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.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
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List of the most influential people in Physics,
#11851
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.
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Baishali Dutta
#11853
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.
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Tetsuro Oshika
#11855
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 ...
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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...
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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.
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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".
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 .
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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...
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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.
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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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Charles Edward St. John
1857 - 1935 (78 years)
Charles Edward St. John was an American astronomer. He was born in Allen, Michigan to Hiriam A. St. John and his wife Lois Bacon; the youngest of a family of four sons and two daughters. In 1873 he entered Michigan Normal College, then graduated at the age of 19. For the next ten years, he suffered from ill health. After recovering, he became a teacher at the college, and in 1887 he graduated with a B.S. from Michigan State Agricultural College. He performed two years of graduate study in electromagnetism at the University of Michigan, then earned an M.A. from Harvard University in 1893. He w...
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Julio Garavito Armero
1865 - 1920 (55 years)
Julio Garavito Armero was a Colombian astronomer. Life Born in Bogotá, he was a child prodigy in science and mathematics. He obtained his degrees as mathematician and civil engineer in the Universidad Nacional de Colombia . In 1892, he worked as the director of the Observatorio Astronómico Nacional . His investigative works had been published in Los Anales de Ingeniería since 1890, seven years before he took over editing the publication.
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Johann Jakob Rebstein
1840 - 1907 (67 years)
Johann Jakob Rebstein was a Swiss mathematician and surveyor. Early life Rebstein was born on 4 May 1840 in Töss, Switzerland, to his father, a baker and his mother, a doctor. Education and career Rebstein attended post-secondary school in Winterthur, and after graduating in 1860, went on to study for a year at Collège de France. He was professor of mathematics and physics in Zürich from 1877 to 1898. He was awarded his doctorate in 1895 from the Humboldt University of Berlin for his work Bestimmung aller reellen Minimalflächen, die eine Schaar ebener Curven enthalten, denen auf der Gauss'schen Kugel die Meridiane entsprechen.
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Sergei Sedov
1908 - 1937 (29 years)
Sergei Lvovich Sedov was a Soviet engineer and scientist, the son of Leon Trotsky, and was killed in the Great Purge. Personal life The son of Leon Trotsky by his second wife, and younger brother of Lev Sedov, Sergei Lvovich Sedov was born on 21 March 1908 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary. A graduate of the Moscow Mechanical Institute, and working at the Moscow Aviation Institute, he was an apolitical engineer and scientist. His daughter, Yulia, was born around October 1935.
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Rudolph Goclenius the Younger
1572 - 1621 (49 years)
Rudolph Goclenius the Younger was a German physician and professor at Philipps University of Marburg. Goclenius was born in Wittenberg, the oldest son of Rudolph Goclenius, who was also professor of physics, logic, mathematics and ethics at Marburg. He enrolled at the University of Marburg at the age of 15. As a student, Goclenius was a respondent to his father in a physical disputation and received his master's degree in 1591. After obtaining his medical degree in 1601, Goclenius became the first rector of the newly founded gymnasium in Büdingen and a personal physician to Wolfgang Ernst I, Count of Isenburg-Büdingen.
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Godfried Wendelen
1580 - 1667 (87 years)
Godfried Wendelen or Govaert Wendelen, Latinized Godefridus Wendelinus, or sometimes Vendelinus and in French-language sources referred to as Godefroy Wendelin was an astronomer and Catholic priest sometimes referred to as the Ptolemy of his time. He was a supporter of Copernican heliocentrism, the astronomical model which positioned the sun at the center of the universe, with earth and the other planets orbiting around it. He made more accurate measurements of the distance to the sun as previously made by the ancient Greek astronomer Aristarchus of Samos. He is considered by some as a precursor of Kepler and Newton.
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Charles Wylie
1886 - 1976 (90 years)
Charles Clayton Wylie was born in Idana, Kansas on June 18, 1886 and died in Cedar Rapids, Iowa in April 1976. He earned his first degree from Park College in Missouri in 1908 and a master's degree from the University of Missouri in 1912. After working at the US Naval Observatory from 1913-1919, he went to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and was the first Ph.D. graduate from University of Illinois' astronomy department. He graduated with his doctorate in 1922 for his work "The Eclipsing Binary Sigma Aquilae, the Cepheid Variable Eta Aquilae."
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Colin Campbell
Colin Campbell was a Scottish astronomer. He grew up in Jamaica and died there in Kingston in 1752. He matriculated at Glasgow University, in 1720. He was invested as a fellow of the Royal Society in 1733. He studied Newton's theory of the diminution of gravity away from the equator. He made astronomical observations, in correspondence with Edmund Halley. He held the office of Member of the Council in 1742. After 1742, he sold his astronomical instruments to Alexander Macfarlane. In 1748, he lived at St. George Hanover Square, London.
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Grigori Levitski
1852 - 1917 (65 years)
Grigori Levitski was an astronomer from the Russian Empire. In 1879 he graduated from St. Petersburg University. In 1880s he worked at Pulkovo Observatory. 1894-1908 he was the head of Tartu Observatory. 1901-1905 he was the president of Estonian Naturalists' Society. 1903-1905 he was the rector of Tartu University.
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Joseph Redlhamer
1713 - 1761 (48 years)
Joseph Redlhamer was a professor at the University of Vienna. He joined the Jesuits at age 18 and earned a doctorate in philosophy and theology, after which he taught ethics, philosophy and theology in Linz, Graz and Vienna. He was a contemporary of Johann Baptiste Horvath, Andreas Jaszlinszky and Leopold Biwald.
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G. W. C. Kaye
1880 - 1941 (61 years)
George William Clarkson Kaye was an English physicist. He is best known as one of the authors, together with Thomas Laby, of the authoritative scientific reference work Tables of Physical and Chemical Constants and Some Mathematical Functions, first published in 1911 and better known as Kaye and Laby. He was a driving force behind the formation and early years of the ‘International X-ray and Radium Protection Committee’ , the world's first international radiological protection body, created in 1928.
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Ruth J. Northcott
1913 - 1969 (56 years)
Ruth Josephine Northcott was a Canadian astronomer based at the David Dunlap Observatory, and president of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada from 1962 to 1964. Asteroid 3670 Northcott is named for her.
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Edwin Foster Coddington
1870 - 1950 (80 years)
Edwin Foster Coddington was an American astronomer and discoverer of astronomical objects. He co-discovered the comet C/1898 L1 , also known by the older designation Comet 1898 VII. He also discovered 3 asteroids, and the galaxy IC 2574 in Ursa Major, which later became known as "Coddington's Nebula".
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Franz Kaiser
1891 - 1962 (71 years)
Franz Heinrich Kaiser was a German astronomer. He worked at the Heidelberg-Königstuhl Observatory from 1911 to 1914 while working on his Ph.D. there, which he obtained in 1915. During this time, Heidelberg was a center of asteroid discovery, and Kaiser discovered 21 asteroids during his time there.
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Jasper Kirkby
Jasper Kirkby is a British experimental particle physicist working at CERN. He is known for his pioneering idea of Tau-Charm Factory, an accelerator for the BEPC II in Beijing. He has led large particle accelerator experiments at SPEAR and the Paul Scherrer Institute. He completed his degrees at Oxford and London, then spent twelve years at Stanford University before joining CERN in 1984. Since 2013, he's been a professor at Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main.
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Frida Palmer
1905 - 1966 (61 years)
Frida Palmér, was the first female Swedish astronomer with a doctorate. She studied variable stars. Early life Palmér was born on February 14, 1905, in Blentarp, Sweden, the only child to builder Hans Persson Palmér and his wife Elsa Jeppsson. Her father died when she was five years old and in 1910 Elsa moved to Järrestad. It is unclear how she finished her early education but she must have been somewhat self-taught as access to high school was not formally established for girls until 1928.
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Gustaf Svanberg
1802 - 1882 (80 years)
Gustaf Svanberg was a Swedish astronomer. He was a professor of astronomy at Uppsala University from 1842 to 1875, and prefect of the university's observatory between 1825 and 1878. During his tenure, Svanberg traveled to Germany to meet prominent astronomers of the time. After returning from the journey, he undertook efforts to improve the astronomical facilities at Uppsala. This included establishing geomagnetic research facilities to cooperate with Carl Friedrich Gauss, and building a new observatory in Uppsala, a project which was subject to political controversy at the time. The minor as...
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Józef Lubański
1915 - 1946 (31 years)
Józef Kazimierz Lubański was a Polish theoretical physicist. Life and works Lubanski obtained the degree of magister philosophies at Wilna in 1937. He then worked for two years as an assistant in theoretical physics at Polish universities, and obtained a grant in order to travel to Holland and to work under Prof. H. A. Kramers at Leyden. His original intention was to go to Copenhagen in the following year, although the Second World War prevented this.
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Erwin Kempton Mapes
1884 - 1961 (77 years)
Erwin Kempton Mapes was an American scholar of Spanish-American literature and Hispanist, renowned for his work on the Hispanic Modernists. Born in Gilman, Illinois, Mapes received his bachelors from Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa, in 1909. He then went to Harvard University and studied Hispanic Studies under Jeremiah D. M. Ford, receiving his master's in 1915. He received his doctorate from the University of Paris with a study on Rubén Darío, published in 1925 as L'influence française dans l'oeuvre de Rubén Darío.
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Muhyi al-Din al-Maghribi
1220 - 1283 (63 years)
Muḥyī al‐Milla wa al‐Dīn Yaḥyā Abū ʿAbdallāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī al‐Shukr al‐Maghribī al‐Andalusī , referred to in sources as Muhyi l'din, was an astronomer, astrologer and mathematician of the Islamic Golden Age. He belonged to the group of astronomers associated with the Maragheh observatory in the Ilkhanate, most notably Nasir al-Din al-Tusi. In astronomy, Muhyi l'din carried out a large‐scale project of systematic planetary observations, which led to the development of several new astronomical parameters.
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Harutaro Murakami
1872 - 1947 (75 years)
was a Japanese physicist and astronomer. He is the father of the astronomer Tadayoshi Murakami . The crater Murakami on the Moon is named after him. External links 月の命名
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