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List of the most influential people in Physics,

#11651

Johannes Praetorius

Johannes Praetorius

1537 - 1616 (79 years)

Johannes Praetorius or Johann Richter was a Bohemian German mathematician and astronomer. Life Praetorius was born in Jáchymov, Bohemia. From 1557 he studied at the University of Wittenberg, and from 1562 to 1569 he lived in Nuremberg. His astronomical and mathematical instruments are kept at Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg.

#11652

Dimitri Riabouchinsky

Dimitri Riabouchinsky

1882 - 1962 (80 years)

Dimitri Pavlovitch Riabouchinsky was a Russian fluid dynamicist noted for his discovery of the Riabouchinsky solid technique. With the aid of Nikolay Zhukovsky he founded the Institute of Aerodynamics in 1904, the first in Europe. He also independently discovered equivalent results to the Buckingham Pi Theorem in 1911. Riabouchinsky left Russia following the October Revolution and his short-term arrest, spending the rest of his life in Paris, yet he never accepted the French citizenship and used his Nansen passport up till death. He was a member of the Moscow State University, the University ...

#11653

Franziska Seidl

1892 - 1983 (91 years)

Franziska Seidl was an Austrian physicist. She was professor for experimental physics at the University of Vienna. One of her main research areas was ultrasound. Biography Franziska was born in Vienna to Franz and Maria Vicari, née Anton, who were proprietors of a small business. She attended primary and secondary school and received musical education. In 1911, she married Wenzel Seidl , a physics and mathematics teacher at a gymnasium in Hranice, Moravia. They lived in Hranice until Wenzel was conscripted in World War I, and died in 1916 at the Isonzo Front.

#11654

Jens Fredrik Schroeter

Jens Fredrik Schroeter

1857 - 1927 (70 years)

Jens Fredrik Wilhelm Schroeter was a Norwegian astronomer. He was born in Drammen as a son of sea captain Fredrik Julius Bech Schroeter and his wife Julie Schroeter. His paternal family had migrated into Norway from Langeland, Denmark in 1787. Through his sister Jenny, he was a brother-in-law of priest Jens Jonas Jansen and an uncle of historian, genealogist and archivist Einar Jansen.

#11655

Paul D. Feldman

#11656

Alois Handl

1837 - 1915 (78 years)

Alois Handl was an Austrian physicist. In 1859 he obtained his doctorate in Vienna, later becoming a professor at the University of Lemberg. Afterwards he taught classes at the military academy in Wiener Neustadt. In 1876 he established the chair of experimental physics at the University of Czernowitz, a position he maintained until his retirement in 1906. Following his retirement, Handl was succeeded at Czernowitz by Josef Geitler von Armingen .

#11657

Chester Lyman

1814 - 1890 (76 years)

Chester Smith Lyman was an American teacher, clergyman and astronomer. Early life and education He was born in Manchester, Connecticut, to Chester and Mary Smith Lyman. Chester is the descendant of Richard Lyman, a settler who arrived in America in 1631. Chester's early education was in a country school, but at an early age he showed a strong interest in astronomy and the sciences. By 1833 he had gained admittance to Yale, and graduated in 1837. In his junior year he became editor of the Yale Literary Magazine and he was a member of Skull and Bones. He served for two years as Superintendent of Ellington School, then studied theology at the Union and Yale seminaries.

#11658

Pearl I. Young

1895 - 1968 (73 years)

Pearl I. Young became the first female technical employee of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics , which evolved to become today's NASA. She became Chief Technical Editor at NACA's Langley Instrument Research Laboratory, and an engineering professor.

#11659

Karl Kraus

1938 - 1988 (50 years)

Karl Kraus was a German theoretical physicist who made major contributions to the foundations of quantum physics. Life and work Kraus was born in 1938 in Hohenelbe/Giant Mountains, today Vrchlabí. After the war, he grew up in Elsterwerda and attended local schools. He studied physics from 1955 to 1960 at the Humboldt University of Berlin and the Free University of Berlin . He graduated in 1962 with a thesis about Lorentz's theory of gravity, carried out under the supervision of Kurt Just. Kraus then joined as an assistant to Günther Ludwig at the University of Marburg, where he qualified in 1966.

#11660

Émile Verdet

1824 - 1866 (42 years)

Marcel Émile Verdet was a French physicist. He worked in magnetism and optics, editing the works of Augustin-Jean Fresnel. Verdet did much to champion the early theory of the conservation of energy in France through his editorial supervision of the Annales de chimie et de physique.

#11661

Dean Benjamin McLaughlin

1901 - 1965 (64 years)

Dean Benjamin McLaughlin was an American astronomer. He was a professor of astronomy at the University of Michigan. He was the father of the science fiction author Dean B. McLaughlin, Jr. He received his B.S. , his M.S. and his Ph.D. all from Michigan. McLaughlin married fellow astronomer Laura Elizabeth Hill in 1927.

#11662

Diego Rodríguez

1569 - 1668 (99 years)

Diego Rodríguez was a mathematician, astronomer, educator, and technological innovator in New Spain. He was one of the most important figures in the scientific field in the colony in the second half of the seventeenth century.

#11663

Ron Giovanelli

1915 - 1984 (69 years)

Ronald Gordon Giovanelli, DSc, FAA was an Australian solar researcher, astronomer and physicist, who contributed to the fields of astrophysics, solar physics, radiative transfer, and astronomical optics. His career spanned more than 40 years, commencing prior to World War II. Giovanelli was the recipient of the 1949 Edgeworth David Medal by the Royal Society of New South Wales for the discipline of astrophysics, which recognises distinguished contributions by scientists under the age of 35 years old in their respective fields. He was also elected into the Fellowship of the Australian Academy ...

#11664

Robert of Ketton

1110 - 1160 (50 years)

Robert of Ketton, known in Latin as Rodbertus Ketenensis , was an English astronomer, translator, priest and diplomat active in Spain. He translated several works of Arabic into Latin, including the first translation of the Quran into any Western language. Between 1144 and 1157 he held an archdeaconry in the diocese of Pamplona. In the past he has been confounded with Robert of Chester , another English translator active in Spain in the mid-twelfth century; and at least one modern scholar believes they are the same person.

#11665

Andrey Aleksandrovich Gershun

1903 - 1952 (49 years)

Andrey Aleksandrovich Gershun was a Soviet physicist known for his work in photometry and optics, and was one of the founders of Vavilov State Optical Institute Hydrooptics Science School. Biography Andrey Aleksandrovich Gershun was born in 1903 in the family of Russian physicist Aleksandr L'vovich Gershun. After his father's death in 1915 he lived with his mother Rozaliya Feliksovna Gershun. In 1920 he entered the Physics Department of Peterburg State University and graduated in 1924. He then took a position in the State Optical Institute Photometric Laboratory under the direction of Professor S.

#11666

Wilhelm Schur

1846 - 1901 (55 years)

Adolph Christian Wilhelm Schur, RAS Associate was a German astronomer and professor of astronomy at the University of Göttingen. He held important positions at multiple observatories throughout his career, namely deputy director of the Strasbourg Observatory and director of the Göttingen Observatory. His main work was in astrometry, although he focused on publishing astronomical catalogues in his later life.

#11667

Alexandra Glagoleva-Arkadieva

1884 - 1945 (61 years)

Alexandra Andreevna Glagoleva-Arkadieva was a Russian and Soviet physicist known for her research on medical imaging using X-rays, mechanisms for generating microwaves, and spectrometry in the far infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. She was the first Russian woman to become internationally known for her physics research.

#11668

Shirley Leon Quimby

1893 - 1986 (93 years)

Shirley Leon Quimby was an American physicist. He graduated from University of California at Berkeley in 1915 and received his PhD in physics at Columbia University in 1925. He served as a professor at Columbia from 1943 and became professor emeritus in 1962. In 1915 he married fellow student Edith Hinkley, who would later be noted for her contributions to nuclear medicine and radiology.

#11669

Marcin Bylica

1433 - 1493 (60 years)

Marcin Bylica , also known as Martin Bylica and Marcin z Olkusza, was a Polish astrologer, astronomer, and physician at the court of Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary. Biography Son of burgher Jan, waterworks caretaker of Olkusz. He studied first probably at parish school in Olkusz, and later at the University of Cracow, where he doubtless studied under the astronomer Marcin Król z Żurawicy. Bylica was invited by Johannes Lauratius de Fundis and taught astronomy at the University of Bologna in 1463.

#11670

Eduard Heis

1806 - 1877 (71 years)

Eduard Heis was a German mathematician and astronomer. He completed his education at the University of Bonn in 1827, then taught mathematics at a school in Cologne. In 1832 he taught at Aachen, and remained there until 1852. He was then appointed by King Frederick William IV to a chair position at the Academy of Münster in 1852. In 1869 he became rector of the Academy.

#11671

August Hagenbach

1871 - 1955 (84 years)

August Hagenbach was a Swiss physicist working in spectroscopy. He was the son of physicist Eduard Hagenbach-Bischoff and obtained his Ph.D. in 1894 at the University of Leipzig with a thesis titled "" under the supervision of Gustav Heinrich Wiedemann.

#11672

George Dawson Preston

1896 - 1972 (76 years)

George Dawson Preston FRSE was a 20th century British physicist specialising in crystallography and the structure of alloys. He was one of the first to use x-rays and electron diffraction to study the crystal structure of metals and alloys. Along with André Guinier, Preston gives his name to the Guinier-Preston zone, discovered in 1938.

#11673

Baishali Dutta

#11674

Anatole Leduc

1856 - 1937 (81 years)

Anatole Sylvester Leduc was a French physicist and a professor at the Faculty of Science in Paris. He was one of the independent discoverers of the Thermal Hall effect. Leduc was born in Oust-Marais to farmer Ferdinand and his wife Marie Madeleine Augustin Lottin. He studied at the Douai high school and at Abbeville college before entering the Ecole Polytechnique and the Ecole Normale Supérieure . He graduated in mathematics and physics and received a doctorate in 1888. He taught at Stanislas College from 1880 and from 1883 at the Lycee Saint-Louis. In 1892 he became a lecturer at the Faculty of Sciences and in 1900 he became an assistant professor.

#11675

Tetsuro Oshika

#11676

Louis Agricola Bauer

Louis Agricola Bauer

1865 - 1932 (67 years)

Louis Agricola Bauer was an American geophysicist, astronomer and magnetician. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, he graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1888, and he immediately started work for the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey. During 1895 and 1896, he was instructor in mathematical physics at the University of Chicago, after which he worked in various positions at different locations. The most important of these was as the first director of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, which was established in 1904. In this position, he set ...

#11677

Abdias Treu

1597 - 1669 (72 years)

Abdias Treu was a German mathematician and academic. He was the professor of mathematics and physical science at the University of Altdorf from 1636-1669. He is best known for his contributions to the field of astronomy. He also contributed writings on the mathematical nature of music theory. He is the grandfather of physician and botanist Christoph Jacob Treu.

#11678

Lewis Salter

1926 - 1989 (63 years)

Lewis Salter was an American theoretical physicist, physics professor, and researcher. He served as the dean of Knox College for 11 years and was the twelfth president of Wabash College. Biography Salter was born in Norman, Oklahoma. He spent three years in the United States Army during World War II, then received his undergraduate education at the University of Oklahoma, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He was selected as a Rhodes Scholar, and spent 1949 to 1953 at the University of Oxford, where he received his master's degree and doctorate in theoretical physics.

#11679

Betty Louise Turtle

1941 - 1990 (49 years)

Betty Louise Turtle was an Australian astronomer and physicist. In 1971, with her colleague Paul Murdin, she identified the powerful X-ray source Cygnus X-1 as the first clear candidate for a black hole.

#11680

Fritz Fischer

1898 - 1947 (49 years)

Fritz Fischer was a technical physicist, engineer and inventor. He was married to Maud Schätti. Fritz Fischer studied electrical engineering at the ETH Zurich from 1917 till 1921 and graduated as Dr. sc. tech in 1924. Working at the Telephonwerke Albisrieden he improved the transmission quality of speech, whereupon he was called to the central laboratories of the mother company Siemens & Halske in Berlin. There he built the first remotely controlled ships and airplanes and investigated the physical properties of colour film. Over 70 patent applications resulted from his work at Siemens. He wa...

#11681

Richard Krzymowski

1875 - 1960 (85 years)

Richard Krzymowski was a German agricultural scientist. His main research interests were agricultural geography and agricultural history. Krzymowski's main work is "History of German Agriculture" an exemplary textbook for an integrated presentation of agricultural history, agricultural geography, and the history of agricultural production techniques.

#11682

William Morgan

1750 - 1833 (83 years)

William Morgan, FRS was a British physician, physicist and statistician, who is considered the father of modern actuarial science. He is also credited with being the first to record the "invisible light" produced when a current is passed through a partly evacuated glass tube: "the first x-ray tube".

#11683

Morris B. Crawford

1852 - 1940 (88 years)

Morris Barker Crawford was an American academic, and the first professor of physics at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. Early life and education He was born in 1852 in Sing Sing, now Ossining, New York to the Rev. Morris DeCamp Crawford and Charlotte Crawford. Both his father and his grandfather were ministers. He graduated from Wesleyan University in 1874, and he was a member of the Eclectic Society and of Phi Beta Kappa. He earned a Master of Arts degree from Wesleyan in 1877.

#11684

Bohdan Stefanowski

Bohdan Stefanowski

1883 - 1976 (93 years)

Bohdan Stefanowski was a Polish expert in thermodynamics, one of founders of the Warsaw school of thermodynamics, the first rector of Lodz University of Technology. After graduation from the Mechanical Engineering Department of Lviv Polytechnic in 1904, Bohdan Stefanowski pursued a career in industry as a specialist in heat management and then spent several years furthering his education under the supervision of Prof. Mollier in Dresden and Prof. Joss at Königliche Technische Hochschule in Charlottenburg.

#11685

Szczepan Szczeniowski

1898 - 1979 (81 years)

Professor Szczepan Eugeniusz Szczeniowski , was a Polish physicist, and author of numerous papers on cosmic rays, electron diffraction and ferromagnetism. In early 1930s, he taught at the Jan Kazimierz University in Lwow, in 1937 moving to the Stefan Batory University in Wilno. After World War II, he settled in Poznań, also cooperating with the Warsaw Polytechnic. Szczeniowski was a member of many prestigious organizations - Technical Science Academy, Polish Academy of Knowledge and Polish Academy of Sciences.

#11686

Georg Joseph Sidler

Georg Joseph Sidler

1831 - 1907 (76 years)

Georg Joseph Sidler was a Swiss mathematician, professor at the university of Bern. Life and work Sidler was born on 31 August 1831 in Zug, Switzerland to Georg Joseph Sidler and Verena Maria Sidler . He was their only son. He also had two half-sisters from his father's first marriage. One of the girls died at the age of seven. Both of Georg's parents came from old-established families in Canton of Zug; Many of his ancestors had been involved in local and cantonal politics. His paternal grandfather, Georg Damian held a number of offices; most notably he served as a Landvogt in the Valle Maggia in Ticino.

#11687

Andrzej Sołtan

1897 - 1959 (62 years)

Andrzej Sołtan was a Polish nuclear physicist. He also worked on spectroscopy in the band between far ultraviolet and X-rays. During his visit to Caltech in 1932–33, together with H. Richard Crane and Charles Christian Lauritsen, he discovered a method for producing neutron beams, by bombarding lithium or beryllium nuclei with accelerated deuterons.

#11688

Konstanty Jodko-Narkiewicz

1901 - 1963 (62 years)

Konstanty Jodko-Narkiewicz, also known as Konstanty Narkiewicz-Jodko , was a Polish geophysicist who specialized in studying cosmic radiation. He was also a mountaineer, Arctic explorer, and balloonist.

#11689

Ludwig Becker

1860 - 1947 (87 years)

Ludwig Wilhelm Emil Ernst Becker FRSE was Regius Professor of Astronomy at the University of Glasgow from 1893 until 1935 when he retired. Life Born in Wesel, Kingdom of Prussia, Becker was educated at the University of Bonn. After two years as an assistant in the Berlin Observatory, the Earl of Crawford and Balcarres appointed him in 1885 to take charge of his large private observatory at Dunecht, near Aberdeen. When that institution was wound up in the autumn of 1888, the instruments were passed on to the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury for a new Royal Observatory. A site on Blackford Hill in Edinburgh was selected in 1889 and Becker was included on the staff.

#11690

John Leigh Smeathman Hatton

1865 - 1933 (68 years)

Professor John Leigh Smeathman was a mathematician and Principal of East London College, England, one of the founding colleges of what is now Queen Mary College, part of London University. He was also Vice Chancellor of London University in the 1930s.

#11691

Ahmad Fazlur Rahman

Ahmad Fazlur Rahman

1889 - 1945 (56 years)

Sir Ahmad Fazlur Rahman , also known as A. F. Rahman, was a Bengali academic. He served as the first Bengali Vice-chancellor of the University of Dhaka during 1934–1936. He was knighted by the British Government of India in 1942.

#11692

Viktor Kirpichov

Viktor Kirpichov

1845 - 1913 (68 years)

Viktor Lvovich Kirpichov was a Russian Empire engineer, physicist, and educational organizer, known especially for his work on applied and structural mechanics as well as for establishing the foundations for technical education in the Russian Empire.

#11693

John Adamson

1809 - 1870 (61 years)

John Adamson was a Scottish physician, pioneer photographer, physicist, lecturer and museum curator. He was a highly respected figure in St Andrews, and was responsible for producing the first calotype portrait in Scotland in 1841. He taught the process to his brother, the famous pioneering photographer Robert Adamson. He was curator of the Literary and Philosophical Society Museum at St Andrews from 1838 until his death.

#11694

Rolla Ramsey

1872 - 1955 (83 years)

Rolla Roy Ramsey was an American physicist, university professor, and radio electronics pioneer. Early life and education Ramsey was born in the unincorporated community of Morning Sun, Preble County, Ohio, son of Sarah Rachel McQuiston and Joseph Steele Ramsey . He grew up on a farm. As a university teacher, Rolla took a special interest in "farm boys" who took physics courses; he observed that "they were not afraid to work." Rolla had a sister, Leila Jane Ramsey Lemon , and a brother, Arthur McQuiston Ramsey .

#11695

Emanuel von der Pahlen

Emanuel von der Pahlen

1882 - 1952 (70 years)

Baron Emanuel A. von der Pahlen was a German astronomer. He was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, but left for Germany following the revolution of 1917. He was educated at University of Göttingen, where he was awarded a Doctorate of Mathematical Sciences. Prior to World War I he joined solar eclipse expeditions in 1905, 1912 and 1914. Between the world wars, he was employed at the Astrophysikalishen Observatorium Potsdam. He taught at the University of Basel. In 1947 he published Einführung in die Dynamik von Sternsystemen, a 241-page work on Galaxies.

#11696

Paul Götz

1883 - 1962 (79 years)

Paul Götz was a German astronomer and discoverer of 20 minor planets between 1903 and 1905. He did his Ph.D. dissertation in 1907 at the Landessternwarte Heidelberg-Königstuhl at the University of Heidelberg.

#11697

Stanley Whitehead

1902 - 1956 (54 years)

Stanley Whitehead was a British physicist. Life Whitehead was born in Sutton, Surrey in 1902 and educated at Sir Walter St. John's School. After winning a scholarship to Jesus College, Oxford, Whitehead obtained first-class degrees in mathematics and in physics before carrying out research with Lord Cherwell at the Clarendon Laboratory. He was appointed as a physicist at the Electrical Research Association, becoming Director in 1946 and holding this post until his death in 1956. His particular interest was dielectric research, and he had an international reputation in fields such as telephone and radio interference.

#11698

Johann Jakob Hess

1866 - 1949 (83 years)

Johann Jakob Hess , was a Swiss Egyptologist and Assyriologist and an expert in other Oriental languages. Personal life Hess was born on 11 January 1866, the son of window and door maker Casimir Balthasar Jacques Hess and Josephine-Marie, née Rudolf, in Freiburg im Üechtland, , Switzerland. He graduated at Berlin and Strassburg in Egyptology, Assyriology, Semitic languages and Sinology, working for his Doctoral degree between 1889 and 1891, working as a Privatdozent, teaching Egyptology and Assyriology between 1891 and 1908 at the Swiss University of Freiburg. This teaching position gave him t...

#11699

Jan Latosz

1539 - 1608 (69 years)

Jan Latosz or Jan Latoszyński was a Polish scholar, astronomer, astrologist and physician. A professor at the Cracow Academy, he is best known for his staunch criticism of the papal calendar reform, for which he was deposed of his post. He fled to Ostróg, where he became the personal physician to Prince Konstanty Wasyl Ostrogski and a professor at the Ostrog Academy.

#11700

Ernst Bessel Hagen

1851 - 1923 (72 years)

Ernst Bessel Hagen was a German Applied and Experimental Physicist. With Heinrich Rubens, he identified the so-called Hagen-Rubens equation . Life Carl Ernst Bessel Hagen was born in Königsberg , eldest of the three recorded sons of the banker-politician Adolf Hermann Hagen by his first marriage, which was to Johanna Louise Amalie Bessel . Both his grandfathers were distinguished members of the German academic community. Carl Heinrich Hagen was a socio-economist, a professor of jurisprudence and, between 1811 and 1835, a senior Prussian government official . Friedrich Bessel was a ...

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