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,
#11601
Anders Spole
1630 - 1699 (69 years)
Anders Spole was a Swedish mathematician and astronomer. He was born at a farm in , the son of blacksmith Per Andersson and his wife Gunilla Persdotter. At the age of twelve he started studying at Jönköpings skola and was sent to the University of Greifswald in 1652. After three years of studies he continued at other universities in Prussia and Saxony, until his return to Barnarp in 1655, where he started preaching in the local church. He continued to study mathematics at Uppsala University, while at the same time being a tutor baron Sjöblad's sons. In 1663, he became a master craftsman of fireworks and the arts of navigation.
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Johannes Stöffler
1452 - 1531 (79 years)
Johannes Stöffler was a German mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, priest, maker of astronomical instruments and professor at the University of Tübingen. Life Johannes Stöffler was born on 10 December 1452, in Justingen on the Swabian Alb. Having received his basic education at the Blaubeuren monastery school, he registered at the newly founded University of Ingolstadt on 21 April 1472, where he was consequently promoted Baccalaureus in September 1473 and Magister in January 1476. After finishing his studies he obtained the parish of Justingen where he, besides his clerical obligations, c...
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Melville S. Green
1922 - 1979 (57 years)
Melville Saul Green was an American statistical physicist. He is known for the Green–Kubo relations. He was born in Jamaica, New York, and studied at Columbia University, where he was awarded M.A. in 1947, and Princeton University where he was awarded a Ph.D. in 1952. He became a faculty member at the University of Chicago from 1947 to 1951 and a research associate at the Institute of Fluid Dynamics and Applied Mathematics of the University of Maryland from 1951 to 1954. He was appointed head of the statistical physics section of the then National Bureau of Standards from 1954 to 1968. He wor...
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Robert Thalén
1827 - 1905 (78 years)
Tobias Robert Thalén Hon. FRSE was a Swedish physicist. He was awarded the Rumford Medal in 1884 for his spectroscopic researches. He was an expert on terrestrial magnetism and spectrum analysis. He gives his name to the crystalline mineral Thalenite.
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Adolf Wüllner
1835 - 1908 (73 years)
Adolf Wüllner was a German physicist. He studied physics at the universities of Bonn, Munich and Berlin, qualifying as a lecturer at the University of Marburg in 1858. In 1862 he became director of the vocational school in Aachen, and three years later taught classes in physics at the Poppelsdorf agricultural academy. In 1867 he was named an associate professor at the University of Bonn, and from 1869 onward, was a professor of physics at the Technical University of Aachen. In 1883–86 he served as academic rector.
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Joseph Howey
1901 - 1973 (72 years)
Joseph H. Howey was a physicist and academic administrator at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He was the director of Georgia Tech's School of Physics for 28 years, from 1935 to 1963. Early life Howey received a Bachelor of Arts from the College of Wooster in 1923, and a PhD from Yale University in 1930. Howey was also a physicist in Firestone Tire and Rubber Corp's research laboratory from 1929 to 1931, after which he returned to Yale as an instructor.
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Dai Chuanzeng
1921 - 1990 (69 years)
Dai Chuanzeng was a Chinese nuclear physicist who made fundamental contributions to China's nuclear research and industry. Life Dai was born on 21 December 1921 in Dayan Village, Yin County of Ningbo, Zhejiang province. Dai graduated from the famous Xiaoshi High School in Ningbo. Dai studied physics and graduated in 1942 from the National Southwestern Associated University . Dai taught as an assistant at NSAU, Sun Yat-sen University and Tsinghua University. Dai topped the Sino-British Boxer Indemnity Scholarship Program.
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Marino Ghetaldi
1568 - 1626 (58 years)
Marino Ghetaldi was a Ragusan scientist. A mathematician and physicist who studied in Italy, England and Belgium, his best results are mainly in physics, especially optics, and mathematics. He was one of the few students of François Viète and friend of Giovanni Camillo Glorioso.
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Mikhail Subbotin
1893 - 1966 (73 years)
Mikhail Fedorovich Subbotin was a Soviet mathematician and astronomer who calculated orbits of planets and comets. He worked on general properties of motion in the n-body problem. Biography and education Subbotin was born on 29 June 1893 in Ostrolenka, Russian Empire .
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Francesco Maurolico
1494 - 1575 (81 years)
Francesco Maurolico was a mathematician and astronomer from Sicily. He made contributions to the fields of geometry, optics, conics, mechanics, music, and astronomy. He edited the works of classical authors including Archimedes, Apollonius, Autolycus, Theodosius and Serenus. He also composed his own unique treatises on mathematics and mathematical science.
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Samuel Walter Johnson Smith
1871 - 1948 (77 years)
Samuel Walter Johnson Smith FRS was an English physicist. He studied Natural Sciences at Trinity College, Cambridge and became Professor of Physics at the University of Birmingham in 1919, where he succeeded J.H. Poynting.
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Adriaan Metius
1571 - 1635 (64 years)
Adriaan Adriaanszoon, called Metius, , was a Dutch geometer and astronomer born in Alkmaar. The name "Metius" comes from the Dutch word meten , and therefore means something like "measurer" or "surveyor."
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L. A. Ramdas
1900 - 1979 (79 years)
Lakshminarayanapuram Ananthakrishnan Ramdas was an Indian physicist and meteorologist, known for discovering the atmospheric phenomenon of the Ramdas layer or Lifted Temperature Minimum where the lowest temperature in the atmosphere is not on the ground but a few tens of centimeters above the ground resulting. This can be seen in thin layer fogs which are at some height above the ground. He has been called the father of agricultural meteorology in India.
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Arthur Mason Worthington
1852 - 1916 (64 years)
Arthur Mason Worthington was an English physicist and educator. He is best known for his work on fluid mechanics, especially the physics of splasheses; for observing those, he pioneered techniques of high speed photography. He also proposed the slug as a unit of inertial mass, and the pound-foot as a dedicated unit of torque.
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William Pearson
1767 - 1847 (80 years)
William Pearson was an English schoolmaster, astronomer, and a founder of the Astronomical Society of London. He authored Practical Astronomy . Biography William Pearson was born at Whitbeck in Cumberland on 23 April 1767. After graduating from Hawkshead Grammar School near to Lake Windermere, Westmorland, Pearson began his career as a schoolmaster at Hawkshead. After which, moving to Lincoln as undermaster of the Free Grammar School. Through Pearson's interest in astronomy, Pearson constructed an astronomical clock and an orrery, which was probably used for public lectures. Although enrolled at Cambridge University, he does not appear to have earned a degree.
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Max Clara
1899 - 1966 (67 years)
Max Clara was a German anatomist and Nazi Party member, who conducted research on the corpses of executed prisoners. Biography Early life Max Clara was born on February 12, 1899, in South Tyrol, at that time part of the Habsburg Empire. His father, Dr. Josef Clara, graduated with honors at the University of Innsbruck and started working as a general practitioner. Max Josef Maria Clara was born as the first of three sons: his younger brothers Josef "Sepp" Franz and Oswald were born on August 18, 1900, and July 12th, 1902, respectively. After their mother's death , Josef Clara moved his resid...
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Sima Tan
165 BC - 110 BC (55 years)
Sima Tan was a Chinese astronomer/astrologer and historian during the Western Han dynasty. His work Records of the Grand Historian was completed by his son Sima Qian, who is considered the founder of Chinese historiography.
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Édouard Roche
1820 - 1883 (63 years)
Édouard Albert Roche was a French astronomer and mathematician, who is best known for his work in the field of celestial mechanics. His name was given to the concepts of the Roche sphere, Roche limit, and Roche lobe. He also was the author of works in meteorology.
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Al-Farghani
Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Kathīr al-Farghānī also known as Alfraganus in the West , was an astronomer in the Abbasid court in Baghdad, and one of the most famous astronomers in the 9th century. Al-Farghani composed several works on astronomy and astronomical equipment that were widely distributed in Arabic and Latin and were influential to many scientists. His best known work, Kitāb fī Jawāmiʿ ʿIlm al-Nujūmi , was an extensive summary of Ptolemy's Almagest containing revised and more accurate experimental data. Christopher Columbus used Al Farghani’s calculations for his voyages to America .
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Gilbert Stead
1888 - 1979 (91 years)
Gilbert Stead was a British professor of physics and pioneer in the development of radiology as a recognized medical specialty. Stead worked at the Cavendish Laboratory and graduated from Cambridge in 1913. During WWI he was at HM Signals School in Portsmouth. After the war, he returned to Cavendish Laboratory and taught. Beginning in 1923 he also taught classes at Guy's Hospital where he brought his knowledge of radiology to the practice of medicine. He relinquished his Cambridge professorship in 1938 when he became a governor at Guy's Hospital. He retired from Guy's Hospital in 1953.
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Abu Sahl al-Quhi
940 - 1000 (60 years)
was a Persian mathematician, physicist and astronomer. He was from Kuh , an area in Tabaristan, Amol, and flourished in Baghdad in the 10th century. He is considered one of the greatest geometers, with many mathematical and astronomical writings ascribed to him.
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Josip Franjo Domin
1754 - 1819 (65 years)
Josip Franjo Domin was a Croatian-Hungarian physicist, priest, physician and a pioneer of electrotherapy. Biography Domin was born in Zagreb where he died. He was educated in Zagreb, Vienna, Leoben, Graz. In 1774 he graduated philosophy at the Royal Academy of Sciences and theology in 1776 in Zagreb. In 1777 in Trnava he received a doctorate in mathematics and became a full professor of theoretical and experimental physics, mechanics and economics at the Royal Academy of Sciences in Győr and Pécs . At the Faculty of Arts in Budapest since 1792 he was a physics professor having succeeded Ionnes B.
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Václav Zenger
1830 - 1908 (78 years)
Václav Karel Bedřich Zenger was a Czech physicist, meteorologist, professor and rector of the Czech Technical University in Prague. Life Zenger was born on 17 December 1830 in Chomutov. He was born into the family of a military physician. He attended secondary school in Hradec Králové, Prague and Čáslav, then the Cistercian grammar school in Německý Brod, the German grammar school in Malá Strana and the Piarist grammar school in Prague.
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Adalbert Krueger
1832 - 1896 (64 years)
Karl Nikolaus Adalbert Krueger was a German astronomer. Born in Marienburg, Prussia , he was editor of Astronomische Nachrichten from 1881 until his death. Krueger died of a heart condition in Kiel at the age of 63.
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Maria Margaretha Kirch
1670 - 1720 (50 years)
Maria Margaretha Kirch was a German astronomer. She was one of the first famous astronomers of her period due to her writing on the conjunction of the sun with Saturn, Venus, and Jupiter in 1709 and 1712 respectively.
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Sonia Cotelle
1896 - 1945 (49 years)
Sonia Cotelle, née Slobodkine , was a Polish radiochemist. Life and work Sonia Cotelle was born in Warsaw, capital of the Vistula Land, in the Russian Empire on 19 June 1896. She was married, but later divorced. She graduated from the University of Paris in 1922, where she majored in chemistry. While still a student she began working in 1919 as an assistant in the Institute of Radium founded by the Nobel Laureates, Marie Curie and her husband Pierre, in the university's Faculty of Science . Cotelle was in charge of the measurement service between 1924 and 1926, after which she was appointed as a chemist in the Faculté des sciences.
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Placidus Fixlmillner
1721 - 1791 (70 years)
Dom Placidus Fixlmillner, O.S.B., was a Benedictine monk and priest, and was one of the first astronomers to compute the orbit of Uranus. Biography Born in the village of Achleuthen near Kremsmünster, Austria, Fixlmillner was educated in Salzburg, where he displayed an aptitude in mathematics. At the age of 16, he joined the Benedictine monks of Kremsmünster Abbey, where his uncle was the abbot.
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Johan Stein
1871 - 1951 (80 years)
Johan Willem Jakob Antoon Stein was a Dutch astronomer and a member of the Society of Jesus. He was born in Grave, Netherlands and spend his youth in Maastricht. In 1894 he finished a course of ecclesiastical philosophy, then studied astronomy at the University of Leyden. His doctoral dissertation was on the Horrebow method for determining latitude. By the time he received his doctorate in 1901, he had begun teaching physics and math at the St. Willebrord College of Katwijk. He was ordained to priesthood in Maastricht, 1903.
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Daniel Webster Hering
1850 - 1938 (88 years)
Daniel Webster Hering was an American physicist and university dean. Biography Hering was born near Smithburg in Washington County, Maryland, and graduated from the Sheffield Scientific School with a Ph.B. in 1872. He occupied positions at Johns Hopkins University, McDaniel College , the University of Pittsburgh , and New York University, where he was dean after 1902. He was the author of Essentials of Physics for College Students . Hering is credited with taking the first human x-ray in the United States on February 5, 1896, at Bellevue Hospital.
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Frederick Slocum
1873 - 1944 (71 years)
Frederick Slocum was an American astronomer. He was the director of Van Vleck Observatory. Biography He was born in Fairhaven, Massachusetts to Frederick and Lydia Ann Jones Slocum. His father was a whaling ship captain, and Frederick spent much of his youth mastering boat handling. He enrolled at Brown University in 1891, and was awarded his A.B. in 1895 and a Ph.D. in 1898. He joined the staff of Brown University as a mathematics instructor, then became an assistant professor of astronomy in 1900 under the influence of Professor Winslow Upton at Ladd Observatory. Frederick Slocum took a leave of absence 1908–9 to study at the Royal Astronomical Observatory in Potsdam, Germany.
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Elizaveta Karamihailova
1897 - 1968 (71 years)
Elisabeth Ivanova Kara-Michailova , alternatively Elisabeth Karamichailova was a Bulgarian physicist of a Bulgarian father and an English mother. She was among the handful of female nuclear physics pioneers at the beginning of the 20th century, established the first practical courses of particle physics in Bulgaria and was the first woman to hold a professorial title in the country.
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Winslow Upton
1853 - 1914 (61 years)
Winslow Upton was an American astronomer. He published extensively on the subject of meteorology. Biography He received his undergraduate degree from Brown University and was valedictorian when he graduated in 1875. Upton then worked as an assistant at Mitchel Observatory of the University of Cincinnati where he received his master's degree in 1877. He later received an honorary doctorate from Brown in 1906.
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William Hussey
1862 - 1926 (64 years)
William Joseph Hussey was an American astronomer. Early life and education He was born at Mendon, Ohio, August 10, 1862, son of John Milton Hussey and Mary Catherine Stevens. He attended the Valparaiso Normal School in 1880 and completed the scientific curriculum with a specialization in education in one year. Afterward, he attended the University of Michigan to study civil engineering.
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Rudolf Ferdinand Spitaler
1859 - 1946 (87 years)
Rudolf Ferdinand Spitaler was an Austrian astronomer, geophysicist, meteorologist and climatologist. He discovered 64 IC objects whilst working at Vienna Observatory and Comet 113P/Spitaler. He was one of the first to speculate the existence of a 13th zodiacal constellation, which later became known as Ophiuchus.
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Thomas J. Parmley
1897 - 1997 (100 years)
Thomas Jennison Parmley was an American physics professor at the University of Utah. He served as chairman of the UofU's physics department from 1957 to 1963. Parmley was born in Scofield, Utah to William and Mary Veal Parmley. His father was killed in the Scofield Mine disaster in that town in 1900. In 1921, he received his bachelor's degree from the University of Utah where he was a founding member of the Sigma Pi fraternity chapter. While still being an undergraduate, he worked as a chemist for the U.S. Smeltering Company. In 1923 he married LaVern W. Parmley who served as general president of the Primary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints .
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John Bainbridge
1582 - 1643 (61 years)
John Bainbridge was an English astronomer and mathematician. Life Bainbridge was born at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, in Leicestershire to Robert and Anne Bainbridge. He attended the Free Grammar School in Ashby-de-la-Zouch and then became a student at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He returned to Ashby where he practiced as a physician for some years, kept a school and studied astronomy. Having been removed to London, he was admitted a licentiate of the college of physicians, and was noticed due to a publication concerning the comet of 1618.
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Kasimir Graff
1878 - 1950 (72 years)
Kasimir Romuald Graff was a Polish-German astronomer. He worked as an assistant at the Hamburg Observatory and became a professor at Hamburg in 1916. In 1928 he became director of the Vienna Observatory, Austria. When the Nazi government took over in Austria in 1938, he was forced to retire. It is likely that his family background and his rejection of the Nazi-supported philosophy of "Welteislehre" was the reason, although he officially was removed because of unproven charges of embezzlement. He was reinstated in 1945, and he retired in 1949.
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Thomas Clausen
1801 - 1885 (84 years)
Thomas Clausen was a Danish mathematician and astronomer. Clausen learned mathematics at home. In 1820, he became a trainee at the Munich Optical Institute and in 1824, at the Altona Observatory after he showed Heinrich Christian Schumacher his paper on calculating longitude by the occultation of stars by the moon. He eventually returned to Munich, where he conceived and published his best known works on mathematics. In 1842 Clausen was hired by the staff of the Tartu Observatory, becoming its director in 1866-1872.
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Ragnar Holm
1879 - 1970 (91 years)
Ragnar Holm , was a Swedish physicist and researcher in electrical engineering, who was partially active in Germany and the United States. Career In 1904, Holm became licentiate in philosophy at Uppsala University, and earned his PhD in 1908. From 1906 to 1908 he studied at the University of Göttingen in Germany. In 1908 to 1909 he was a lecturer in Stockholm. Between 1909 and 1919 he worked as a physicist for Siemens & Halske in Berlin. In 1919 to 1921 he was a physicist and teacher at the in Stockholm, and between 1921 and 1927 associate professor at the . Between 1927 and 1945 he worked again for Siemens & Halske.
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Shams al-Din al-Samarqandi
1250 - 1310 (60 years)
Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Ashraf al-Ḥusaynī al-Samarqandī was a 13th century Persian astronomer and mathematician from Samarkand, now in Uzbekistan. Life Little is known of al-Samarqandi's life, who composed his most important works during the 13th and 14th centuries. He wrote works on theology, logic, philosophy, mathematics and astronomy which are important in their own right, but also provide information about the works of other astronomers.His treatise, , is a discussion of dialectic reasoning as used by the ancient Greeks. He wrote Synopsis of Astronomy, and produced a star catalogue for...
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Nicolaus Mulerius
1564 - 1630 (66 years)
Nicolaus Mulerius was a professor of medicine and mathematics at the University of Groningen. Education and career Mulerius was born Nicolaas Des Muliers, son of Pierre Des Muliers and Claudia Le Vettre. He grew up in Bruges, where he was taught by Jacobus Cruquius, among others. Mulerius first studied Philology, Philosophy and Theology and from 1582 he also studied Medicine and Mathematics at the University of Leiden, where Lipsius, Vulcanius, Snellius and Heurnius were teachers. In 1589 he married Christina Six and set up practice for 13 years in Harlingen. In 1603 he became leading physician in Groningen, in 1608 he took the position as school master of the Leeuwarden gymnasium.
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Peter Beiersdorfer
#11643
Vladimir Jurko Glaser
1924 - 1984 (60 years)
Vladimir Jurko Glaser was a Croatian theoretical physicist working on quantum field theory and the canonization of the analytic S-matrix. Biography Glaser was born in Gorizia, Italy. His father, Vladimir Glaser, was a prominent Slovene lawyer and minority rights activist. His mother, Ana née Besednjak, was the sister of the politician Engelbert Besednjak. His paternal aunt Eleonora was married to the famous neurologist Constantin von Economo.
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Robertus Anglicus
1300 - Present (726 years)
Robertus Anglicus or Robert the Englishman was an English astronomer of the thirteenth century. He taught at the University of Montpellier, and possibly also at Paris. He is known as the author of a 1271 commentary on the De Sphera Mundi of Johannes de Sacrobosco. It includes a significant reference to the state of the art in the technology of clockwork.
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Cyril Jackson
1903 - 1988 (85 years)
Cyril V. Jackson was a South African astronomer, known for discovering 72 asteroids and a number of comets. He was born in Ossett, Yorkshire in England; his father emigrated to South Africa in 1911. He earned his B.Sc. at the University of the Witwatersrand.
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Mihály Lenhossék
1863 - 1937 (74 years)
Mihály Lenhossék, named often given as Michael von Lenhossék was a Hungarian anatomist and histologist born in Budapest. He was the son of anatomist József Lenhossék and an uncle to Albert Szent-Györgyi .
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George Carse
1880 - 1950 (70 years)
George Alexander Carse FRSE RSSA was a leading Scottish physicist and educationalist. In 1925, he was the first Mitchell Lecturer. Life Carse was born in Edinburgh on 20 June,, the first child of George Carse, a decorator from Duns, and his wife, Jane. The family lived at 120 Lauriston Place, located south-west of the city center. In 1891, he attended George Heriot’s School and was the school dux in 1898. Carse was awarded a place at the University of Edinburgh to study mathematics under Professor George Chrystal and physics under Professor Peter Tait.
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Angelina Cabras
1898 - 1993 (95 years)
Angelina Cabras was an Italian mathematician and physicist. She earned degrees in mathematics from the University of Turin in 1924 and in physics from the University of Cagliari in 1927. She obtained a position in mathematical physics at Cagliari, later moving to the institute of theoretical mechanics there. Her research concerned higher dimensional rigid body dynamics, the theory of relativity, and inductance.
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H. Stanley Allen
1873 - 1954 (81 years)
Herbert Stanley Allen FRSE FRS was an English physicist from Cornwall noted as a pioneer in early X-ray research, working under J. J. Thomson at the University of London and alongside Nobel laureate Charles Glover Barkla at the University of Edinburgh. A supporter of the Parson magneton, Allen was also an early contributor to the field of quantum mechanics.
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Heinz Raether
1909 - 1986 (77 years)
Heinz Artur Raether was a German physicist. He is best known for his theoretical and experimental contributions to the study of surface plasmons, as well as for Kretschmann-Raether configuration, a commonly-used experimental setup for the excitation of surface plasmon resonances.
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