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,
#10801
Hans Busch
1884 - 1973 (89 years)
Hans Walter Hugo Busch was a German physicist. He was a pioneer of electron optics and laid the theoretical basis for the electron microscope. From 1904 to 1905 he studied physics in Strasbourg, from 1905 to 1906 in Berlin and from 1907 to 1911 physics and applied physics in Göttingen. He then was assistant for applied electrical engineering in Göttingen. He received his doctorate in 1911 from the University of Göttingen. In 1920 he habilitated from the same university and was then Privatdozent of physics and applied physics. In 1921 he was Privatdozent in Jena. In 1922 he became associate professor in Jena.
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Emanoil Bacaloglu
1830 - 1891 (61 years)
Emanoil Bacaloglu was a Wallachian and Romanian mathematician, physicist and chemist. Born in Bucharest and of Greek origin, he studied physics and mathematics in Paris and Leipzig, later becoming a professor at the University of Bucharest and, in 1879, a member of the Romanian Academy. Considered to be the founder of many scientific and technological fields in Romania , Bacaloglu was also an accomplished scientist. He helped create Romanian-language terminology in his fields and was one of the principal founders of the Society of Physical Sciences in 1890.
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Dmitry Dubyago
1849 - 1918 (69 years)
Dmitry Ivanovich Dubyago was a Russian astronomer and expert in theoretical astrophysics, astrometry, and gravimetry. A crater on the Moon is named after Dmitry Dubyago. See also Alexander Dubyagocrater Dubyago
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Johann Gottlieb Friedrich von Bohnenberger
1765 - 1831 (66 years)
Johann Gottlieb Friedrich von Bohnenberger was a German astronomer born at Simmozheim, Württemberg. He studied at the University of Tübingen. In 1798, he was appointed professor of mathematics and astronomy at the University.
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Qusta ibn Luqa
820 - 912 (92 years)
Qusta ibn Luqa, also known as Costa ben Luca or Constabulus was a Syrian Melkite Christian physician, philosopher, astronomer, mathematician and translator. He was born in Baalbek. Travelling to parts of the Byzantine Empire, he brought back Greek texts and translated them into Arabic.
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Hans Hollmann
1899 - 1960 (61 years)
Hans Erich Hollmann was a German electronic specialist who made several breakthroughs in the development of radar. Hollmann was born in Solingen, Germany. He became interested in radio and even as a teenager subscribed to the technical magazines of the day. Late in World War I he became a prisoner of war of the French and did not return to Germany until 1920. He then studied at the Technical University at Darmstadt until he received his doctorate in 1928.
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Forest Ray Moulton
1872 - 1952 (80 years)
Forest Ray Moulton was an American astronomer. Biography He was born in Le Roy, Michigan, and was educated at Albion College. After graduating in 1894 , he performed his graduate studies at the University of Chicago and gained a Ph.D. in 1899. At the University of Chicago he was associate in astronomy , instructor , assistant professor , associate professor , and professor after 1912.
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Quirino Majorana
1871 - 1957 (86 years)
Quirino Francesco Valentino Majorana was an Italian experimental physicist who investigated a wide range of phenomena during his long career as professor of physics at the Universities of Rome, Turin , and Bologna .
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William Gilbert
1544 - 1603 (59 years)
#10810
Palm Heinrich Ludwig von Boguslawski
1789 - 1851 (62 years)
Palm Heinrich Ludwig von Boguslawski was a German astronomy professor and observatory director in Breslau . Early life A native of Magdeburg, Boguslawski met Johann Elert Bode , who was an observatory director in Berlin and published the celestial atlas Uranographia, at the Prussian Military Academy in Berlin between 1811 and 1812, when Boguslawski did his military service.
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Theodosius of Bithynia
160 BC - 90 BC (70 years)
Theodosius of Bithynia was a Hellenistic astronomer and mathematician from Bithynia who wrote the Spherics, a treatise about spherical geometry, as well as several other books on mathematics and astronomy, of which two survive, On Habitations and On Days and Nights.
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Ernest William Brown
1866 - 1938 (72 years)
Ernest William Brown FRS was an English mathematician and astronomer, who spent the majority of his career working in the United States and became a naturalised American citizen in 1923. His life's work was the study of the Moon's motion and the compilation of extremely accurate lunar tables. He also studied the motion of the planets and calculated the orbits of Trojan asteroids.
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Yuri Krutkov
1890 - 1952 (62 years)
Yuri Alexandrovich Krutkov was a Russian and among the first Soviet theoretical physicists. Krutkov worked on cosmology, quantum theory, statistical mechanics, tensor fields, and other areas. He was a professor of physics at the University of St. Petersburg from 1921-1952.
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M. C. Joshi
1928 - 1983 (55 years)
M. C. Joshi from Belgaum, India was a nuclear physicist and the founder and head of the university department of physics, University of Mumbai. The university department of physics was established in 1971.
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Giovanni Aldini
1762 - 1834 (72 years)
Giovanni Aldini was an Italian physician and physicist born in Bologna. He was a brother of the statesman Count Antonio Aldini . He graduated in physics at University of Bologna in 1782. He became professor of experimental physics at University of Bologna in 1798, in succession to his uncle Luigi Galvani . His scientific work was chiefly concerned with galvanism, anatomy and its medical applications, with the construction and illumination of lighthouses, and with experiments for preserving human life and material objects from destruction by fire. He wrote in French and English in addition to his native Italian, and in Latin, still used in the 18th century by the scientific community.
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Asaph Hall
1829 - 1907 (78 years)
Asaph Hall III was an American astronomer who is best known for having discovered the two moons of Mars, Deimos and Phobos, in 1877. He determined the orbits of satellitess of other planets and of double stars, the rotation of Saturn, and the mass of Mars.
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Alexander Dubyago
1903 - 1959 (56 years)
Alexander Dmitriyevich Dubyago was a Soviet astronomer and expert in theoretical astrophysics. The lunar crater Dubyago is named after him and his father, Dmitry Ivanovich Dubyago.
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Bruno Winawer
1883 - 1944 (61 years)
Bruno Winawer was a Jewish-descended Polish physicist, columnist, and author of comedies, science fiction novels, short stories, and poetry. Life Winawer studied physics at the University of Heidelberg, then served at the University of Amsterdam as assistant to Nobel laureate Pieter Zeeman.
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John Leslie
1766 - 1832 (66 years)
Sir John Leslie, FRSE KH was a Scottish mathematician and physicist best remembered for his research into heat. Leslie gave the first modern account of capillary action in 1802 and froze water using an air-pump in 1810, the first artificial production of ice.
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Cuno Hoffmeister
1892 - 1968 (76 years)
Cuno Hoffmeister was a German astronomer, observer and discoverer of variable stars, comets and minor planets, and founder of Sonneberg Observatory. Born in Sonneberg in 1892 to Carl and Marie Hoffmeister, Cuno Hoffmeister obtained his first telescope in 1905 and became an avid amateur astronomer. After his father lost most of his money in 1914, Hoffmeister had to leave school in 1916 to start an apprenticeship in his father's company. During this time he continued to study spherical mathematics and trigonometry. In April 1915 he had the opportunity to substitute as the assistant of Ernst Har...
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Joseph Valentin Boussinesq
1842 - 1929 (87 years)
Joseph Valentin Boussinesq was a French mathematician and physicist who made significant contributions to the theory of hydrodynamics, vibration, light, and heat. Biography From 1872 to 1886, he was appointed professor at Faculty of Sciences of Lille, lecturing differential and integral calculus at Institut industriel du Nord . From 1896 to his retirement in 1918, he was professor of mechanics at Faculty of Sciences of Paris.
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Pavel Shternberg
1865 - 1920 (55 years)
Pavel Karlovich Shternberg was a Russian professor, academic, astronomer, Bolshevik and revolutionary of German decent. Shternberg contributed to the abolition of the Tsarist government by Alexander Kerensky during the February Revolution of 1917. He was an acquaintance of two notable revolutionaries, Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky.
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Torsten Gustafson
1904 - 1987 (83 years)
Torsten Valdemar Gustafson , was a Swedish physicist and professor in theoretical physics at Lund University. Biography Torsten Gustafson was born on 8 May in Falkenberg, Sweden. After graduating from his high school in Gothenburg he began studying at Lund University in 1922. He was awarded his bachelor's degree after three semesters in 1923, and in 1924 he was awarded his Master of Philosophy. In 1929, he became a Filosofie licentiat with his work on flow problems in airplane wings, and in 1934 he was awarded his Doctor of Philosophy with his doctoral dissertation on Magnus effect. In 1933, h...
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Carl August von Steinheil
1801 - 1870 (69 years)
Carl August von Steinheil was a German physicist, inventor, engineer and astronomer. Biography Steinheil was born in Ribeauvillé, Alsace. He studied law in Erlangen since 1821. He then studied astronomy in Göttingen and Königsberg. He continued his studies in astronomy and physics while living in his father's manor in Perlachseck near Munich. From 1832 to 1849, Steinheil was professor for mathematics and physics at the University of Munich.
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John Lennard-Jones
1894 - 1954 (60 years)
Sir John Edward Lennard-Jones was a British mathematician and professor of theoretical physics at the University of Bristol, and then of theoretical science at the University of Cambridge. He was an important pioneer in the development of modern computational chemistry and theoretical chemistry.
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Heinz Haber
1913 - 1990 (77 years)
Heinz Haber was a German physicist and science writer who primarily became known for his TV programs and books about physics and environmental subjects. His lucid style of explaining hard science has frequently been imitated by later popular science presenters in Germany.
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Sisir Kumar Mitra
1890 - 1963 (73 years)
Sisir Kumar Mitra MBE, FNI, FASB, FIAS, FRS was an Indian physicist. Early life and education Mitra was born in his father's hometown of Konnagar, a suburb of Kolkata located in the Hooghly District in the Bengal Presidency . He was the third son of Joykrishna Mitra, who was a schoolteacher at the time of Mitra's birth, and Saratkumari, a medical student whose family came from Midnapore. While Mitra's paternal family were orthodox Hindus, his mother's family were adherents of the progressive Brahmo Samaj, and were noted in Midnapore for their advanced outlook. In 1878, Joykrishna Mitra had ...
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Geminus
Geminus of Rhodes , was a Greek astronomer and mathematician, who flourished in the 1st century BC. An astronomy work of his, the Introduction to the Phenomena, still survives; it was intended as an introductory astronomy book for students. He also wrote a work on mathematics, of which only fragments quoted by later authors survive.
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John Evershed
1864 - 1956 (92 years)
John Evershed CIE FRS FRAS was an English astronomer. He was the first to observe radial motionss in sunspots, a phenomenon now known as the Evershed effect. Biography Evershed was born in Gomshall, Surrey to John and Sophia Evershed. He made the discovery which bears his name while at Kodaikanal Observatory in 1909. After retirement in 1923 he set up a private observatory at Ewhurst, Surrey and built a large spectroheliograph of special design and another with high-dispersion liquid prism. He continued to study the wave-lengths of H and K lines in prominences, giving values of the solar rotation at high levels in different latitudes and at different phases of the solar cycle.
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William de Wiveleslie Abney
1843 - 1920 (77 years)
Sir William de Wiveleslie Abney was an English astronomer, chemist, and photographer. Life and career Abney was born in Derby, England, the son of Rev. Edward Henry Abney , vicar of St Alkmund's Church, Derby, and his wife, Catharine Strutt. His father was owner of the Firs Estate. William was educated at Rossall School, the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and joined the Royal Engineers in 1861, with which he served in India for several years. Thereafter, and to further his knowledge in photography, he became a chemical assistant at the Chatham School of Military Engineering.
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Su-Shu Huang
1915 - 1977 (62 years)
Su-Shu Huang was a Chinese-born American astrophysicist. A graduate of the University of Chicago, Huang began his career with the study of the continuous absorption coefficientss of two-electron systems, but eventually his research focus turned to the study of stellar atmospheres, radiative transfer, and binary and multiple star systems. In subsequent years, Huang began to cover the topic of life on extrasolar planets and the prerequisites thereof, coining the term "habitable zone" to refer to the region around a star where planets could support liquid water at their surfaces at a 1959 confer...
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Edwin Brant Frost
1866 - 1935 (69 years)
Edwin Brant Frost II was an American astronomer. Biography He was born in Brattleboro, Vermont. His father, Carlton Pennington Frost, was dean of Dartmouth Medical School. Frost graduated from Dartmouth in 1886. He continued his education as a post-graduate student in chemistry and in 1887 became an instructor in physics while only 21 years old. In 1890 Frost went abroad to Europe and ended up researching stellar spectroscopy under Hermann Vogel in Potsdam. He returned to Dartmouth in 1892 as an assistant professor of astronomy.
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Al-Khazini
1077 - 1155 (78 years)
Abū al-Fath Abd al-Rahman Mansūr al-Khāzini or simply al-Khāzini was an Iranian astronomer of Greek origin from Seljuk Empire. His astronomical tables written under the patronage of Sultan Sanjar is considered to be one of the major works in mathematical astronomy of the medieval period. He provided the positions of fixed stars, and for oblique ascensions and time-equations for the latitude of Marv in which he was based. He also wrote extensively on various calendrical systems and on the various manipulations of the calendars. He was the author of an encyclopedia on scales and water-balances...
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Ali Qushji
1403 - 1474 (71 years)
Ala al-Dīn Ali ibn Muhammed , known as Ali Qushji was a Turkic-müslims theologian, jurist, astronomer, mathematician and physicist, who settled in the Ottoman Empire some time before 1472. As a disciple of Ulugh Beg, he is best known for the development of astronomical physics independent from natural philosophy, and for providing empirical evidence for the Earth's rotation in his treatise, Concerning the Supposed Dependence of Astronomy upon Philosophy. In addition to his contributions to Ulugh Beg's famous work Zij-i-Sultani and to the founding of Sahn-ı Seman Medrese, one of the first cent...
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Ivan Mikhailovich Simonov
1794 - 1855 (61 years)
Ivan Mikhailovich Simonov was a Russian astronomer and a geodesist. Biography He completed his studies and became a professor of physics at Kazan State University in 1816 where he was a close friend of Nikolai Lobachevsky. He was a corresponding member of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences from 1829 and later went on to become the rector of Kazan State University in 1846.
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Georg Adolf Erman
1806 - 1877 (71 years)
Georg Adolf Erman was a German physicist. Erman was born in Berlin as the son of Paul Erman. He studied natural science at the universities of Berlin and Königsberg, spent from 1828 to 1830 in a journey round the world, an account of which he published in Reise um die Erde durch Nordasien und die beiden Ozeane . The magnetic observations he made during his travels were utilized by Carl Friedrich Gauss in his theory of terrestrial magnetism. He was appointed professor of physics at Berlin in 1839, and died there in 1877.
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Georges Bruhat
1887 - 1945 (58 years)
Georges Bruhat was a French physicist. Life and academic career Bruhat studied physics from 1906 until 1909 at the École normale supérieure of Paris , with, among other, Henri Abraham, Marcel Brillouin and Aimé Cotton, and at the Sorbonne, among others with Gabriel Lippmann and Edmond Bouty. After being awarded a first degree in mathematics and physics, he taught for a year at Gymnasium and afterwards was an assistant at the École normale supérieure de Paris, which gave him time to prepare his PhD thesis with Aimé Cotton in Optics, which he defended in 1914 before the start of World War I.
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Robert E. Cox
1917 - 1989 (72 years)
Robert Edward Cox was an American optical engineer and a popularizer of amateur telescope making. He conducted the popular "Gleanings for ATMs" column in Sky and Telescope magazine for 21 years. Career Cox worked briefly at Perkin Elmer in 1939. Shortly thereafter he was inducted into the Army Air Corps and served for two years in the South Pacific as a weather specialist. After the war, Cox accepted part-time positions as photographic technician at Harvard Observatory and as staff member at Sky and Telescope. He also became associate editor of Weatherwise magazine.
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Karl Kreil
1798 - 1862 (64 years)
Karl Kreil was an Austrian meteorologist and astronomer, born in Ried. Before university, he was educated at the Benedictine Kremsmünster Abbey, under the astronomer Boniface Schwarzenbrunner. He was educated at the University of Vienna, where he studied law before devoting himself to astronomy. In 1827 he became an assistant at the Vienna Observatory, from which he went to Milan in 1831 and thence in 1838 to Prague, where he was from 1845 to 1851 director of the observatory, then returned to Vienna to take charge of the Central Meteorological and Magnetic Bureau.
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Isaac Argyros
1300 - 1375 (75 years)
Isaac Argyros was a Byzantine mathematician and monk, born about 1312, who wrote a treatise named Easter Rule, along with books on arithmetic, geometry and astronomy. Works An Easter Rule, a treatise on EasterNew Tables: An Astronomical treatise, based on Ptolemaic astronomy
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William Arnold Anthony
1835 - 1908 (73 years)
William Arnold Anthony was a U.S. physicist. Biography Anthony was born in Coventry, Rhode Island. He was educated at the Yale Scientific School and graduated in 1860. Between 1857 and 1860 he was director of a grade school in Crompton, Rhode Island. From 1860 to 1861 he taught natural sciences at the Providence Conference Seminary, East Greenwich, Rhode Island, followed by a teaching position at the Delaware Literary Institute in Franklin, New York until 1867. That year he became professor of physics and chemistry at the Antioch College, where he stayed until 1870. After a short time teachi...
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Charles S. Hastings
1848 - 1932 (84 years)
Charles Sheldon Hastings was an American physicist known for his work in optics. His father was Panet Marshall Hastings and his mother was Jane Sheldon Hastings. The father was a physician and anatomy teacher at Hamilton College, where Charles was born. At the age of six the family moved to Hartford, Connecticut, where Charles received his early education. Hastings entered Yale University's Sheffield School of Science in 1867 and received his bachelor's degree in 1870. His early interest in astronomy and telescopes were likely due to Chester Lyman, Chair of Physics and Astronomy at the Sheffield School.
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Sven Gösta Nilsson
1927 - 1979 (52 years)
Sven Gösta Nilsson was a Swedish theoretical physicist at the Lund Institute of Technology. Nilsson's father was a preacher. As an undergraduate engineering student, he spent a year at Occidental College in California. He obtained a Master of Science in engineering physics at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. Influenced by Tommy Lauritsen and Torsten Gustafson, Nilsson decided to switch paths from engineering to physics, and in 1950 he was admitted to postgraduate studies in Lund with Gustafson as his supervisor.
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Annibale Riccò
1844 - 1919 (75 years)
Annibale Riccò was an Italian astronomer. Biography He was born in Milan, Italy. In 1868 he was awarded a bachelor's degree from the Università di Modena, then an engineering degree from the Politecnico di Milano. Between 1868 and 1877 he worked as an assistant at the Modena Observatory, teaching mathematics and physics at the Università di Modena. He taught at Naples and then Palermo, where he also worked at the observatory.
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Hugh Longbourne Callendar
1863 - 1930 (67 years)
Hugh Longbourne Callendar was a British physicist known for his contributions to the areas of thermometry and thermodynamics. Callendar was the first to design and build an accurate platinum resistance thermometer suitable for use, which allowed scientists and engineers to obtain consistent and accurate results. He conducted experiments and researched thermodynamics, producing and publishing reliable tables on the thermodynamic properties of steam used for calculations. Callendar worked with multiple institutions during World War I, helping to research and develop useful tools for the Navy.
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Friedrich Carl Alwin Pockels
1865 - 1913 (48 years)
Friedrich Carl Alwin Pockels was a German physicist. He was born in Italy to Captain Theodore Pockels and Alwine Becker. He obtained a doctorate from the University of Göttingen in 1888, and from 1900 to 1913 he was professor of theoretical physics at the University of Heidelberg.
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Werner Meyer-Eppler
1913 - 1960 (47 years)
Werner Meyer-Eppler , was a Belgian-born German physicist, experimental acoustician, phoneticist and information theorist. Meyer-Eppler was born in Antwerp. He studied mathematics, physics, and chemistry, first at the University of Cologne and then in Bonn, from 1936 until 1939, when he received a doctorate in Physics. From 1942 to 1945 he was a scientific assistant at the Physics Institute of the University of Bonn. From the time of his habilitation on 16 September 1942, he was also Lecturer in Experimental Physics. After the end of the war, Meyer-Eppler turned attention increasingly to phonetics and speech synthesis.
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Mashallah ibn Athari
740 - 815 (75 years)
Māshāʾallāh ibn Atharī , known as Mashallah, was an 8th century Persian Jewish astrologer, astronomer, and mathematician. Originally from Khorasan, he lived in Basra during the reigns of the Abbasid caliphs al-Manṣūr and al-Ma’mūn, and was among those who introduced astrology and astronomy to Baghdad. The bibliographer ibn al-Nadim described Mashallah "as virtuous and in his time a leader in the science of jurisprudence, i.e. the science of judgments of the stars". Mashallah served as a court astrologer for the Abbasid caliphate and wrote works on astrology in Arabic. Some Latin translations ...
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Christian Gottlieb Kratzenstein
1723 - 1795 (72 years)
Christian Gottlieb Kratzenstein was a German-born doctor, physicist and engineer. From 1753 to the end of his life he was a professor at the University of Copenhagen where he served as rector four times. He is especially known for his investigations of the use of electricity in medicine and the first attempts at mechanical speech synthesis. As a teacher he wrote the first textbook on experimental physics in the united kingdom of Denmark-Norway.
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Charles Pritchard
1808 - 1893 (85 years)
Reverend Charles Pritchard was a British astronomer, clergyman, and educational reformer. He founded the Clapham Grammar School in 1834 and included sciences in the curriculum. A chapel was erected in 1846.
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