1913 (56 years)
William Hallock, Ph. D., D.Pharm. was an American physicist, born at Milton, New York. He graduated from Columbia College in 1879, and received the degree of Ph.D. from Würzburg, German Empire in 1881.
Go to Profile#9818
Nina Vedeneyeva
1882 - 1955 (73 years)
Nina Yevgenyevna Vedeneyeva was a physicist involved in the study of mineral crystals and their coloration. Heading numerous departments at such institutions as the All-USSR Institute of Mineral Resources, the Institute of Geological Sciences and the Institute of Crystallography, she conducted research into color variants of clay minerals and classifying clays which occurred in organic dyes. She was noted for development and design of instruments to improve the methods of optical crystallography. She was the last partner-muse of the poet Sophia Parnok and was awarded the Stalin Prize and Orde...
Go to Profile#9819
Albrecht Altma
1897 - 1969 (72 years)
Albrecht Altma was an Estonian physicist. In 1927, he graduated from University of Tartu in physics. In 1938, he defended his doctoral thesis at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. 1944–1948, he was the rector of Tallinn Polytechnical Institute.
Go to Profile#9820
James Gordon MacGregor
1852 - 1913 (61 years)
James Gordon MacGregor, FRS FRSE LLD was a Canadian physicist. He was described as "brilliant, energetic, nervous, impatient", and not suffering fools gladly. Life MacGregor was born in Halifax in Nova Scotia on 31 March 1852, the son of Rev Peter Gordon MacGregor. He was educated there at the Free Church Academy in Halifax going on to study at Dalhousie University, where he graduated with an MA. He left Nova Scotia to pursue postgraduate studies at the University of Edinburgh, the University of Leipzig and the University of London.
Go to Profile#9821
Leo Graetz
1856 - 1941 (85 years)
Leo Graetz was a German physicist. He was born in Breslau, Germany, and was the son of historian Heinrich Graetz. Graetz was one of the first to investigate the propagation of electromagnetic energy. The Graetz number , a dimensionless number describing heat flow, is named after him. Also sometimes known by his name is the diode bridge rectifier circuit that was invented by Polish electrotechnician Karol Pollak in 1896 and that was independently invented and published by Leo Graetz in 1897.
Go to Profile#9822
John McCowan
1863 - 1900 (37 years)
John McCowan was a Scottish physicist born in Bridge of Allan, near Stirling, Scotland, to tailor William McCowan and his wife Mary McKay. He was educated at the University of Glasgow . He taught first at the Royal College of Science for Ireland from 1884 to 1888, and from then on at University College, Dundee. McCowan was a pioneer in the study of the fluid mechanics and physics behind surfing, and his papers on wave theory are still being cited over a century later. His career was cut short due to heart issues, and he died at age 37.
Go to Profile#9823
Antonio Santucci
1550 - Present (476 years)
Antonio Santucci was an Italian astronomer, cosmographer, and scientific instrument maker. He was a reader in Mathematics at the University of Pisa during 1599–1612. Santucci was an astronomer and cosmographer to Grand Duke Ferdinand I and later Cosimo II . An attentive observer of comets, most notably that of 1582, he published in 1611 the first edition of Trattato delle comete, in which he argued that, contrary to the prevailing scientific opinion, comets were not atmospheric phenomena. The following year, he wrote Breve discorso sopra il trattato galileiano sulle galleggianti . He also au...
Go to Profile#9824
Attilio Colacevich
1906 - 1953 (47 years)
Attilio Colacevich was an Italian astronomer. Biography Colacevich was born in Fiume. He graduated in physics from the University of Florence in 1929, and in 1933 Giorgio Abetti hired him as assistant to the Arcetri Observatory. In 1934 he obtained a fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation at the Lick Observatory carrying out research on spectroscopic binaries. In June 1948 he was appointed director of the Collurania astronomical observatory in Teramo and, a few months later, director of the Astronomical Observatory of Capodimonte in Naples. In 1949 he returned to America, first at the War...
Go to Profile#9825
Paul McNally
1890 - 1955 (65 years)
Paul A. McNally was an American astronomer, scientist, and Jesuit priest. He was also a Dean of the Georgetown University School of Medicine. Early life McNally was born on October 14, 1890, in Philadelphia. He entered to the Society of Jesus on August 12, 1908, and graduated from Woodstock College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1915 and a Master of Arts degree in 1917. From 1916 to 1920, McNally was a professor of mathematics at Boston College. In 1916, McNally and BC student Paul Gately revived the Boston College Eagles men's basketball team. McNally served as volunteer coach during the 1916–17 season, winning two of the team's five games.
Go to Profile#9826
Ottokar Tumlirz
1856 - 1928 (72 years)
Ottokar Tumlirz was an Austrian physicist. He received his education at the University of Prague, obtaining his doctorate with a thesis on the expansion of sound and light waves . At Prague he worked as an assistant to Ernst Mach in the institute of experimental physics. After serving as a lecturer for several years in Prague, he relocated to the University of Vienna in 1890 as an assistant to Joseph Stefan . During the following year he was appointed associate professor of theoretical physics at the University of Czernowitz, where in 1894 he attained the title of "full professor". From 1905 to 1925 he served as a professor at the University of Innsbruck.
Go to Profile#9827
Karapet Chobanyan
1927 - 1978 (51 years)
Karapet Chobanyan was an Armenian scientist and engineer who discovered the phenomenon of Low-Stress in mechanics and developed a new method of welding. Biography Karapet Chobanyan was born on February, 1927, as the first child of Armenuhi and Sirakan Chobanyan.
Go to Profile#9828
Carl Frederik Fearnley
1818 - 1890 (72 years)
Carl Frederik Fearnley was a Norwegian astronomer and Professor at the Royal Frederick University. He was the brother of romantic painter Thomas Fearnley. Fearnley was the son of merchant Thomas Fearnley and Maren Sophie Paus . He graduated in mineralogy in 1844, and became an observer at the Royal Frederick University Observatory the same year. From 1849 to 1852 he visited leading observatories in Europe. In 1857, he became lecturer and in 1861, the managing observator of the observatory. In 1865 he became professor of astronomy.
Go to Profile#9829
Robert Blair
1748 - 1828 (80 years)
Robert Blair FRSE was a Scottish astronomer. Life He was born in Garvald, East Lothian, the son of Rev Archibald Blair, the local minister. In 1773 he was apprenticed to Dr Francis Balfour, a naval surgeon, and served in the Royal Navy in the West Indies. On return to Scotland he studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and qualified as a doctor in 1785.
Go to Profile#9830
Václav Láska
1862 - 1943 (81 years)
Václav Láska was a Czech astronomer, geophysicist, and mathematician. He was based mainly at Charles University, and was the founding director of the State Institute of Geophysics, which later became the Institute of Geophysics of the Czech Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#9831
Horace M. Trent
1907 - 1964 (57 years)
Horace Maynard Trent was an American physicist best known for being part of the team that found that the crack of a bullwhip was actually a sonic boom. He is also the author of the currently accepted force-current analogy in physics known as the Trent analogy.
Go to Profile#9832
Michael Neander
1529 - 1581 (52 years)
Michael Neander was a German teacher, mathematician, medical academic, and astronomer. He was born in Joachimsthal, Bohemia, and was educated at the University of Wittenberg, receiving his B.A. in 1549 and M.A. in 1550.
Go to Profile#9833
Peter Kristian Prytz
1851 - 1929 (78 years)
Peter Kristian Prytz was a Danish physicist. He was a professor at the Technical University of Denmark from 1894 to 1921. Early life and education Prytz was born on 26 February 1851 in Årup at Torslev, the son of parish priest Peter Christian Prytz and Anna Eline Garben . He earned a degree in physics from the University of Copenhagen in 1875 and spent the next ten years teaching at schools in Copenhagen.
Go to Profile#9834
Konstanty Zakrzewski
1876 - 1948 (72 years)
Konstanty Zakrzewski was a Polish physicist. He was a professor of the Jagiellonian University and professor of the Lviv University , member of the Polish Academy of Learning . Zakrzewski was a researcher of electron theory of metals, optics, and dielectric properties of substances. He was an initiator of cosmic ray research in Poland .
Go to Profile#9835
Nikolay Buchholtz
1881 - 1943 (62 years)
Nikolay Nikolayevich Buchholtz was a Soviet and Russian scientist and a specialist in the field of analytical mechanics. Major-General of the Engineering and Aviation Service, Professor, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. Laureate of Stalin Prize.
Go to Profile#9836
William of Saint-Cloud
1300 - 1301 (1 years)
William of Saint-Cloud is a French astronomer in the late thirteenth century. He is known for his Almanac prepared around 1292, dedicated to Marie of Brabant, and translated for Joan of Navarre. This almanac, one of the rare witness of astronomical observations at the end of the High Middle Ages, contains ephemeris of the sun, moon and planets and advocates also the use of the camera obscura to observe solar eclipses.
Go to Profile#9837
Franz Richarz
1860 - 1920 (60 years)
Franz Richarz was a German physicist. His father, also named Franz Richarz , was a noted psychiatrist. He studied mathematics and physics at the universities of Berlin and Bonn, receiving his doctorate in 1884 with the dissertation Bildung von Ozon, Wasserstoffsuperoxyd und Ueberschwefelsäure bei der Electrolyse verdünnter Schwefelsäure . In 1888 he obtained his habilitation and worked as a lecturer of physics at the University of Bonn. In 1895 he succeeded Anton Oberbeck as professor of physics at the University of Greifswald, where he also served as director of the Physics Institute. In 1901 he relocated as a professor to the University of Marburg.
Go to Profile#9838
Paolo Straneo
1874 - 1968 (94 years)
Paolo Pietro Straneo was an Italian mathematical physicist. Biography Straneo studied at ETH Zurich, where he met and was a friend of Einstein. In 1897 he received his Ph.D. in natural philosophy of the University of Zurich. From 1899 he was a libero docente in mathematical physics and for some years he was a docente incaricato in mathematical physics at the University of Turin. After a period of working as a libero professionista , in 1924 he again became a libero docente and was put in charge of mathematical physics at the University of Genoa. There, from 1925 he was a professor ordinari...
Go to Profile#9839
Louis Winslow Austin
1867 - 1932 (65 years)
Louis Winslow Austin was an American physicist known for his research on long-range radio transmissions. Austin was born in Orwell, Vermont, and educated at Middlebury College and the University of Strasbourg , from which he received a Ph.D. in 1893. From 1893-1901, he taught physics as an instructor and assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, then returned to Germany for two years at the Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt in Berlin where he performed research on hot gases.
Go to Profile#9840
Śrīpati
1019 - 1066 (47 years)
Śrīpati , also transliterated as Shri-pati, was an Indian astronomer, astrologer and mathematician. His major works include Dhīkotida-karana , a work of twenty verses on solar and lunar eclipses; Dhruva-mānasa , a work of 105 verses on calculating planetary longitudes, eclipses and planetary transits; Siddhānta-śekhara a major work on astronomy in 19 chapters; and Gaṇita-tilaka, an incomplete arithmetical treatise in 125 verses based on a work by Shridhara.
Go to Profile#9841
Johannes Stadius
1527 - 1579 (52 years)
Johannes Stadius or Estadius , was a Flemish astronomer, astrologer, and mathematician. He was one of the important late 16th-century makers of ephemerides, which gave the positions of astronomical objects in the sky at a given time or times.
Go to Profile#9842
Njål Hole
1914 - 1988 (74 years)
Njål Hole MBE was a Norwegian chemical engineer and nuclear physicist. His is research was primarily in the field of nuclear physics. Biography He was born in Hjørundfjord. He graduated from the Norwegian Institute of Technology in 1938. From 1938 he was an assistant at Norwegian Institute of Technology.
Go to Profile#9843
Joseph Lepaute Dagelet
1751 - 1788 (37 years)
Joseph Lepaute Dagelet was a French astronomer, clockmaker and mathematician who accompanied Lapérouse on his scientific circumnavigation, in the course of which he perished in the final shipwreck of the expedition. Dagelet's astronomical sightings gave precision to the maps posthumously published in the official Atlas du Voyage de la Perouse .
Go to Profile#9844
Abraham bar Hiyya
1070 - 1136 (66 years)
Abraham bar Ḥiyya ha-Nasi , also known as Abraham Savasorda, Abraham Albargeloni, and Abraham Judaeus, was a Catalan Jewishish mathematician, astronomer and philosopher who resided in Barcelona. Bar Ḥiyya was active in translating the works of Islamic science into Latin, and was likely the earliest to introduce Arabic algebra into Christian Europe. He also wrote several original works on mathematics, astronomy, Jewish philosophy, chronology, and land surveying. His most influential work is his Ḥibbur ha-Meshiḥah ve-ha-Tishboret, translated in 1145 into Latin as Liber embadorum. A Hebrew treati...
Go to Profile#9845
Rodolphe Radau
1835 - 1911 (76 years)
Jean Charles Rodolphe Radau was an astronomer and mathematician who worked in Paris at the Revue des deux Mondes for most of his life. He was the co-founder of the Bulletin Astronomique. Radau was born in Angerburg, Province of Prussia , and after studying in Königsberg and working on the Three-body problem, he moved to Paris to collaborate with other scientists. In 1871 he was given the Ph.D. in honor of his work in mathematics.
Go to Profile#9846
David Origanus
1558 - 1629 (71 years)
David Origanus or David Tost was a German astronomer and professor for Greek language and Mathematics at the Viadrina University in Frankfurt , where he had also studied. Tost was born in Glatz , Bohemia . During his scientific career he observed numerous comets and published about Ephemeris in 1599 and 1609. In contrast to Tycho Brahe, he was convinced that the Earth rotates. He died in Frankfurt , aged 71.
Go to Profile#9847
Frank Allen
1874 - 1965 (91 years)
Frank Allen, was a Canadian academic and physicist, specializing in physiological optics. Biography Born in New Brunswick, Frank Allen received his bachelor's degree in 1895 from the University of New Brunswick with highest honours in physics and chemistry and then his M.A. there in 1897. In 1902 he received his PhD in physics from Cornell University with a thesis on physiological optics. In 1904 Allen accepted the founding chair of the physics department at the University of Manitoba, serving as the head of the physics department until his retirement in 1944. In his career he published abou...
Go to Profile#9848
Francis Eugene Nipher
1847 - 1926 (79 years)
Francis Eugene Nipher was a United States physicist. Biography Francis Eugene Nipher was born in Port Byron, New York on December 10, 1847. He graduated in 1870 from Iowa State University, where he became assistant in physical science. In 1874, he was appointed professor of physics at Washington University in St. Louis. He organized the second state weather service, that of Missouri, in 1877, and for ten years it was maintained without official support. From 1878 until 1883, he conducted a magnetic survey of Missouri, doing the work under private auspices, and publishing the annual reports in the Transactions of the St.
Go to Profile#9849
Stephen Alexander
1806 - 1883 (77 years)
Stephen Alexander was a noted American astronomer and educator. Early years He was born in Schenectady, New York on September 1, 1806. He was the brother-in-law of Joseph Henry, the first secretary of the Smithsonian, and worked closely with him. His education was obtained at Union College, were graduated in 1824, and at Princeton Theological Seminary, were graduated in 1832.
Go to Profile#9850
Jens Rud Nielsen
1894 - 1979 (85 years)
Jens Rud Nielsen was born in Copenhagen and was an esteemed physicist at the University of Oklahoma. He immigrated to the United States in 1922. He was awarded the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in 1931.
Go to Profile