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,
#12051
Maurice Loewy
1833 - 1907 (74 years)
Maurice Loewy was a French astronomer. Loewy was born in Vienna. Loewy's Jewish parents moved to Vienna in 1841 to escape the antisemitism of their home town. Loewy became an assistant at the Vienna Observatory, working on celestial mechanics. However, the institutions of Austria-Hungary did not permit a Jew to advance to a senior position without renouncing his faith and embracing Catholicism. The director of the observatory Karl L. Littrow was a correspondent of Urbain Le Verrier, director of the Paris Observatory and he secured a position there for Loewy in 1860. After going to France, Lo...
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Eva von Bahr
1874 - 1962 (88 years)
Eva Wilhelmina Julia von Bahr-Bergius, was a Swedish physicist and teacher at a folk high school. She was the first woman in Sweden to become a docent in physics. She is known for her contact with and support of the poet Dan Andersson, for her friendship and support of the physicist Lise Meitner, and as a Catholic writer.
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Al-Zarqali
1027 - 1087 (60 years)
Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm ibn Yaḥyā al-Naqqāsh al-Zarqālī al-Tujibi ; also known as Al-Zarkali or Ibn Zarqala , was an Arab maker of astronomical instruments and an astrologer from the western part of the Islamic world.
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Robert Stawell Ball
1840 - 1913 (73 years)
Sir Robert Stawell Ball was an Irish astronomer who founded the screw theory. He was Royal Astronomer of Ireland at Dunsink Observatory. Life He was the son of naturalist Robert Ball and Amelia Gresley Hellicar. He was born in Dublin. and was educated at Trinity College Dublin where he won a scholarship in 1859 and was a senior moderator in both mathematics and experimental and natural science in 1861.
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Éleuthère Mascart
1837 - 1908 (71 years)
Éleuthère Élie Nicolas Mascart was a noted French physicist, a researcher in optics, electricity, magnetism, and meteorology. Life Mascart was born in Quarouble, Nord. Starting in 1858, he attended the École normale supérieure , earning his agrégé-préparateur three years later. He acquired his doctoral degree in science in 1864. After serving at various posts in secondary education, in 1868 he moved to the Collège de France to become Henri Victor Regnault's assistant. Mascart was appointed to succeed Régnault as the tenured Régnault chair in 1872, which he held until his death. In 1878 he ...
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Julius Plücker
1801 - 1868 (67 years)
Julius Plücker was a German mathematician and physicist. He made fundamental contributions to the field of analytical geometry and was a pioneer in the investigations of cathode rays that led eventually to the discovery of the electron. He also vastly extended the study of Lamé curves.
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Giovanni Battista Beccaria
1716 - 1781 (65 years)
Giovanni Battista Beccaria was an Italian physicist. A fellow of the Royal Society, he published several papers on electrical subjects in the Phil. Trans. Beccaria was one of Benjamin Franklin's more conspicuous correspondents. His students included Joseph-Louis Lagrange, Giovanni Francesco Cigna, Giuseppe Angelo Saluzzo, and the successor to the Chair of physics, Antonio Vassalli Eandi; moreover, his researches inspired the physicists of Pavia, Alessandro Volta and Luigi Galvani.
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Richard Mollier
1863 - 1935 (72 years)
Richard Mollier was a German professor of Applied Physics and Mechanics in Göttingen and Dresden, a pioneer of experimental research in thermodynamics, particularly for water, steam, and moist air.
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Wolfgang Finkelnburg
1905 - 1967 (62 years)
Wolfgang Karl Ernst Finkelnburg was a German physicist who made contributions to spectroscopy, atomic physics, the structure of matter, and high-temperature arc discharges. His vice-presidency of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft 1941-1945, was influential in that organization’s ability to assert its independence from National Socialist policies.
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Cheikh Anta Diop
1923 - 1986 (63 years)
Cheikh Anta Diop was a Senegalese historian, anthropologist, physicist, and politician who studied the human race's origins and pre-colonial African culture. Diop's work is considered foundational to the theory of Afrocentricity, though he himself never described himself as an Afrocentrist. The questions he posed about cultural bias in scientific research contributed greatly to the postcolonial turn in the study of African civilizations.
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Paul Richard Heinrich Blasius
1883 - 1970 (87 years)
Paul Richard Heinrich Blasius was a German fluid dynamics physicist. He was one of the first students of Prandtl. Blasius provided a mathematical basis for boundary-layer drag but also showed as early as 1911 that the resistance to flow through smooth pipes could be expressed in terms of the Reynolds number for both laminar and turbulent flow. After six years in science he changed to Ingenieurschule Hamburg and became a Professor. On 1 April 1962 Heinrich Blasius celebrated his 50th anniversary in teaching. He was active in his field until he died on 24 April 1970.
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Toshiko Yuasa
1909 - 1980 (71 years)
Toshiko Yuasa was a Japanese nuclear physicist who worked in France. She was the first Japanese female physicist. Early life and education Yuasa was born in Taitō Ward, Tokyo, in 1909. Her father was an engineer who worked for the Japanese patent office. Her mother was from a traditional literary family – her mother's grandfather was Tachibana Moribe. Toshiko was the second-youngest of seven children. She attended the Division of Science at Tokyo Women's Higher Normal School from 1927 until her graduation in 1931. She then enrolled in the Department of Physics at Tokyo Bunrika University , making her the first woman in Japan to study physics.
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Franz S. Exner
1849 - 1926 (77 years)
Franz Serafin Exner was an Austrian physicist. Life Exner came from one of the most important university families of the Austrian-Hungarian empire. The same Exner family included , , Sigmund Exner, and . Exner was youngest of the five children who survived to adulthood of parents Franz Serafin Exner and Charlotte Dusensy . His father Franz Serafin was, from 1831 to 1848, a professor of philosophy in Prague and from 1848 onwards a member of the Board of Education in Vienna, becoming an influential reformer of Austrian university education.
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Johann Adam Schall von Bell
1592 - 1666 (74 years)
Johann Adam Schall von Bell was a German Jesuit, astronomer and instrument-maker. He spent most of his life as a missionary in China and became an adviser to the Shunzhi Emperor of the Qing dynasty.
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Giovanni Poleni
1683 - 1761 (78 years)
Giovanni Poleni was a Marquess, physicist, mathematician and antiquarian. Early life He was the son of Marquess Jacopo Poleni and studied the classics, philosophy, theology, mathematics, and physics at the School of the Somaschi Fathers, Venice.
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Gaspar Schott
1608 - 1666 (58 years)
Gaspar Schott was a German Jesuit and scientist, specializing in the fields of physics, mathematics and natural philosophy, and known for his industry. Biography He was born at Bad Königshofen im Grabfeld. It is probable, but not certain, that his early education was at the Jesuit College at Würzburg. In any case, at the age of 19 he joined the Society of Jesus, entering the novitiate at Trier on 30 October 1627. After two years of novitiate training, he matriculated at the University of Würzburg on 6 November 1629 to begin a three-year study of Philosophy, following the normal academic path prescribed for Jesuit seminarians.
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Heinrich Kayser
1853 - 1940 (87 years)
Heinrich Gustav Johannes Kayser ForMemRS was a German physicist and spectroscopist. Biography Kayser was born at Bingen am Rhein. Kayser's early work was concerned with the characteristics of acoustic waves. He discovered the occurrence of helium in the Earth's atmosphere in 1868 during a solar eclipse when he detected a new spectral line in the solar spectrum. In 1881, Kayser coined the word “adsorption”. Together with Carl Runge, he examined the spectra of chemical elements. In 1905, he wrote a paper on electron theory.
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John Dollond
1706 - 1761 (55 years)
John Dollond was an English optician, known for his successful optics business and his patenting and commercialization of achromatic doubletss. Biography Dollond was the son of a Huguenot refugee, a silk-weaver at Spitalfields, London, where he was born. He followed his father's trade, but found time to acquire a knowledge of Latin, Greek, mathematics, physics, anatomy and other subjects. In 1752 he abandoned silk-weaving and joined his eldest son, Peter Dollond , who in 1750 had started in business as a maker of optical instruments; this business went on to become Dollond & Aitchison. His r...
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Al-Birjandi
Abdal Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Husayn Birjandi was a prominent 16th-century Persian astronomer, mathematician and physicist who lived in Birjand. Astronomy Al-Birjandi was a pupil for Mansur ibn Muin al-Din al-Kashi, a member at the Samarkand Observatory, otherwise known as The Ulugh Beg Observatory. In discussing the structure of the cosmos, al-Birjandi continued Ali al-Qushji's debate on the Earth's rotation. In his analysis of what might occur if the Earth were moving, he develops a hypothesis similar to Galileo Galilei's notion of "circular inertia", which he described in the following obser...
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Temple Chevallier
1794 - 1873 (79 years)
Temple Chevallier FRAS was a British clergyman, astronomer, and mathematician. Between 1847 and 1849, he made important observations regarding sunspots. Chevallier has been called "a remarkable Victorian polymath" . Not only did he write many papers on astronomy and physics, he also published a translation of the Apostolic Fathers that went into a second edition, and translated the works of Clement of Alexandria, Polycarp and Ignatius of Antioch.
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Hans Busch
1884 - 1973 (89 years)
Hans Walter Hugo Busch was a German physicist. He was a pioneer of electron optics and laid the theoretical basis for the electron microscope. From 1904 to 1905 he studied physics in Strasbourg, from 1905 to 1906 in Berlin and from 1907 to 1911 physics and applied physics in Göttingen. He then was assistant for applied electrical engineering in Göttingen. He received his doctorate in 1911 from the University of Göttingen. In 1920 he habilitated from the same university and was then Privatdozent of physics and applied physics. In 1921 he was Privatdozent in Jena. In 1922 he became associate professor in Jena.
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Emanoil Bacaloglu
1830 - 1891 (61 years)
Emanoil Bacaloglu was a Wallachian and Romanian mathematician, physicist and chemist. Born in Bucharest and of Greek origin, he studied physics and mathematics in Paris and Leipzig, later becoming a professor at the University of Bucharest and, in 1879, a member of the Romanian Academy. Considered to be the founder of many scientific and technological fields in Romania , Bacaloglu was also an accomplished scientist. He helped create Romanian-language terminology in his fields and was one of the principal founders of the Society of Physical Sciences in 1890.
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Dmitry Dubyago
1849 - 1918 (69 years)
Dmitry Ivanovich Dubyago was a Russian astronomer and expert in theoretical astrophysics, astrometry, and gravimetry. A crater on the Moon is named after Dmitry Dubyago. See also Alexander Dubyagocrater Dubyago
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Johann Gottlieb Friedrich von Bohnenberger
1765 - 1831 (66 years)
Johann Gottlieb Friedrich von Bohnenberger was a German astronomer born at Simmozheim, Württemberg. He studied at the University of Tübingen. In 1798, he was appointed professor of mathematics and astronomy at the University.
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Qusta ibn Luqa
820 - 912 (92 years)
Qusta ibn Luqa, also known as Costa ben Luca or Constabulus was a Syrian Melkite Christian physician, philosopher, astronomer, mathematician and translator. He was born in Baalbek. Travelling to parts of the Byzantine Empire, he brought back Greek texts and translated them into Arabic.
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Hans Hollmann
1899 - 1960 (61 years)
Hans Erich Hollmann was a German electronic specialist who made several breakthroughs in the development of radar. Hollmann was born in Solingen, Germany. He became interested in radio and even as a teenager subscribed to the technical magazines of the day. Late in World War I he became a prisoner of war of the French and did not return to Germany until 1920. He then studied at the Technical University at Darmstadt until he received his doctorate in 1928.
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Forest Ray Moulton
1872 - 1952 (80 years)
Forest Ray Moulton was an American astronomer. Biography He was born in Le Roy, Michigan, and was educated at Albion College. After graduating in 1894 , he performed his graduate studies at the University of Chicago and gained a Ph.D. in 1899. At the University of Chicago he was associate in astronomy , instructor , assistant professor , associate professor , and professor after 1912.
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Quirino Majorana
1871 - 1957 (86 years)
Quirino Francesco Valentino Majorana was an Italian experimental physicist who investigated a wide range of phenomena during his long career as professor of physics at the Universities of Rome, Turin , and Bologna .
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William Gilbert
1544 - 1603 (59 years)
#12080
Palm Heinrich Ludwig von Boguslawski
1789 - 1851 (62 years)
Palm Heinrich Ludwig von Boguslawski was a German astronomy professor and observatory director in Breslau . Early life A native of Magdeburg, Boguslawski met Johann Elert Bode , who was an observatory director in Berlin and published the celestial atlas Uranographia, at the Prussian Military Academy in Berlin between 1811 and 1812, when Boguslawski did his military service.
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Theodosius of Bithynia
160 BC - 90 BC (70 years)
Theodosius of Bithynia was a Hellenistic astronomer and mathematician from Bithynia who wrote the Spherics, a treatise about spherical geometry, as well as several other books on mathematics and astronomy, of which two survive, On Habitations and On Days and Nights.
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Ernest William Brown
1866 - 1938 (72 years)
Ernest William Brown FRS was an English mathematician and astronomer, who spent the majority of his career working in the United States and became a naturalised American citizen in 1923. His life's work was the study of the Moon's motion and the compilation of extremely accurate lunar tables. He also studied the motion of the planets and calculated the orbits of Trojan asteroids.
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Yuri Krutkov
1890 - 1952 (62 years)
Yuri Alexandrovich Krutkov was a Russian and among the first Soviet theoretical physicists. Krutkov worked on cosmology, quantum theory, statistical mechanics, tensor fields, and other areas. He was a professor of physics at the University of St. Petersburg from 1921-1952.
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M. C. Joshi
1928 - 1983 (55 years)
M. C. Joshi from Belgaum, India was a nuclear physicist and the founder and head of the university department of physics, University of Mumbai. The university department of physics was established in 1971.
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Giovanni Aldini
1762 - 1834 (72 years)
Giovanni Aldini was an Italian physician and physicist born in Bologna. He was a brother of the statesman Count Antonio Aldini . He graduated in physics at University of Bologna in 1782. He became professor of experimental physics at University of Bologna in 1798, in succession to his uncle Luigi Galvani . His scientific work was chiefly concerned with galvanism, anatomy and its medical applications, with the construction and illumination of lighthouses, and with experiments for preserving human life and material objects from destruction by fire. He wrote in French and English in addition to his native Italian, and in Latin, still used in the 18th century by the scientific community.
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Asaph Hall
1829 - 1907 (78 years)
Asaph Hall III was an American astronomer who is best known for having discovered the two moons of Mars, Deimos and Phobos, in 1877. He determined the orbits of satellitess of other planets and of double stars, the rotation of Saturn, and the mass of Mars.
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Alexander Dubyago
1903 - 1959 (56 years)
Alexander Dmitriyevich Dubyago was a Soviet astronomer and expert in theoretical astrophysics. The lunar crater Dubyago is named after him and his father, Dmitry Ivanovich Dubyago.
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Bruno Winawer
1883 - 1944 (61 years)
Bruno Winawer was a Jewish-descended Polish physicist, columnist, and author of comedies, science fiction novels, short stories, and poetry. Life Winawer studied physics at the University of Heidelberg, then served at the University of Amsterdam as assistant to Nobel laureate Pieter Zeeman.
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John Leslie
1766 - 1832 (66 years)
Sir John Leslie, FRSE KH was a Scottish mathematician and physicist best remembered for his research into heat. Leslie gave the first modern account of capillary action in 1802 and froze water using an air-pump in 1810, the first artificial production of ice.
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