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
Arthur Auwers
1838 - 1915 (77 years)
Georg Friedrich Julius Arthur von Auwers was a German astronomer. Auwers was born in Göttingen to Gottfried Daniel Auwers and Emma Christiane Sophie . He attended the University of Göttingen and worked at the University of Königsberg. He specialized in astrometry, making very precise measurements of stellar positions and motions. He detected the companion stars of Sirius and Procyon from their effects on the main star's motion, before telescopes were powerful enough to visually observe them. He was from 1866 Secretary to the Berlin Academy, and directed expeditions to measure the transits of ...
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Arthur Prince Chattock
1860 - 1934 (74 years)
Arthur Prince Chattock, FRS was a British physicist. Career Chattock was educated at University College School and University College London. After a short time as an electrical engineer for Siemens he returned to University College, London to study under George Carey Foster. In 1885 he succeeded Silvanus P. Thompson at University College, Bristol as demonstrator in Physics. Chattock spent two years in Liverpool with Oliver Lodge where in February 1888 he worked on key experiments towards the understanding of radio waves.
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Henry M. Foley
1917 - 1982 (65 years)
Henry Michael Foley was an American experimental physicist. He was a professor and a leading physicist at Columbia University, later serving as chairman of the physics department. In 1948, Polykarp Kusch, working with Henry Foley, discovered the anomalous magnetic dipole moment of the electron. He served on the JASON Defense Advisory Group, an independent group of scientists which advises the United States Government on matters of science and technology. He also served on the MX Missile Basing advisory panel.
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Nicolas Stoyko
1894 - 1976 (82 years)
Nicolas Stoyko or Nikolaï Mikhaïlovitch Stoyko was a Ukrainian-French astronomer, known for his research on the precise measurement of time and the rate of rotation of planet Earth. Biography Stoyko studied at the Imperial Novorossiya University before working from 1914 to 1916 as a volunteer at the Odesa Astronomical Observatory, directed at the time by Aleksandr Yakovlevich Orlov. After graduating with a degree in mathematical sciences in 1916, Stoyko served in the Russian army from 1916 to 1918. He was certified as agrégé de mathématiques in 1920. Because of the chaos caused by the Russian Civil War, Stoyko was unemployed and immigrated to Bulgaria to find work.
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Yelpidifor Kirillov
1883 - 1964 (81 years)
Yelpidifor Anempodistovich Kirillov was a Soviet physicist, doctor of physical-mathematical sciences, the founder of the Odessa scientific school in the field of photography. Biography Yelpidifor Kirillov was born in Shipka. He graduated from the Mathematics Department of Physics and Mathematics of the Novorossiysk University in 1907 with a first degree and was kept at the department of physics in preparation for an academic career. From 1908 to 1915, he worked as an assistant at the University for Women, also worked part-time observer of the magnetic-meteorological observatory, and then in ...
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Charles Chree
1860 - 1928 (68 years)
Charles Chree, FRS was a British physicist, an authority on terrestrial magnetism and atmospheric electricity, and for 32 years Superintendent of Kew Observatory. Chree was born in Lintrathen, Forfarshire, Scotland on 5 May 1860, second son to Rev Charles Chree. He was educated at the Grammar School, Old Aberdeen, the University of Aberdeen where he graduated MA in 1879 and the University of Cambridge where he graduated as Sixth Wrangler .
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Eva Ahnert-Rohlfs
1912 - 1954 (42 years)
Eva Ahnert-Rohlfs was a German astronomer. She made key observations of variable stars. Eva Ahnert-Rohlfs was born in Coburg . She studied in Würzburg, Munich and Kiel from 1931 to 1933. After nine years of withdrawal into family life, she studied from 1942 until the end of the Second World War at the University of Göttingen. From 1945, she worked closely with professor Cuno Hoffmeister as an assistant astronomer at the Sonneberg Observatory. In 1951, she received a doctorate in astrophysics from the University of Jena. At Sonneberg Observatory Eva Rohlfs met the astronomer Paul Oswald Ahnert...
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James Pound
1669 - 1724 (55 years)
James Pound was an English clergyman and astronomer. Life He was the son of John Pound, of Bishops Cannings, Wiltshire, where he was born. He matriculated at St. Mary Hall, Oxford, on 16 March 1687; graduated B.A. from Hart Hall on 27 February 1694, and M.A. from Gloucester Hall in the same year; and obtained a medical diploma, with a degree of M.B., on 21 October 1697.
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Christen Sørensen Longomontanus
1562 - 1647 (85 years)
Christen Sørensen Longomontanus was a Danish astronomer. The name Longomontanus was a Latinized form of the name of the village of Lomborg, Jutland, Denmark, where he was born. His father, a laborer called Søren, or Severin, died when Christen was eight years old. An uncle took charge of the child, and had him educated at Lemvig; but after three years sent him back to his mother, who needed his help to work the fields. She agreed that he could study during the winter months with the clergyman of the parish; this arrangement continued until 1577, when the ill-will of some of his relatives and...
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Leslie Fleetwood Bates
1897 - 1978 (81 years)
Leslie Fleetwood Bates, CBE, FRS was an English physicist known for his contributions to ferromagnetism. He was Lancashire-Spencer Professor of Physics at the University of Nottingham from 1936 until his retirement in 1964.
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Demetrios Kokkidis
1840 - 1896 (56 years)
Demetrios Kokkidis was an astronomer, mathematician, physicist, professor, and dean. Kokkidis was the fourth president of the Athens Observatory after the death of Johann Friedrich Julius Schmidt. He was one of the few Greek astronomers of the 20th century following Georgios Konstantinos Vouris and Ioannis Papadakis. He did extensive research and wrote articles about Mercury, the Sun, the Moon, and various meteorological phenomena.
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Tadeáš Hájek
1525 - 1600 (75 years)
Tadeáš Hájek z Hájku , also known as Tadeáš Hájek of Hájek, Thaddaeus Hagecius ab Hayek or Thaddeus Nemicus, was a Czech naturalist, personal physician of the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II and an astronomer in the Kingdom of Bohemia.
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Jan Woltjer
1891 - 1946 (55 years)
Jan Woltjer was a Dutch astronomer. Woltjer was the son of the classical scholar Jan Woltjer. On 13 December 1916 he married Hillegonda de Vries in Groningen. He worked and taught at Leiden University, where Gerard P. Kuiper was one of his students. He was the father of the astronomer Lodewijk Woltjer , who was the director general of the European Southern Observatory from 1975 to 1987.
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Anton Oberbeck
1846 - 1900 (54 years)
Anton Oberbeck was a German physicist from Berlin. He studied at Heidelberg and the University of Berlin, obtaining his doctorate from the latter in 1868. From 1870 to 1878 he was a teacher at Sophien-Realgymnasium in Berlin, during which time, he participated in the Franco-Prussian War . He lectured at Halle and Karlsruhe and conducted research at the University of Greifswald , and later at the University of Tübingen.
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Thomas Preston
1860 - 1900 (40 years)
Thomas Preston was an Irish scientist whose research was concerned with heat, magnetism, and spectroscopy. He established empirical rules for the analysis of spectral lines, which remain associated with his name. In 1897 he discovered the Anomalous Zeeman Effect, a phenomenon noted when the spectral lines of elements were studied in the presence or absence of a magnetic field. Preston reported, in an important paper published in The Scientific Transactions of The Royal Dublin Society, read on 22 December 1897, and published the following April, that he reported results more complicated than Zeeman had reported.
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William Nicol
1770 - 1851 (81 years)
William Nicol FRSE FCS was a Scottish geologist and physicist who invented the Nicol prism, the first device for obtaining plane-polarized light, in 1828. Early life Nicol was born in Humbie , the son of Walter Nicol and Marion Fowler. According to the parish register, he was born 18 April and baptised on 22 April 1770. Some sources give his date of birth as 1768; other ones give 1766.
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Arthur Matthew Weld Downing
1850 - 1917 (67 years)
Arthur Matthew Weld Downing was an Irish mathematician and astronomer. Downing's major contribution to astronomy is in the calculation of the positions and movements of astronomical bodies, as well as being a founder of the British Astronomical Association.
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Georgy Petrov
1912 - 1987 (75 years)
Georgiy Ivanovich Petrov was a Soviet engineer. In 1935 after graduating from the Moscow State University, Petrov worked at the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute. In 1944 he worked at NII-1, a jet propulsion research institute. In 1953 he was nominated professor at the Moscow State University. In the same year he became a member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. From 1965 to 1973 Petrov directed the Russian Space Research Institute.
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Joseph L. Pawsey
1908 - 1962 (54 years)
Joseph Lade Pawsey was an Australian scientist, radiophysicist and radio astronomer. Education Pawsey was born in Ararat, Victoria to a family of farmers. At the age of 14 he was awarded a government scholarship to study at Wesley College, Melbourne, followed by a scholarship to study at the University of Melbourne. In 1929, he earned his Bachelor of Science degree from the university, followed by a Master of Science in Natural Philosophy in 1931.
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Gottfried Osann
1797 - 1866 (69 years)
Gottfried Wilhelm Osann was a German chemist and physicist. He is known for his work on the chemistry of platinum metals. He studied natural sciences and became a privatdozent in physics and chemistry at the University of Erlangen in 1819. Between 1821 and 1823, he occupied the same position at the University of Jena. He taught chemistry and medicine at the University of Dorpat from 1823 to 1828, from 1828 at the University of Würzburg.
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Hermann Theodor Simon
1870 - 1918 (48 years)
Hermann Theodor Simon was a German physicist. Biography He studied physics at the Universities of Heidelberg and Berlin, earning his doctorate in 1894 under August Kundt with a thesis on the dispersion of ultraviolet radiation. Afterwards, he served as an assistant to Eilhard Wiedemann at Erlangen, obtaining his habilitation in 1896. Two years later, he became an assistant to Eduard Riecke at the University of Göttingen, then relocated to Frankfurt am Main as director of the physics laboratory. In 1901 he returned to Göttingen as an associate professor and director of the department of applied electricity.
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Torichan Kravets
1876 - 1955 (79 years)
Torichan Pavlovich Kravets was a Russian and Soviet physicist who work on optical physics, geophysics and examined the history of physics. He was briefly exiled to Siberia on charges of being anti-Soviet from 1923 to 1926. He served as a professor at Leningrad.
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Emma Vyssotsky
1894 - 1975 (81 years)
Emma Vyssotsky was an American astronomer who was honored with the Annie J. Cannon Award in Astronomy in 1946. Biography Emma earned her bachelor's degree in mathematics at Swarthmore College in 1916 and worked at Smith College as an astronomy/mathematics demonstrator for a year before finding work at an insurance company as an actuary. In 1927, after receiving a Whitney Fellowship and a Bartol Scholarship, she enrolled in astronomy at Radcliffe College . There, she worked with Cecilia Payne on the "spectral line contours of hydrogen and ionized calcium throughout the spectral sequence."
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Lucy Wilson
1888 - 1980 (92 years)
Lucy Wilson was an American physicist, known for her research on theories of vision, optics and X-ray spectroscopy. She was also the first dean of students at Wellesley College. Biography She was born October 19, 1888, in Bloomington, Illinois, the daughter of Lucy Barron White and John James Speed Wilson Jr. Her father worked for American Telephone and Telegraph in Chicago as did his father and her younger brother. Her younger brother had begun to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology two years after Lucy Wilson had entered Wellesley. Wilson not only studied the sciences but also had an interest in languages, especially German, which she studied in high school.
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Joyce C. Stearns
1893 - 1948 (55 years)
Joyce Clennam Stearns was an American physicist and an administrator on the Manhattan Project. Stearns resigned from the Manhattan Project in July 1945 to become dean of faculty at Washington University in St. Louis. Joyce also served as the director of the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago from November 1944 through July 1945.
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John Westwyk
1350 - 1400 (50 years)
John Westwyk was an English astronomer, adventurer, Benedictine monk, and author of the Equatorie of the Planetis. Biography Little is known of John Westwyk's early life. The name Westwyk is almost certainly a toponym; he presumably came from the hamlet of Gorham-Westwick, two miles west of St Albans. He was a monk of St Albans Abbey by 1380, and was most likely ordained between 1368 and 1379. Like many monks, he was probably the son of a mid-ranking peasant or yeoman.
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Jean Abraham Chrétien Oudemans
1827 - 1906 (79 years)
Jean Abraham Chrétien Oudemans was a Dutch astronomer. He was the director of the Utrecht Observatory from 1875 until 1898, when he retired. Oudemans was born in Amsterdam, son of the poet, teacher and philologist Anthonie Oudemans Sr. and Jacoba Adriana Hammecker. He entered Leiden University when he was just 16 as a student of the noted astronomer Frederik Kaiser. He became a high school teacher in Leiden when he was just 19 . The next six years he worked on his dissertation on the determination of the latitude of Leiden. Next he studied asteroids and variable stars, meanwhile hoping for an academic appointment.
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James Ferguson
1797 - 1867 (70 years)
James Ferguson was a Scottish-born American astronomer and engineer, who made the first discovery of an asteroid from North America . Biography James Ferguson was born in Scotland on August 31, 1797, and his family moved to the United states in 1800.
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Francesco Landi
#11630
Edvard Hugo von Zeipel
1873 - 1959 (86 years)
Edvard Hugo von Zeipel was a Swedish astronomer, with the specialist fields of study of celestial mechanics, astrophotography, and theoretical astrophysics. He worked at the Stockholm Observatory from 1897 to 1900, participated in scientific expeditions to Spitzbergen in 1898, 1901, and 1902, then worked at the Pulkovo Observatory from 1901 to 1902, the Paris observatory from 1904 to 1906, and the Uppsala Astronomical Observatory from 1911. He proved a key theorem about the Painlevé conjecture.
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Valeriya Golubtsova
1901 - 1987 (86 years)
Valeriya Alexeyevna Golubtsova was a scientist who was the director of the Moscow Power Engineering Institute from 1943 to 1952. She was the wife of Georgy Malenkov. Biography Golubtsova was born in Nizhny Novgorod in the family of a teacher in the cadet corps, State Councilor Alexei Golubtsov , and Olga Nevzorova, who was a member of an old noble family. Nevzorova's older sisters were the famous "Nevzorov sisters" — Vladimir Lenin's comrades-in-arms in Marxist circles back in the 1890s. Zinaida married Gleb Кrzhizhanovky in 1899, who in the 1920s headed the GOELRO Commission.
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Thomas Bugge
1740 - 1815 (75 years)
Thomas Bugge was a Danish astronomer, mathematician and surveyor. He succeeded Christian Horrebow as professor of astronomy at the University of Copenhagen in 1777. His triangulation surveys of Denmark carried out under the auspices of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences were instrumental in creating the first precise maps of Denmark. He served as president of the Royal Danish Society for Agriculture , director of the General Widows' Pension Fund , secretary of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and three one-year terms as rector of the University of Copenhagen.
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Antoinette de Vaucouleurs
1921 - 1987 (66 years)
Antoinette de Vaucouleurs was an astronomer who worked in the Astronomy Department of the University of Texas at Austin for 25 years when few women worked in the field. In addition to ongoing collaborations with her husband, Gérard de Vaucouleurs, she carried out her own research in spectroscopy. Her contributions were recognized in a festschrift in 1988, entitled The World of Galaxies.
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Athir al-Din al-Abhari
1200 - 1264 (64 years)
Athīr al‐Dīn al‐Mufaḍḍal ibn ʿUmar ibn al‐Mufaḍḍal al‐Samarqandī al‐Abharī, also known as Athīr al‐Dīn al‐Munajjim was an Iranian muslim polymath, philosopher, astronomer, astrologer and mathematician. Other than his influential writings, he had many famous disciples.
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Franz Ignatz Cassian Hallaschka
1780 - 1847 (67 years)
Franz Ignatz Cassian Hallaschka; Czech: František Ignác Kassián Halaška was a Moravian physicist. In 1799 he became a member of the Piarists. He studied mathematics, physics, philosophy and theology at schools in Strassnitz, Nikolsburg and Kremsier, receiving his ordination in April 1804. In 1806 he taught classes in mathematics and physics at the Ordenscollegium in Nikolsburg, and during the following year, obtained his PhD at the University of Vienna. In 1808 he became a professor of physics in Brünn, where he established an observatory. From 1814 to 1833 he was a professor of physics at the University of Prague.
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Giuseppe Toaldo
1719 - 1797 (78 years)
Giuseppe Toaldo was an Italian Catholic priest and physicist. Biography Giuseppe Toaldo was born in 1719 in Pianezza near Vicenza. In his fourteenth year he entered the seminary of Padua, in which he subsequently taught mathematics and Italian literature. While connected with the seminary he edited the works of Galileo , for which he wrote an appreciative preface and critical notes. In this edition, for the first time since Galileo Galilei's condemnation, it was published with ecclesiastical approval the Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems.
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Jean Henri van Swinden
1746 - 1823 (77 years)
Jean Henri van Swinden was a Dutch mathematician and physicist who taught in Franeker and Amsterdam. Biography His parents were the lawyer Phillippe van Swinden and Marie Anne Tollosan. He was trained 1763-1766 at the University of Leiden, where he became doctor of philosophy on 12 June 1766 with the thesis "Natural power of attraction". He became professor at the University of Franeker the same year, where he continued to study and conduct research as well as teach. In 1776 he won a prize from the Académie Royale des Sciences along with Charles-Augustin de Coulomb for his work on Earth's magnetic field, and the relationship between magnetism and electricity.
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Ulrich Wahn
#11639
Nicephorus Gregoras
1295 - 1360 (65 years)
Nicephorus Gregoras was a Byzantine Greek astronomer, historian, and theologian. His 37-volume Byzantine History, a work of erudition, constitutes a primary documentary source for the 14th century. Life Gregoras was born at Heraclea Pontica, where he was raised and educated by his uncle, John, who was the Bishop of Heraclea. At an early age he settled at Constantinople, where his uncle introduced him to Andronicus II Palaeologus, by whom he was appointed chartophylax . In 1326 Gregoras proposed certain reforms in the calendar, which the emperor refused to carry out for fear of disturbances; ...
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George C. McVittie
1904 - 1988 (84 years)
George Cunliffe McVittie was a British mathematician and cosmologist. He is best known for his contributions towards radio astronomy. Life McVittie was born on 5 June 1904 in Smyrna in Turkey, where his father, Frank S. McVittie, was a merchant. His mother, Emily Caroline Weber, lived in Greece but was of British descent. George was raised bilingual in French and English.
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Johann Jakob Huber
1733 - 1798 (65 years)
Johann Jakob Huber was a Swiss astronomer. Life and work Huber was the eldest of two sons born to the Basle trader Johann Jakob Huber and his first wife Anna Maria Winkelblech . He studied at the usual Basle schools. His father had originally envisioned a career for his eldest son similar to his own, but as he showed early on his inclination towards mathematics and astronomy, he allowed him to receive a correspondingly suitable education. Among his university lecturers in his home town of Basle were the mathematicians Daniel Bernoulli and Johann II. Bernoulli.
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Guido Bonatti
1210 - 1296 (86 years)
Guido Bonatti was an Italian mathematician, astronomer and astrologer, who was the most celebrated astrologer of the 13th century. Bonatti was advisor of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, Ezzelino da Romano III, Guido Novello da Polenta and Guido I da Montefeltro. He also served the communal governments of Florence, Siena and Forlì. His employers were all Ghibellines , who were in conflict with the Guelphs , and all were excommunicated at some time or another. Bonatti's astrological reputation was also criticised in Dante's Divine Comedy, where he is depicted as residing in hell as punishmen...
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Carolyn Parker
1917 - 1966 (49 years)
Carolyn Beatrice Parker was a physicist who worked from 1943 to 1947 on the Dayton Project, the polonium research and development arm of the Manhattan Project. She was one of a small number of African American scientists and technicians on the Manhattan Project. She then became an assistant professor in physics at Fisk University.
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Samuel Herrick
1911 - 1975 (64 years)
Samuel Herrick was an American astronomer who specialized in celestial mechanics and made important studies preceding the development of manned space flight. Life Herrick was born in Madison County, Virginia, in 1911.
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Bernhard Haurwitz
1905 - 1986 (81 years)
Bernhard Haurwitz was a German-born American meteorologist and physicist. Haurwitz was Chair of Department of Meteorology at New York University , a member of the National Academy of Sciences , and a recipient of the Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal. He was awarded the William Bowie Medal in 1970.
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John Stanley Griffith
1928 - 1972 (44 years)
John Stanley Griffith was a British chemist, mathematician and biophysicist. He was the nephew of the distinguished British bacteriologist Frederick Griffith. Career Beginning as an undergraduate in mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1946–1949, he went on to read Part II biochemistry in 1949–1951. His research career continued in theoretical chemistry at Oxford and Cambridge, where he held a Berry-Ramsey research fellowship at King's College. He had several appointments in Britain and the US in his different disciplines. These included professorships in chemistry at Indiana Universi...
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Leland John Haworth
1904 - 1979 (75 years)
Leland John Haworth was an American particle physicist. In his long career he was head of the Brookhaven National Laboratory, the Atomic Energy Commission, the National Science Foundation, and was assistant to the president of Associated Universities, Inc.
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Frank Elmore Ross
1874 - 1960 (86 years)
Frank Elmore Ross was an American astronomer and physicist. He was born in San Francisco, California and died in Altadena, California. In 1901 he received his doctorate from the University of California. In 1905 he became director of the International Latitude Observatory station at Gaithersburg, Maryland. In 1915 he became a physicist for Eastman Kodak Company at Rochester, New York. He accepted a position at Yerkes Observatory in 1924 and worked there until his retirement in 1939.
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Jonathan M. Spergel
#11650
Zhang Zongsui
1915 - 1969 (54 years)
Zhang Zongsui was a Chinese physicist and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences . Biography Zhang was born in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, on 1 June 1915, to Zhang Dongsun, a philosopher and social activist, and Wu Shaohong . His elder brother Zhang Zongbing was an entomologist. His younger brother Zhang Zongying and younger sister Zhang Zongye are physicists. In 1930, he was accepted to the Yenching University, at the next year, he was transferred to Tsinghua University, where he studied physics under Wu Youxun and Chung-Yao Chao. After university, he worked in the Purple Mountain Observatory.
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