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,
#11401
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...
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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...
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 .
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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...
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 .
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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...
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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.
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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.
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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...
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Lev Gassovsky
1894 - 1989 (95 years)
Lev Nikolaevich Gassovsky was a Soviet professor , Candidate of Science , and Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences . He wrote The Eye and Effectiveness of Its Work and also worked on chapters in reference books for opto-mechanical engineers, several manuals on military optics and more than 90 scientific works.
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Ludwig von Struve
1858 - 1920 (62 years)
Gustav Wilhelm Ludwig von Struve was a Baltic German astronomer, part of the famous Baltic German Struve family. In Russian, his name is sometimes given as Lyudvig Ottovich Struve or Lyudvig Ottonovich Struve .
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Lawrence R. Doolittle
#11432
J. Anthony Lockwood
#11433
Georg Wilhelm Muncke
1772 - 1847 (75 years)
Georg Wilhelm Muncke or Georg Wilhelm Munke was a German physicist. From 1797 to 1810 he worked as an administrator at the Georgianum in Hanover. In 1810 he became a professor at the University of Marburg, where he gave lectures in mathematics and experimental physics. From 1817 up until his death in 1847 he was a professor of physics at the University of Heidelberg. In 1826 he became an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
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Boris Jacobsohn
1918 - 1966 (48 years)
Boris Abbott Jacobsohn was an American physicist, known for his contributions to the study of muonic atoms. Jacobsohn graduated from Columbia University with B.S. in 1938 and M.S in 1939. At the beginning of the Manhattan Project, he worked with Enrico Fermi at Columbia. Jacobsohn, along with his wife Ruth, moved with Fermi's team in early 1942 to the University of Chicago for the team's relocation to the Metallurgical Laboratory, where he worked until the end of WWII. In late 1945, Edward Teller invited Maria Goeppert-Mayer, along with her two students Boris Jacobsohn and Harris Mayer, to Los Alamos to work on the development of the thermonuclear bomb.
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Alessandro Treves
#11436
Frederick Hanley Seares
1873 - 1964 (91 years)
Frederick Hanley Seares was an American astronomer. He worked at Mount Wilson Observatory and won the Bruce Medal in 1940. Seares was born in Michigan in 1873 and grew up in Iowa and southern California. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree at the University of California and later studied in Paris and Berlin. Later Seares taught and researched comets and variable stars for eight years at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri . In 1909, Seares joined the Mount Wilson Observatory, where he remained for 36 years, 15 of them as assistant director.
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Anders Knutsson Ångström
1888 - 1981 (93 years)
Anders Knutsson Ångström was a Swedish physicist and meteorologist who was known primarily for his contributions to the field of atmospheric radiation. However, his scientific interests encompassed many diverse topics.
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Jan Śniadecki
1756 - 1830 (74 years)
Jan Śniadecki was a Polish mathematician, philosopher, and astronomer at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. Life Born in Żnin, Śniadecki studied at Kraków Jagellonian University and in Paris. He was rector of the Imperial University of Vilnius, a member of the Commission of National Education, and director of astronomical observatories at Kraków and Vilnius. He died at Jašiūnai Manor near Vilnius.
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Samuel Milner
1875 - 1958 (83 years)
Samuel Roslington Milner FRS was a British physicist, who worked in plasma physics, studying the electrical conductivity of electrolytes. He is best known for the Debye-Milner Plasma Theory. Personal life and education Milner was born in Dodsworth, a village near Barnsley, Yorkshire. His father, Samuel Wilkinson Milner, was an agent, or ‘factor’ for the collieries in the district and his mother was Ann Roslington. The Milners had four daughters followed by their only son. When Milner was still young the family moved to Retford, Nottinghamshire. Milner was educated at King Edward VI School. H...
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Hans Heinrich Euler
1909 - 1941 (32 years)
Hans Heinrich Euler was a German physicist. He received his PhD in 1935 at the University of Leipzig under Werner Heisenberg with a thesis Über die Streuung von Licht an Licht nach der Diracschen Theorie .
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Rose Mooney-Slater
1902 - 1981 (79 years)
Rose Camille LeDieu Mooney-Slater was a professor of physics at the Newcomb College of the Tulane University and the first female X-ray crystallographer in the United States. Life Rose Camille LeDieu was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. Mooney-Slater received a B.S. and M.S. in physics from the Newcomb College of the Tulane University in 1926 and 1929, respectively. In 1932, she received a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Chicago.
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Johannes Kuenen
1866 - 1922 (56 years)
Johannes Petrus Kuenen was a Dutch physicist. Biography Kuenen was the son of the professor of theology Abraham Kuenen and his wife Wiepkje Muurling. His son Philip Henry Kuenen was professor of geology. From 1884 to 1889 he studied at the University of Leiden, where he graduated in 1892. He became a professor in physics in 1895 at University College, Dundee in Dundee, Scotland, where he worked until 1907. For most of this period the College was part of the University of St Andrews. While at Dundee he performed early experiments with x-rays with the physiologist Edward Waymouth Reid. In 1907 he was appointed professor of physics at Leiden University.
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Howard Turner Barnes
1873 - 1950 (77 years)
Howard Turner Barnes was an American-Canadian physicist who specialized in calorimetry, electrolytes, ice formation and ice engineering. Education and career In 1879, Howard T. Barnes moved with his family from Massachusetts to Montreal. where his father was appointed minister of Montreal's Unitarian church. After attending secondary school in Montreal, he entered in 1889 McGill University, where he received in 1893 his bachelor's degree in physics and, after working there as a demonstrator in chemistry, an M.S. in Applied Science in 1896. He became at McGill a demonstrator in physics and worked under Hugh L.
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Carl Leo Stearns
1892 - 1972 (80 years)
Carl Leo Stearns was an American astronomer. After graduating from Wesleyan University in 1917 with high honors in general scholarship and special honors in mathematics, Stearns received his PhD from Yale University. He became an instructor in mathematics and astronomy at Wesleyan in 1919. He became an assistant professor in 1920, then an associate professor in 1942 and a full professor in 1944. He served as chairman of the astronomy department at Wesleyan, then in 1960 he was named as emeritus Fisk professor of astronomy. From 1960–71, after serving as an assistant, he became director of t...
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Hans Georg Küssner
1900 - 1984 (84 years)
Hans Georg Küssner was a German physicist and aeronautical scientist known for his work in the field of aeroelasticity. Work Hans Georg Küssner was born on September 14, 1900, in Bartenstein, then part of the East Prussian district of in the German Reich. Küssner studied at the Technical University of the Free City of Danzig and received his doctorate in 1928 with his dissertation "Das wirtschaftliche Ozeanflugzeug" under Viktor Rembold. In the same year he moved to the German Research Institute for Aviation in Berlin, where he worked on the aircraft problem of flutter, which was reflected ...
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Samuel Arthur Saunder
1852 - 1912 (60 years)
Samuel Arthur Saunder was a British mathematician and selenographer who taught at Wellington College, Berkshire. In 1894 he became a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, and in 1908 he was made Gresham Professor of Astronomy giving public lectures on the subject.
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Michael Radaković
1866 - 1934 (68 years)
Michael Radaković was an Austrian physicist. From 1884, he studied physics and mathematics at the University of Graz, where he was influenced by the philosophical teachings of Alexius Meinong . Following his studies at Graz, he continued his education in Berlin, where his instructors included Hermann von Helmholtz and Gustav Kirchhoff. He received his habilitation at the University of Innsbruck, where in 1902 he became an associate professor.
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John Nelson Stockwell
1832 - 1920 (88 years)
John Nelson Robin Stockwell was an American astronomer and mathematician. Life and Work John Nelson Stockwell grew up with an uncle and aunt on a farm in Brecksville, Ohio. He showed early mathematical talent and became interested in astronomy at the age of 12, when he experienced his first lunar eclipse. Largely self-taught, he acquired outstanding mathematical knowledge and skill. From 1854 he worked as a human computer for the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey under Benjamin Apthorp Gould, with whom he had been friends for decades. In 1861 he was appointed to a similar position at the United States Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C.
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Donald Sadler
1908 - 1987 (79 years)
Donald Harry Sadler was an English astronomer and mathematician who developed an international reputation for his work in preparing astronomical and navigational almanacs. He worked as the Superintendent of His Majesty's Nautical Almanac Office from 1937 to 1971.
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William Rudolph Kanne
1913 - 1985 (72 years)
William Rudolph Kanne , was a physicist, inventor and pioneer in the field of gas flow through ionization detectors, a member of the group responsible for the first self-sustained nuclear chain fission reaction at Staggs Field in Chicago, and participated in the Manhattan Project at the Chicago, Oak Ridge and Hanford sites.
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