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.
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List of the most influential people in Physics,
#10301
Edward Skinner King
1861 - 1931 (70 years)
Edward Skinner King was an American astronomer. In 1887 he graduated from Hamilton College and joined the staff of the Harvard Observatory, where he supervised the photographic imaging and related work. He became a pioneer and authority on the process of photographic photometry. In 1912 he noticed that some types of films appeared to perform better during the winter months, which led to the use of the so-called "cold camera" where the temperature is lowered to around -40 °C. From 1926 until his death he was the Phillips Professor of Astronomy at Harvard University.
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Pierre-Michel Duffieux
1891 - 1976 (85 years)
Pierre-Michel Duffieux was a French physicist, known as the founder of Fourier optics. Life and career Duffieux became interested in physics by listening to the lectures of Pierre Duhem in high school in Bordeaux. In 1912 he entered the École Normale Supérieure. During the first world war he was involved in military work under the supervision of Henri Bénard, applying Fourier methods to measuring the coefficients of thermal conductivity. This work resulted in his first scientific publication.
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James Curley
1796 - 1889 (93 years)
James Curley was an Irish-American astronomer. He was born at Athleague, County Roscommon, Ireland. His early education was limited, though his talent for mathematics was discovered, and to some extent developed, by a teacher in his native town. He left Ireland in his youth, arriving in Philadelphia on 10 October 1817. Here he worked for two years as a bookkeeper and then taught mathematics at Frederick, Maryland.
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Herbert Alonzo Howe
1858 - 1926 (68 years)
Herbert Alonzo Howe was an American astronomer and educator. Biography Born in Brockport, New York, he was the son of Alonzo J. Howe, a professor at the old University of Chicago, and Julia M. Osgood. During his youth he developed an interest in the stars, witnessing the spectacular Leonid meteor shower of November 1866. He matriculated to the old University of Chicago, where he graduated with an A.B. in 1875 at the age of sixteen. Joining the staff of the Cincinnati Observatory as an assistant, he worked primarily on computing orbital elements and observing double stars. In 1877, he was awarded his A.M.
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Lawrence O. Brockway
1907 - 1979 (72 years)
Lawrence Olin Brockway was a physical chemist who spent most of his career at the University of Michigan, where he developed early methods for electron diffraction. Early life and education Brockway was born on September 23, 1907, in Topeka, Kansas. He attended the University of Nebraska and received his B.S. in 1929 and his M.S. a year later. He then moved to the California Institute of Technology, where he was one of the first graduate students of Linus Pauling. He and Pauling were interested in the physics of interatomic interactions and focused their efforts on the structure of chalcopyri...
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Petrus Astronomus
1450 - Present (576 years)
Petrus Astronomus, O.Ss.S., , a German by birth, was a Bridgettine monk in Vadstena Abbey, Vadstena, Sweden. In 1506, he created an astronomical clock for the Uppsala Cathedral, which, in addition to the hours and minutes of the day, also illustrated the moon phase and the movements of the planets. The clock was repaired by Christopher Polhem in the 17th century but destroyed in a fire in 1702.
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Herbert Jehle
1907 - 1983 (76 years)
Herbert Jehle was a German-American physicist. Jehle graduated in 1930 from the Technische Hochschule Stuttgart with a degree in engineering and in 1933 from the Technische Hochschule Berlin with an engineering doctorate in textile manufacture.He was part of the 'Bonhoeffer circle' of students, talking theology and making hesitant attempts at spiritual exercises, listening to Bonhoeffer's Negro spirituals. For the academic year 1933–1934 he studied theoretical physics at the University of Cambridge. In 1935/36 he worked for the Jahrbuch über die Fortschritte der Mathematik. It was in large part due to Bonhoeffer’s influence that he became a pacifist.
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Jarl Axel Wasastjerna
1896 - 1972 (76 years)
Jarl Axel Wasastjerna was a Finnish physicist. After his academic career, he worked in industry, received an honorary degree in technology in 1949, and the honorary title of Vuorineuvos in 1957. Wasastjerna was Professor of Applied Physics at the University of Helsinki from 1925–1946, where he oversaw the dissertation of Eugenie Lisitzin, the first woman to earn a PhD in Finland in 1938. He later became envoy of Finland in Stockholm from 1940 to 1943, Managing Director of United Wool Company from 1948 to 1954, President of the Nordic Union Bank from 1944 1951, and Chairman of the Tampella Executive Board beginning in 1944.
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Oskar Vierling
1904 - 1986 (82 years)
Oskar Walther Vierling was a German physicist, inventor, entrepreneur and professor in high-frequency technology. Vierling was an important inventor and engineer of electronic and electro-acoustic instruments between the 1930s and 1950s.
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Caroline Furness
1869 - 1936 (67 years)
Caroline Ellen Furness was an American astronomer who taught at Vassar College in the early twentieth century. She studied under Mary Watson Whitney at Vassar and was the first woman to earn a PhD in astronomy from Columbia.
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Wilhelm von Beetz
1822 - 1886 (64 years)
Wilhelm von Beetz was a German physicist, known for his studies of electrical conductivity properties. Von Beetz was born in Berlin. He studied physics, chemistry and physiology in the University of Berlin, and after completion of studies, remained in Berlin as an instructor of physics at the Cadet Corps, followed by duties as a teacher at the artillery and engineering school. Afterwards, he was a professor at the universities of Bern and Erlangen . In 1868 he became a professor at the Technical University of Munich, where in 1874 to 1877 he was director. In 1845, he was co-founder of Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft.
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Henry James Anderson
1799 - 1875 (76 years)
Henry James Anderson was an American scientist and educator who worked with the great-grandson of Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Dallas Bache. He became Knight Commander, President of the Particular Council of New York, and Head of the Supreme Council.
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Orazio Tedone
1870 - 1922 (52 years)
Orazio Tedone was an Italian mathematical physicist. He is perhaps best known for the Larmor–Tedone formulae for solving Maxwell's equations. Biography Born and raised in Ruvo di Puglia, Tedone completed his undergraduate studies - his Laurea - in mathematics from the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa and there became an assistant and then a lecturer in rational mechanics. He became a docent at the Istituto Tecnico C. Cattaneo in Milan and then became a professor in the chair of mechanics at the University of Pavia. In 1899 he became a professor of higher analysis and static graphics at the Un...
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Georg Samuel Dörffel
1643 - 1688 (45 years)
Georg Samuel Dörffel was a German theologian and amateur astronomer. Both the lunar crater Doerfel and the minor planet 4076 Dörffel are named in his honour. Biography Georg Samuel Dörffel was born in Plauen in 1643. His father Friedrich Dörffel was a clergyman who worked as the private tutor of the prince-elector of Brandenburg. Georg studied in Plauen, Leipzig and Jena. He obtained a master's degree in philosophy in 1663, and a bachelor in theology in 1667.
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Johannes Praetorius
1537 - 1616 (79 years)
Johannes Praetorius or Johann Richter was a Bohemian German mathematician and astronomer. Life Praetorius was born in Jáchymov, Bohemia. From 1557 he studied at the University of Wittenberg, and from 1562 to 1569 he lived in Nuremberg. His astronomical and mathematical instruments are kept at Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg.
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Dimitri Riabouchinsky
1882 - 1962 (80 years)
Dimitri Pavlovitch Riabouchinsky was a Russian fluid dynamicist noted for his discovery of the Riabouchinsky solid technique. With the aid of Nikolay Zhukovsky he founded the Institute of Aerodynamics in 1904, the first in Europe. He also independently discovered equivalent results to the Buckingham Pi Theorem in 1911. Riabouchinsky left Russia following the October Revolution and his short-term arrest, spending the rest of his life in Paris, yet he never accepted the French citizenship and used his Nansen passport up till death. He was a member of the Moscow State University, the University ...
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Franziska Seidl
1892 - 1983 (91 years)
Franziska Seidl was an Austrian physicist. She was professor for experimental physics at the University of Vienna. One of her main research areas was ultrasound. Biography Franziska was born in Vienna to Franz and Maria Vicari, née Anton, who were proprietors of a small business. She attended primary and secondary school and received musical education. In 1911, she married Wenzel Seidl , a physics and mathematics teacher at a gymnasium in Hranice, Moravia. They lived in Hranice until Wenzel was conscripted in World War I, and died in 1916 at the Isonzo Front.
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Jens Fredrik Schroeter
1857 - 1927 (70 years)
Jens Fredrik Wilhelm Schroeter was a Norwegian astronomer. He was born in Drammen as a son of sea captain Fredrik Julius Bech Schroeter and his wife Julie Schroeter. His paternal family had migrated into Norway from Langeland, Denmark in 1787. Through his sister Jenny, he was a brother-in-law of priest Jens Jonas Jansen and an uncle of historian, genealogist and archivist Einar Jansen.
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Paul D. Feldman
#10320
Alois Handl
1837 - 1915 (78 years)
Alois Handl was an Austrian physicist. In 1859 he obtained his doctorate in Vienna, later becoming a professor at the University of Lemberg. Afterwards he taught classes at the military academy in Wiener Neustadt. In 1876 he established the chair of experimental physics at the University of Czernowitz, a position he maintained until his retirement in 1906. Following his retirement, Handl was succeeded at Czernowitz by Josef Geitler von Armingen .
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Chester Lyman
1814 - 1890 (76 years)
Chester Smith Lyman was an American teacher, clergyman and astronomer. Early life and education He was born in Manchester, Connecticut, to Chester and Mary Smith Lyman. Chester is the descendant of Richard Lyman, a settler who arrived in America in 1631. Chester's early education was in a country school, but at an early age he showed a strong interest in astronomy and the sciences. By 1833 he had gained admittance to Yale, and graduated in 1837. In his junior year he became editor of the Yale Literary Magazine and he was a member of Skull and Bones. He served for two years as Superintendent of Ellington School, then studied theology at the Union and Yale seminaries.
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Pearl I. Young
1895 - 1968 (73 years)
Pearl I. Young became the first female technical employee of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics , which evolved to become today's NASA. She became Chief Technical Editor at NACA's Langley Instrument Research Laboratory, and an engineering professor.
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Karl Kraus
1938 - 1988 (50 years)
Karl Kraus was a German theoretical physicist who made major contributions to the foundations of quantum physics. Life and work Kraus was born in 1938 in Hohenelbe/Giant Mountains, today Vrchlabí. After the war, he grew up in Elsterwerda and attended local schools. He studied physics from 1955 to 1960 at the Humboldt University of Berlin and the Free University of Berlin . He graduated in 1962 with a thesis about Lorentz's theory of gravity, carried out under the supervision of Kurt Just. Kraus then joined as an assistant to Günther Ludwig at the University of Marburg, where he qualified in 1966.
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Émile Verdet
1824 - 1866 (42 years)
Marcel Émile Verdet was a French physicist. He worked in magnetism and optics, editing the works of Augustin-Jean Fresnel. Verdet did much to champion the early theory of the conservation of energy in France through his editorial supervision of the Annales de chimie et de physique.
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Dean Benjamin McLaughlin
1901 - 1965 (64 years)
Dean Benjamin McLaughlin was an American astronomer. He was a professor of astronomy at the University of Michigan. He was the father of the science fiction author Dean B. McLaughlin, Jr. He received his B.S. , his M.S. and his Ph.D. all from Michigan. McLaughlin married fellow astronomer Laura Elizabeth Hill in 1927.
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Diego Rodríguez
1569 - 1668 (99 years)
Diego Rodríguez was a mathematician, astronomer, educator, and technological innovator in New Spain. He was one of the most important figures in the scientific field in the colony in the second half of the seventeenth century.
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Ron Giovanelli
1915 - 1984 (69 years)
Ronald Gordon Giovanelli, DSc, FAA was an Australian solar researcher, astronomer and physicist, who contributed to the fields of astrophysics, solar physics, radiative transfer, and astronomical optics. His career spanned more than 40 years, commencing prior to World War II. Giovanelli was the recipient of the 1949 Edgeworth David Medal by the Royal Society of New South Wales for the discipline of astrophysics, which recognises distinguished contributions by scientists under the age of 35 years old in their respective fields. He was also elected into the Fellowship of the Australian Academy ...
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Robert of Ketton
1110 - 1160 (50 years)
Robert of Ketton, known in Latin as Rodbertus Ketenensis , was an English astronomer, translator, priest and diplomat active in Spain. He translated several works of Arabic into Latin, including the first translation of the Quran into any Western language. Between 1144 and 1157 he held an archdeaconry in the diocese of Pamplona. In the past he has been confounded with Robert of Chester , another English translator active in Spain in the mid-twelfth century; and at least one modern scholar believes they are the same person.
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Andrey Aleksandrovich Gershun
1903 - 1952 (49 years)
Andrey Aleksandrovich Gershun was a Soviet physicist known for his work in photometry and optics, and was one of the founders of Vavilov State Optical Institute Hydrooptics Science School. Biography Andrey Aleksandrovich Gershun was born in 1903 in the family of Russian physicist Aleksandr L'vovich Gershun. After his father's death in 1915 he lived with his mother Rozaliya Feliksovna Gershun. In 1920 he entered the Physics Department of Peterburg State University and graduated in 1924. He then took a position in the State Optical Institute Photometric Laboratory under the direction of Professor S.
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Wilhelm Schur
1846 - 1901 (55 years)
Adolph Christian Wilhelm Schur, RAS Associate was a German astronomer and professor of astronomy at the University of Göttingen. He held important positions at multiple observatories throughout his career, namely deputy director of the Strasbourg Observatory and director of the Göttingen Observatory. His main work was in astrometry, although he focused on publishing astronomical catalogues in his later life.
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Alexandra Glagoleva-Arkadieva
1884 - 1945 (61 years)
Alexandra Andreevna Glagoleva-Arkadieva was a Russian and Soviet physicist known for her research on medical imaging using X-rays, mechanisms for generating microwaves, and spectrometry in the far infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. She was the first Russian woman to become internationally known for her physics research.
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Shirley Leon Quimby
1893 - 1986 (93 years)
Shirley Leon Quimby was an American physicist. He graduated from University of California at Berkeley in 1915 and received his PhD in physics at Columbia University in 1925. He served as a professor at Columbia from 1943 and became professor emeritus in 1962. In 1915 he married fellow student Edith Hinkley, who would later be noted for her contributions to nuclear medicine and radiology.
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Marcin Bylica
1433 - 1493 (60 years)
Marcin Bylica , also known as Martin Bylica and Marcin z Olkusza, was a Polish astrologer, astronomer, and physician at the court of Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary. Biography Son of burgher Jan, waterworks caretaker of Olkusz. He studied first probably at parish school in Olkusz, and later at the University of Cracow, where he doubtless studied under the astronomer Marcin Król z Żurawicy. Bylica was invited by Johannes Lauratius de Fundis and taught astronomy at the University of Bologna in 1463.
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Eduard Heis
1806 - 1877 (71 years)
Eduard Heis was a German mathematician and astronomer. He completed his education at the University of Bonn in 1827, then taught mathematics at a school in Cologne. In 1832 he taught at Aachen, and remained there until 1852. He was then appointed by King Frederick William IV to a chair position at the Academy of Münster in 1852. In 1869 he became rector of the Academy.
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August Hagenbach
1871 - 1955 (84 years)
August Hagenbach was a Swiss physicist working in spectroscopy. He was the son of physicist Eduard Hagenbach-Bischoff and obtained his Ph.D. in 1894 at the University of Leipzig with a thesis titled "" under the supervision of Gustav Heinrich Wiedemann.
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George Dawson Preston
1896 - 1972 (76 years)
George Dawson Preston FRSE was a 20th century British physicist specialising in crystallography and the structure of alloys. He was one of the first to use x-rays and electron diffraction to study the crystal structure of metals and alloys. Along with André Guinier, Preston gives his name to the Guinier-Preston zone, discovered in 1938.
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Baishali Dutta
#10338
Anatole Leduc
1856 - 1937 (81 years)
Anatole Sylvester Leduc was a French physicist and a professor at the Faculty of Science in Paris. He was one of the independent discoverers of the Thermal Hall effect. Leduc was born in Oust-Marais to farmer Ferdinand and his wife Marie Madeleine Augustin Lottin. He studied at the Douai high school and at Abbeville college before entering the Ecole Polytechnique and the Ecole Normale Supérieure . He graduated in mathematics and physics and received a doctorate in 1888. He taught at Stanislas College from 1880 and from 1883 at the Lycee Saint-Louis. In 1892 he became a lecturer at the Faculty of Sciences and in 1900 he became an assistant professor.
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Tetsuro Oshika
#10340
Louis Agricola Bauer
1865 - 1932 (67 years)
Louis Agricola Bauer was an American geophysicist, astronomer and magnetician. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, he graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1888, and he immediately started work for the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey. During 1895 and 1896, he was instructor in mathematical physics at the University of Chicago, after which he worked in various positions at different locations. The most important of these was as the first director of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, which was established in 1904. In this position, he set ...
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Abdias Treu
1597 - 1669 (72 years)
Abdias Treu was a German mathematician and academic. He was the professor of mathematics and physical science at the University of Altdorf from 1636-1669. He is best known for his contributions to the field of astronomy. He also contributed writings on the mathematical nature of music theory. He is the grandfather of physician and botanist Christoph Jacob Treu.
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Lewis Salter
1926 - 1989 (63 years)
Lewis Salter was an American theoretical physicist, physics professor, and researcher. He served as the dean of Knox College for 11 years and was the twelfth president of Wabash College. Biography Salter was born in Norman, Oklahoma. He spent three years in the United States Army during World War II, then received his undergraduate education at the University of Oklahoma, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He was selected as a Rhodes Scholar, and spent 1949 to 1953 at the University of Oxford, where he received his master's degree and doctorate in theoretical physics.
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Betty Louise Turtle
1941 - 1990 (49 years)
Betty Louise Turtle was an Australian astronomer and physicist. In 1971, with her colleague Paul Murdin, she identified the powerful X-ray source Cygnus X-1 as the first clear candidate for a black hole.
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Fritz Fischer
1898 - 1947 (49 years)
Fritz Fischer was a technical physicist, engineer and inventor. He was married to Maud Schätti. Fritz Fischer studied electrical engineering at the ETH Zurich from 1917 till 1921 and graduated as Dr. sc. tech in 1924. Working at the Telephonwerke Albisrieden he improved the transmission quality of speech, whereupon he was called to the central laboratories of the mother company Siemens & Halske in Berlin. There he built the first remotely controlled ships and airplanes and investigated the physical properties of colour film. Over 70 patent applications resulted from his work at Siemens. He wa...
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Leonard Benedict Loeb
1891 - 1978 (87 years)
Leonard Benedict Loeb was a Swiss-born American physicist. He was the son of Jacques Loeb a German-born American physiologist and biologist. Leonard B. Loeb wrote a number of physics books, including Atomic Structure.
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Dimitrios Stroumpos
1806 - 1890 (84 years)
Dimitrios Stroumpos was an astronomer, physicist, mathematician, author, and professor. He was a theoretical physicist. He was a pioneer in 19th-century Greek physics. He helped develop the physics department at the University of Athens. He was the dean. He did extensive research in the field of physics namely: the study of air and energy fields, electricity, magnetism, and telephones. He also studied the motion of molecules and developed a system of scientific observation. He developed the Strombo compass. His contemporaries at the time were Greek scientists Vassilios Lakon, Georgios Konstantinos Vouris, and Ioannis Papadakis.
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John Carroll
1899 - 1974 (75 years)
Sir John Anthony Carroll was a British astronomer and physicist. In the 1920s he worked at the Solar Physics Observatory, Cambridge, UK with F.J.M. Stratton and Richard van der Riet Woolley. He made major technological advances, inventing a high resolution spectrometer, and a coronal camera.
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Charles Elwood Mendenhall
1872 - 1935 (63 years)
Charles Elwood Mendenhall was an American physicist and professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Early life Charles Elwood Mendenhall was born on August 1, 1872, in Columbus, Ohio. He was the son of Susan Allen and Thomas Corwin Mendenhall. At the age of six to nine, he lived in Japan while his father taught at the University of Tokyo. There he became friends with John Morse, son of Edward S. Morse.
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Olexander Smakula
1900 - 1983 (83 years)
Olexander Smakula was a Ukrainian physicist known for the invention of anti-reflective lens coatings based on optical interference. Biography Smakula was born to a peasant family in Dobrovody village, Austria-Hungary . After finishing his studies at the Ternopil gymnasium he applied to the University of Göttingen from which he graduated in 1927. Afterwards he worked as an assistant of Prof. Robert Pohl. After his short stay at Odessa University, Smakula returned to Germany as head of an optics laboratory in Heidelberg. From 1934 he worked at the Carl Zeiss AG company in Jena. While at Zeiss,...
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Giovanni Camillo Glorioso
1572 - 1643 (71 years)
Giovanni Camillo Glorioso was an Italian mathematician and astronomer. He was a friend of Marino Ghetaldi and successor of Galileo Galilei in Pisa, then in Padua. Life Giovanni Camillo Glorioso was born in the village of Mercato or Santa Maria a Vico of Giffoni Valle Piana. He had a correspondence with Galileo Galilei in 1604 and he replaced him at the University of Padua, with an income of 350 florins per year, in 1613. He led observations on the 1618 comet, on Mars, and on some aspects of Saturn. He came closer to Antonio Santini and he had contrasts with Scipione Chiaramonti and his successor at the university of Pisa, Barthélemy Souvey, student of Fortunio Liceti.
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