Famous PhysicistsClassical PeriodWilliam Gilbert 1544-1603English - hypothesized that the Earth is a giant magnet

Galileo Galilei 1564-1642Italian - performed fundamental observations, experiments, and mathematical analyses in astronomy and physics; discovered mountains and craters on the moon, the phases of Venus, and the four largest satellites of Jupiter: Io, Europa, Callisto, and Ganymede

Willebrod Snell 1580-1626Dutch - discovered law of refraction (Snell's law)

Blaise Pascal 1623-1662French - discovered that pressure applied to an enclosed fluid is transmitted undiminished to every part of the fluid and to the walls of its container (Pascal's principle)

Christiaan Huygens 1629-1695Dutch - proposed a simple geometrical wave theory of light, now known as ``Huygen's principle''; pioneered use of the pendulum in clocks

Robert Hooke 1635-1703English - discovered Hooke's law of elasticity

Sir Isaac Newton 1643-1727English - developed theories of gravitation and mechanics, and invented differential calculus

Daniel Bernoulli 1700-1782Swiss - developed the fundamental relationship of fluid flow now known as Bernoulli's principle

Benjamin Franklin 1706-1790American - the first American physicist; characterized two kinds of electric charge, which he named ``positive'' and ``negative''

Leonard Euler 1707-1783Swiss - made fundamental contributions to fluid dynamics, lunar orbit theory (tides), and mechanics; also contributed prolifically to all areas of classical mathematics

Henry Cavendish 1731-1810British - discovered and studied hydrogen; first to measure Newton's gravitational constant; calculated mass and mean density of Earth

Charles Augustin de Coulomb 1736-1806French - experiments on elasticity, electricity, and magnetism; established experimentally nature of the force between two charges

Joseph-Louis Lagrange 1736-1813French - developed new methods of analytical mechanics

James Watt 1736-1819Scottish - invented the modern condensing steam engine and a centrifugal governor

Count Alessandro Volta 1745-1827Italian - pioneer in study of electricity; invented the first electric battery

Joseph Fourier 1768-1830

French - established the differential equation governing heat diffusion and solved it by devising an infinite series of sines and cosines capable of approximating a wide variety of functions

Thomas Young 1773-1829British - studied light and color; known for his double-slit experiment that demonstrated the wave nature of light

Jean-Babtiste Biot 1774-1862French - studied polarization of light; co-discovered that intensity of magnetic field set up by a current flowing through a wire varies inversely with the distance from the wire

André Marie Ampère 1775-1836French - father of electrodynamics

Amadeo Avogadro 1776-1856Italian - developed hypothesis that all gases at same volume, pressure, and temperature contain same number of atoms

Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss 1777-1855German - formulated separate electrostatic and electrodynamical laws, including ``Gauss' law''; contributed to development of number theory, differential geometry, potential theory, theory of terrestrial magnetism, and methods of calculating planetary orbits Hans Christian Oersted 1777-1851Danish discovered that a current in a wire can produce magnetic effects

Sir David Brewster 1781-1868English deduced ``Brewster's law'' giving the angle of incidence that produces reflected light which is completely polarized; invented the kaleidoscope and the stereoscope, and improved the spectroscope

Augustin-Jean Fresnel 1788-1827French studied transverse nature of light waves

Georg Ohm 1789-1854German discovered that current flow is proportional to potential difference and inversely proportional to resistance (Ohm's law)

Michael Faraday 1791-1867English discovered electromagnetic induction and devised first electrical transformer

Felix Savart 1791-1841French co-discovered that intensity of magnetic field set up by a current flowing through a wire varies inversely with the distance from the wire

Sadi Carnot 1796-1832French founded the science of thermodynamics

Joseph Henry 1797-1878American performed extensive fundamental studies of electromagnetic phenomena; devised first practical electric motor

Christian Doppler 1803-1853Austrian experimented with sound waves; derived an expression for the apparent change in wavelength of a wave due to relative motion between the source and observer

Wilhelm E. Weber 1804-1891German developed sensitive magnetometers; worked in electrodynamics and the electrical structure of matter

Sir William Hamilton 1805-1865Irish developed the principle of least action and the Hamiltonian form of classical mechanics

James Prescott Joule 1818-1889British discovered mechanical equivalent of heat

Armand-Hippolyte-Louis Fizeau 1819-1896French made the first terrestrial measurement of the speed of light; invented one of the first interferometers; took the first pictures of the Sun on daguerreotypes; argued that the Doppler effect with respect to sound should also apply to any wave motion, particularly that of light

Jean-Bernard-Léon Foucault 1819-1868French accurately measured speed of light; invented the gyroscope; demonstrated the Earth's rotation

Sir George Gabriel Stokes 1819-1903British described the motion of viscous fluids by independently discovering the Navier-Stokes equations of fluid mechanics (or hydrodynamics); developed Stokes theorem by which certain surface integrals may be reduced to line integrals; discovered fluorescence

Hermann von Helmholtz 1821-1894German developed first law of thermodynamics, a statement of conservation of energy

Rudolf Clausius 1822-1888German developed second law of thermodynamics, a statement that the entropy of the Universe always increasesLord Kelvin

(born William Thomson) 1824-1907British proposed absolute temperature scale, of essence to development of thermodynamics

Gustav Kirchhoff 1824-1887German developed three laws of spectral analysis and three rules of electric circuit analysis; also contributed to optics

Johann Balmer 1825-1898Swiss developed empirical formula to describe hydrogen spectrum

Sir Joseph Wilson Swan 1828-1914British developed a carbon-filament incandescent light; patented the carbon process for printing photographs in permanent pigment

James Clerk Maxwell 1831-1879Scottish propounded the theory of electromagnetism; developed the kinetic theory of gases

Josef Stefan 1835-1893Austrian studied blackbody radiation

Ernst Mach 1838-1916Austrian studied conditions that occur when an object moves through a fluid at high speed (the ``Mach number'' gives the ratio of the speed of the object to the speed of sound in the fluid); proposed ``Mach's principle,'' which states that the inertia of an object is due to the interaction between the object and the rest of the universe

Josiah Gibbs 1839-1903American developed chemical thermodynamics; introduced concepts of free energy and chemical potential

James Dewar 1842-1923British liquified nitrogen and invented the Dewar flask, which is critical for low-temperature work

Osborne Reynolds 1842-1912British contributed to the fields of hydraulics and hydrodynamics; developed mathematical framework for turbulence and introduced the ``Reynolds number,'' which provides a criterion for dynamic similarity and correct modeling in many fluid-flow experiments

Ludwig Boltzmann 1844-1906Austrian developed statistical mechanics and applied it to kinetic theory of gases

Roland Eötvös 1848-1919Hungarian demonstrated equivalence of gravitational and inertial mass

Oliver Heaviside 1850-1925English contributed to the development of electromagnetism; introduced operational calculus and invented the modern notation for vector calculus; predicted existence of the Heaviside layer (a layer of the Earth's ionosphere)

George Francis FitzGerald 1851-1901Irish hypothesized foreshortening of moving bodies (Lorentz-FitzGerald contraction) to explain the result of the Michelson-Morley experiment

John Henry Poynting 1852-1914British demonstrated that the energy flow of electromagnetic waves could be calculated by an equation (now called Poynting's vector)

Henri Poincaré 1854-1912French founded qualitative dynamics (the mathematical theory of dynamical systems); created topology; contributed to solution of the three-body problem; first described many properties of deterministic chaos; contributed to the development of special relativity

Janne Rydberg 1854-1919Swedish analyzed the spectra of many elements; discovered many line series were described by a formula that depended on a universal constant (the Rydberg constant)

Edwin H. Hall 1855-1938American discovered the ``Hall effect,'' which occurs when charge carriers moving through a material are deflected because of an applied magnetic field - the deflection results in a potential difference across the side of the material that is transverse to both the magnetic field and the current direction

Heinrich Hertz 1857-1894German worked on electromagnetic phenomena; discovered radio waves and the photoelectric effect

Nikola Tesla 1857-1943Serbian-born American created alternating currentNobel Laureates

Johannes van der Waals 1837-1923Dutch worked on equations of state for gases and liquidsLord Rayleigh

(born John William Strutt) 1842-1919British discovered argon; explained how light scattering is responsible for red color of sunset and blue color of sky

Wilhelm Röntgen 1845-1923German discovered and studied x rays

Antoine Henri Becquerel 1852-1908French discovered natural radioactivity

Albert A. Michelson 1852-1931German-born American devised an interferometer and used it to try to measure Earth's absolute motion; precisely measured speed of light

Hendrik Antoon Lorentz 1853-1928Dutch introduced Lorentz transformation equations of special relativity; advanced ideas of relativistic length contraction and relativistic mass increase; contributed to theory of electromagnetism

Heike Kamerlingh-Onnes 1853-1926Dutch liquified helium; discovered superconductivity

Sir Joseph John Thomson 1856-1940British demonstrated existence of the electron

Max Planck 1858-1947German formulated the quantum theory; explained wavelength distribution of blackbody radiation

Pierre Curie 1859-1906French studied radioactivity with wife, Marie Curie; discovered piezoelectricity

Sir William Henry Bragg 1862-1942British worked on x-ray spectrometry

Philipp von Lenard 1862-1947German studied cathode rays and the photoelectric effect

Wilhelm Wien 1864-1928German discovered laws governing radiation of heat

Pieter Zeeman 1865-1943Dutch discovered splitting of spectral lines in a strong magnetic field

Marie Curie 1867-1934Polish-born French discovered radioactivity of thorium; co-discovered radium and polonium

Robert Millikan 1868-1953American measured the charge of an electron; introduced term ``cosmic rays'' for the radiation coming from outer space; studied the photoelectric effect

Charles Wilson 1869-1959British invented the cloud chamber

Jean Baptiste Perrin 1870-1942French experimentally proved that cathode rays were streams of negatively charged particles; experimentally confirmed the correctness of Einstein's theory of Brownian motion, and through his measurements obtained a new determination of Avogadro's number

Lord Ernest Rutherford 1871-1937New Zealander theorized existence of the atomic nucleus based on results of the alpha-scattering experiment performed by Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden; developed theory of Rutherford scattering (scattering of spinless, pointlike particles from a Coulomb potential)

Guglielmo Marconi 1874-1937Italian invented the first practical system of wireless telegraphy

Johannes Stark 1874-1957

German discovered splitting of spectral lines in a strong electric field

Charles Glover Barkla 1877-1944British discovered that every chemical element, when irradiated by x rays, can emit an x-ray spectrum of two line-groups, which he named the K-series and L-series, that are of fundamental importance to understanding atomic structure

Albert Einstein 1879-1955German-born American explained Brownian motion and photoelectric effect; contributed to theory of atomic spectra; formulated theories of special and general relativity

Otto Hahn 1879-1968German discovered the fission of heavy nuclei

Max von Laue 1879-1960German discovered diffraction of x rays by crystals

Sir Owen Richardson 1879-1959British discovered the basic law of thermionic emission, now called the Richardson (or Richardson-Dushman) equation, which describes the emission of electrons from a heated conductor

Clinton Joseph Davisson 1881-1958American co-discovered electron diffraction

Max Born 1882-1970German-born British contributed to creation of quantum mechanics; pioneer in the theory of crystals

Percy Williams Bridgman 1882-1961American invented an apparatus to produce extremely high pressures; made many discoveries in high-pressurePhysics

James Franck 1882-1964German experimentally confirmed that atomic energy states are quantized

Victor Franz Hess 1883-1964Austrian discovered cosmic radiation

Peter Debye 1884-1966Dutch-born German used methods of statistical mechanics to calculate equilibrium properties of solids; contributed to knowledge of molecular structure

Neils Bohr 1885-1962Danish contributed to quantum theory and to theory of nuclear reactions and nuclear fission

Karl Manne Georg Siegbahn 1886-1978Swedish made important experimental contributions to the field of x-ray spectroscopy

Gustav Hertz 1887-1975German experimentally confirmed that atomic energy states are quantized

Erwin Schrödinger 1887-1961Austrian contributed to creation of quantum mechanics; formulated the Schrödinger wave equation

Sir Chandrasekhara Raman 1888-1970Indian studied light scattering and discovered the Raman effect

Otto Stern 1888-1969

German-born American contributed to development of the molecular beam method; discovered the magnetic moment of the proton

Frits Zernike 1888-1966Dutch invented the phase-contrast microscope, a type of microscope widely used for examining specimens such as biological cells and tissues

Sir William Lawrence Bragg 1890-1971British worked on crystal structure and x rays

Walther Bothe 1891-1957German devised a coincidence counter for studying cosmic rays; demonstrated validity of energy-momentum conservation at the atomic scale

Sir James Chadwick 1891-1974British discovered the neutron

Sir Edward Appleton 1892-1965English discovered the layer of the Earth's atmosphere, called the Appleton layer, which is the part of the ionosphere having the highest concentration of free electrons and is the most useful for radio transmission

Prince Louis-Victor de Broglie 1892-1987French predicted wave properties of the electron

Arthur Compton 1892-1962American discovered the increase in wavelength of x rays when scattered by an electron

Sir George Paget Thomson 1892-1975British co-discovered electron diffraction

Harold Clayton Urey 1893-1981American discovered deuterium

Pjotr Leonidovich Kapitsa 1894-1984Soviet heralded a new era of low-temperature physics by inventing a device for producing liquid helium without previous cooling with liquid hydrogen; demonstrated that Helium II is a quantum superfluid

Igor Y. Tamm 1895-1971Soviet co-developed the theoretical interpretation of the radiation of electrons moving through matter faster than the speed of light (the ``Cerenkov effect''), and developed the theory of showers in cosmic rays

Robert S. Mulliken 1896-1986American introduced the theoretical concept of the molecular orbital, which led to a new understanding of the chemical bond and the electronic structure of molecules

Lord Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett 1897-1974British developed an automatic Wilson cloud chamber; discovered electron-positron pair production in cosmic rays

Sir John Cockcroft 1897-1967British co-invented the first particle accelerator

Irène Joliot-Curie 1897-1956French co-discovered artificial radioactivity

Isador Isaac Rabi 1898-1988

Austrian-born American developed the resonance technique for measuring the magnetic properties of atomic nuclei

Frédéric Joliot-Curie 1900-1958French co-discovered artificial radioactivity

Dennis Gabor 1900-1979Hungarian invented and developed the holographic method whereby it is possible to record and display a three-dimensional display of an object

Wolfgang Pauli 1900-1958Austrian-born American discovered the exclusion principle; suggested the existence of the neutrino

Enrico Fermi 1901-1954Italian-born American performed experiments leading to first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction; developed a theory of beta decay that introduced the weak interaction; derived the statistical properties of gases that obey the Pauli exclusion principle

Werner Heisenberg 1901-1976German contributed to creation of quantum mechanics; introduced the ``uncertainty principle'' and the concept of exchange forces

Ernest Orlando Lawrence 1901-1958American invented the cyclotron

Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac 1902-1984British helped found quantum electrodynamics; predicted the existence of antimatter by combining quantum mechanics with special relativity

Alfred Kastler 1902-1984French discovered and developed optical methods for studying the Hertzian resonances that are produced when atoms interact with radio waves or microwaves

Eugene Wigner 1902-1995Hungarian-born American contributed to theoretical atomic and nuclear physics; introduced concept of the nuclear cross section

Cecil F. Powell 1903-1969British developed the photographic emulsion method of studying nuclear processes; discovered the charged pion

Ernest Walton 1903-1995Irish co-invented the first particle accelerator

Pavel A. Cherenkov 1904-1990Soviet discovered the ``Cerenkov effect'' whereby light is emitted by a particle passing through a medium at a speed greater than that of light in the medium

Carl David Anderson 1905-1991American discovered the positron and the muon

Felix Bloch 1905-1983Swiss-born American contributed to development of the NMR technique; measured the magnetic moment of the neutron; contributed to the theory of metals

Sir Nevill F. Mott 1905-1996

British contributed to theoretical condensed-matter physics by applying quantum theory to complex phenomena in solids; calculated cross section for relativistic Coulomb scattering

Emilio Segrè 1905-1989Italian-born American co-discovered the antiproton; discovered technetium

Hans Bethe 1906-2005German-born American contributed to theoretical nuclear physics, especially concerning the mechanism for energy production in stars

Maria Goeppert-Mayer 1906-1972German-born American advanced shell model of nuclear structure

Ernst Ruska 1906-1988German designed the first electron microscope

Shin-Ichiro Tomonaga 1906-Japanese co-developed quantum electrodynamics

J. Hans D. Jensen 1907-1973German advanced shell model of nuclear structure

Edwin M. McMillan 1907-1991American made discoveries concerning the transuranium elements

Hideki Yukawa 1907-1981Japanese predicted existence of the pion

John Bardeen 1908-1991American co-discovered the transistor effect; developed theory of superconductivity

Il'ja M. Frank 1908-1990Soviet co-developed the theoretical interpretation of the radiation of electrons moving through matter faster than the speed of light (the ``Cerenkov effect''), and carried out experimental investigations of pair creation by gamma rays

Lev Landau 1908-1968Soviet contributed to condensed matter theory on phenomena of superfluidity and superconductivity

Subramanyan Chandrasekhar 1910-1995Indian-born American made important theoretical contributions concerning the structure and evolution of stars, especially white dwarfs

William Shockley 1910-1989American co-discovered the transistor effect

Luis Walter Alvarez 1911-1988American constructed huge bubble chambers and discovered many short-lived hadrons; advanced the impact theory for the extinction of the dinosaurs

William Fowler 1911-1995American studied nuclear reactions of astrophysical significance; developed, with others, a theory of the formation of chemical elements in the universe

Polykarp Kusch 1911-1993American experimentally established that the electron has an anomalous magnetic moment and made a precision determination of its magnitude

Edward Mills Purcell 1912-1997American developed method of nuclear resonance absorption that permitted the absolute determination of nuclear magnetic moments; co-discovered a line in the galactic radiospectrum caused by atomic hydrogen

Glenn T. Seaborg 1912-1999American co-discovered plutonium and all further transuranium elements through element 102

Willis E. Lamb, Jr. 1913-2008American made discoveries concerning fine structure of hydrogen

Robert Hofstadter 1915-1990American measured charge distributions in atomic nuclei with high-energy electron scattering; measured the charge and magnetic-moment distributions in the proton and neutron

Norman F. Ramsey 1915-American developed the separated oscillatory fields method, which is the basis of the cesium atomic clock (our present time standard); co-invented the hydrogen maser

Clifford G. Shull 1915-2001American developed a neutron scattering technique in which a neutron diffraction pattern is produced that may be used to determine the atomic structure of a material

Charles H. Townes 1915-American created first maser using ammonia to produce coherent microwave radiation

Francis Crick 1916-English co-proposed the double-helix structure of DNA

Maurice Wilkins 1916-British investigated the structure of DNA

Bertram N. Brockhouse 1918-Canadian developed the technique of neutron spectroscopy for studies of condensed matter

Richard P. Feynman 1918-1988American co-developed quantum electrodynamics; created a new formalism for practical calculations by introducing a graphical method called Feynman diagrams

Frederick Reines 1918-1998American established, together with Clyde L. Cowan, Jr., the existence of the electron antineutrino by detecting them using a reactor experiment

Julian Schwinger 1918-1994American co-developed quantum electrodynamics

Kai M. Siegbahn 1918-Swedish contributed to the development of high-resolution electron spectroscopy

Nicolaas Bloembergen 1920-Dutch-born American contributed to the development of laser spectroscopy

Owen Chamberlain 1920-2006American co-discovered the antiproton

Andrei Sakharov 1921-1989

Russian father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb; awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his struggle for human rights, for disarmament, and for cooperation between all nations

Arthur L. Schawlow 1921-1999American contributed to the development of laser spectroscopy

Jack Steinberger 1921-German-born American made many important discoveries in particle physics; co-discovered the neutral pion via photoproduction; co-discovered the muon neutrino

Nikolai Basov 1922-2001Soviet worked in quantum electronics; independently worked out theoretical basis of the maser

Aage Bohr 1922-Danish contributed to theoretical understanding of collective motion in nuclei

Leon Lederman 1922-American contributed to the discovery of the muon neutrino and the bottom quark

Chen Ning Yang 1922-Chinese-born American co-proposed parity violation in weak interactions

Val Logsdon Fitch 1923-American co-discovered that decays of neutral kaons sometime violate CP conservation

Georges Charpak 1924-French invented the multiwire proportional chamber

Roy J. Glauber 1925-American made important contributions to the theoretical understanding of quantum optics and high-energy collisions

Simon van der Meer 1925-Dutch contributed to experiments that led to the discovery of the carriers (W± and Z°) of the weak interaction

Donald A. Glaser 1926-American invented the bubble chamber

Henry W. Kendall 1926-1999American co-discovered, through investigations of deep-inelastic electron scattering, clear signs that there exists an inner structure (quarks and gluons) in the protons and neutrons of the atomic nucleus

Ben Mottelson 1926-American contributed to theoretical understanding of collective motion in nuclei

Tsung-Dao Lee 1926-Chinese-born American co-proposed parity violation in weak interactions

Abdus Salam 1926-1996Pakistani co-developed gauge field theory of the electroweak interaction; suggested that the proton might be unstable

K. Alexander Müller 1927-Swiss co-discovered the first ceramic superconductors

Martin L. Perl 1927-

American discovered the tau lepton

Murray Gell-Mann 1929-American advanced an explanation of strange particles; predicted the existence of the Omega- particle; postulated existence of quarks; founded the study of QCD

Rudolf Ludwig Mössbauer 1929-German experimented with resonance absorption of gamma radiation; discovered ``Mössbauer effect,'' the recoilless emission of gamma rays by nuclei

Richard E. Taylor 1929-Canadian co-discovered, through investigations of deep-inelastic electron scattering, clear signs that there exists an inner structure (quarks and gluons) in the protons and neutrons of the atomic nucleus

Leon Cooper 1930-American contributed to condensed matter theory on phenomena of superconductivity

Jerome I. Friedman 1930-American co-discovered, through investigations of deep-inelastic electron scattering, clear signs that there exists an inner structure (quarks and gluons) in the protons and neutrons of the atomic nucleus

James W. Cronin 1931-American co-discovered that decays of neutral kaons sometime violate CP conservation

David M. Lee 1931-American co-discovered that the isotope Helium-3 becomes a quantum superfluid near absolute zero

Burton Richter 1931-American carried out an experiment leading to the discovery of charmonium

J. Robert Schrieffer 1931-American contributed to condensed matter theory on phenomena of superconductivity

Pierre-Gilles de Gennes 1932-2007French developed theories in condensed matter physics applicable to liquid crystals and polymers

Sheldon Glashow 1932-American co-developed gauge field theory of the electroweak interaction

Melvin Schwartz 1932-2006American proposed that it should be possible to produce and use a beam of neutrinos; co-discovered the muon neutrino

Claude Cohen-Tannoudji 1933-French developed methods, with his colleagues, of using laser light to cool helium atoms to a temperature of about 0.18 µK and capturing the chilled atoms in a trap

Arno A. Penzias 1933-German-born American co-discovered the cosmic microwave background radiation

Heinrich Rohrer 1933-Swiss co-designed the scanning tunneling microscope (STM), a type of microscope in which a fine conducting probe is held close the surface of a sample

Steven Weinberg 1933-American co-developed gauge field theory of the electroweak interaction

Carlo Rubbia 1934-Italian contributed to experiments that led to the discovery of the carriers (W± and Z°) of the weak interaction

Robert W. Wilson 1936-American co-discovered the cosmic microwave background radiation

Samuel C. C. Ting 1936-American carried out an experiment leading to the discovery of charmonium

Kenneth Wilson 1936-American invented renormalization group methods to develop a theory for critical phenomena in connection with phase transitions; contributed to solving QCD using lattice gauge theory

Robert C. Richardson 1937-American co-discovered that the isotope Helium-3 becomes a quantum superfluid near absolute zero

Brian Josephson 1940-British contributed to theoretical predictions of the properties of a supercurrent through a tunnel barrier

David J. Gross 1941-American co-discovered ``asymptotic freedom'' in non-Abelian gauge theories; contributed to the development of string theory

Klaus von Klitzing 1943-German discovered the quantized Hall effect

Douglas D. Osheroff 1945-American co-discovered that the isotope Helium-3 becomes a quantum superfluid near absolute zero

Gerard t' Hooft 1946-Dutch contributed to theoretical understanding of gauge theories in elementary particle physics, quantum gravity and black holes, and fundamental aspects of quantum physics

Gerd Binnig 1947-German co-designed the scanning tunneling microscope (STM), a type of microscope in which a fine conducting probe is held close the surface of a sample

Steven Chu 1948-American developed the Doppler cooling method of using laser light (optical molasses) to cool gases and capturing the chilled atoms in a magneto-optical trap (MOT)

William D. Phillips 1948-American developed, with his colleagues, a device called a Zeeman slower, with which he could slow down and capture atoms in a purely magnetic trap

H. David Politzer 1949-American co-discovered ``asymptotic freedom'' in non-Abelian gauge theories; co-predicted the existence of charmonium - the bound state of a charm quark and its antiparticle

J. Georg Bednorz 1950-German co-discovered the first ceramic superconductors

Robert Laughlin 1950-American developed a theory of quantum fluids that explained the fractional quantum Hall effect

Frank Wilczek 1951-American co-discovered ``asymptotic freedom'' in non-Abelian gauge theories; contributed to the study of ``anyons'' (particle-like excitations in two-dimensional systems that obey ``fractional statistics'')

OthersWallace Clement Sabine 1868-1919American founded the science of architectural acoustics

Arnold Sommerfeld 1868-1951German generalized the circular orbits of the atomic Bohr model to elliptical orbits; introduced the magnetic quantum number; used statistical mechanics to explain the electronic properties of metals

Lise Meitner 1878-1968Austrian-born Swedish co-discovered the element protactinium and studied the effects of neutron bombardment on uranium; introduced term ``fission'' for splitting the atomic nucleus

Paul Ehrenfest 1880-1933Austrian applied quantum mechanics to rotating bodies; helped develop the modern statistical theory of nonequilibrium thermodynamics

Theodor von Kármán 1881-1963Hungarian-born American provided major contributions to our understanding of fluid mechanics, turbulence theory, and supersonic flight

Walther Meissner 1882-1974German co-discovered the ``Meissner effect'', whereby a superconductor expells a magnetic field

Hans Geiger 1883-1945German helped measure charge-to-mass ratio for alpha particles; invented Geiger counter for detecting ionizing particles

Hermann Weyl 1885-1955German attempted to incorporate electromagnetism into general relativity; evolved the concept of continuous groups using matrix representations and applied group theory to quantum mechanics

Arthur Jeffrey Dempster 1886-1950Canadian-born American discovered the isotope uranium-235

Henry Moseley 1887-1915British developed the modern form of the period table of elements based on their atomic numbers

Sir Robert Watson-Watt 1892-1973Scottish developed radar

Satyendra Bose 1894-1974Indian worked out statistical method of handling bosons (a group of particles named in his honor)

Oskar Klein 1894-1977 Swedish introduced the physical notion of extra dimensions that helped develop the Kaluza-Klein theory; co-developed the Klein-Gordon equation describing the relativistic behavior of spinless particles; co-developed the Klein-Nishina formula describing relativistic electron-photon scattering

Vladimir A. Fock 1898-1974Russian made fundamental contributions to quantum theory; invented the Hartree-Fock approximation method and the notion of Fock space

Leo Szilard 1898-1964Hungarian-born American first suggested possibility of a nuclear chain reaction

Pierre Auger 1899-1993French discovered the Auger effect whereby an electron is ejected from an atom without the emission of an x-ray or gamma-ray photon as the result of the de-excitation of an excited electron within the atom; discovered cosmic-ray air showers

Ernst Ising 1900-1998German-born American developed the Ising model of ferromagnetism

Fritz London 1900-1954German-born American co-developed the phenomenological theory of superconductivity; co-developed the first quantum-mechanical treatment of the hydrogen molecule; determined that the electromagnetic gauge is the phase of the Schrödinger wave function

Charles Francis Richter 1900-1985American established the Richter scale for the measurement of earthquake intensity

George E. Uhlenbeck 1900-1988Dutch co-discovered that the electron has an intrinsic spin

Robert J. Van de Graaf 1901-1967American invented the Van de Graaf electrostatic generator

Samuel Abraham Goudsmit 1902-1978Dutch co-discovered that the electron has an intrinsic spin

Igor Vasilievich Kurchatov 1903-1960Soviet headed the Soviet atomic and hydrogen bomb programs

John von Neumann 1903-1957Hungarian-born American formulated a fully quantum mechanical generalization of statistical mechanics

George Gamow 1904-1968Russian-born American first suggested hydrogen fusion as source of solar energy; introduced the term ``Big Bang''

J. Robert Oppenheimer 1904-1967American headed Manhattan Project to develop the nuclear fission bomb

Sir Rudolf Peierls 1907-1995German-born British many contributions in theoretical physics, including an improved calculation of the critical mass needed to make a fission bomb

Edward Teller 1908-2003Hungarian-born American helped develop atomic and hydrogen bombs

Victor F. Weisskopf 1908-Austrian-born American made theoretical contributions to quantum electrodynamics, nuclear structure, and elementary particle physics

Homi Jehangir Bhabha 1909-1966Indian initiated nuclear research programs in India; carried out experiments in cosmic rays; calculated cross section for elastic electron-positron scattering

Nikolai N. Bogolubov 1909-1992

Russian theoretical physicist and mathematician who contributed to the microscopic theory of superfluidity; also contributed to theory of elementary particles, including the S-matrix and dispersion relations, and to nonlinear mechanics and the general theory of dynamical systems

Maurice Goldhaber 1911-Austrian-born American first measured (with James Chadwick) an accurate mass for the neutron; participated in experiments proving that beta rays are identical to atomic electrons; developed (with Edward Teller) the concept of coherent oscillations of protons and neutrons in nuclei leading to the giant dipole resonance; performed an experiment showing that neutrinos are created with negative helicity, which provided conclusive evidence for the V-A theory of weak interactions; participated in experiments that obtained an upper limit on the rate of proton decay and that provided evidence for neutrino oscillations

Chien-Shiung Wu 1912-1997Chinese-born American experimentally proved that parity is not conserved in nuclear beta decay

Henry Primakoff 1914-1983 Russian-born American co-developed the theory of spin waves; first described the process that became known as the ``Primakoff effect'' (the coherent photoproduction of neutral mesons in the electric field of an atomic nucleus); contributed to understanding of various manifestations of the weak interaction, including muon capture, double-beta decay, and the interaction of neutrinos with nuclei

Robert Rathbun Wilson 1914-2000 American driving force behind creation of Fermilab and Cornell University's Laboratory of Nuclear Studies; a leader in the formation of the Federation of Atomic Scientists; did extensive measurements of kaon and pion photoproduction in which he made the first observation of a new state of the nucleon, N(1440)

Vitaly L. Ginzburg 1916- Russian contributed to theory of superconductivity and theory of high-energy processes in astrophysics; co-discovered transition radiation, emitted when charged particles traverse interface between two different media

Robert E. Marshak 1916-1993American contributed to theoretical particle physics; independently proposed (with George Sudarshan) the V-A theory of weak interactions; developed explanation of how shock waves behave under conditions of extremely high temperatures

Wolfgang K. H. Panofsky 1919-2007German-born American co-discovered the neutral pion via photoproduction; studied gamma rays from pi- captured in hydrogen and first measured the ``Panofsky ratio''

Robert V. Pound 1919-Canadian-born American used the Mössbauer effect to measure (with Glen A. Rebka, Jr.) the gravitational redshift predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity

Vernon W. Hughes 1921-2003American participated in experiments to test the fundamental QED interaction using the muonium atom

Yoichiro Nambu 1921- Japanese-born American contributed to elementary particle theory; recognized the role played by spontaneous symmetry-breaking in analogy with superconductivity theory; formulated the gauge theorgy of color, quantum chromodynamics

Freeman J. Dyson 1923-British-born American made many important contribututions to quantum field theory, including the demonstration that the Feynman rules are direct and rigorous consequences of quantum field theory; advocated exploration of the solar system by humans; speculated on the possibility of extraterrestrial civilizations

Calvin F. Quate 1923-American made pioneering contributions to nanoscale measurement science through the development and application of scanning probe microscropes

Lincoln Wolfenstein 1923-American contributed to theory of weak interactions, especially concerning neutrino masses, the origin of CP violation, lepton number violation, the solar neutrino problem, and Higgs boson properties

James E. Zimmerman 1923-1999American co-invented the radio-frequency superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID), a practical magnetometer/amplifier with extreme sensitivity limited only by the uncertainty principle

Felix Hans Boehm 1924-Swiss-born American pioneered the use of nuclear-physics techniques for exploring fundamental questions concerning the weak interactions and the nature of neutrinos

Ernest M. Henley 1924-German-born American contributed to the theoretical understanding of how symmetries place restrictions on theories and models; the connection of quarks and gluons to nucleon-meson degrees of freedom; the changes that occur when hadrons are placed in a nuclear medium

Benoit Mandelbrot 1924- developed theory of fractals

D. Allan Bromley 1926-2005Canadian served as Science Advisor to the President of the United States; carried out pioneering studies of nuclear structure and dynamics; considered the father of modern heavy-ion science

Sidney D. Drell 1926-American made important theoretical contributions to particle physics and quantum electrodynamics; specialist in arms control and national security

Albert V. Crewe 1927-British-born American developed the first practical scanning electron microscope

John Stewart Bell 1928-1990Irish proved the inherent nonlocality of quantum mechanics

Stanley Mandelstam 1928- South African contributed to the modern understanding of relativistic particle scattering through his representation of the analytic properties of scattering amplitudes in the form of double dispersion relations (Mandelstam representation); applied path-integral quantization methods to string theory

Peter Higgs 1929- British proposed with others the Higgs mechanism by which particles are endowed with mass by interacting with the Higgs field, which is carried by Higgs bosons

Mildred S. Dresselhaus 1930- American contributed to the advance of solid-state physics, especially involving carbon-based materials, including fullerenes and nanotubes (a.k.a., buckyballs and buckytubes)

Joel Lebowitz 1930-Swiss-born American contributed to condensed matter theory, especially involving statistical mechanics: phase transitions; derivation of hydrodynamical equations from microscopic kinetics; statistical mechanics of plasmas

John P. Schiffer 1930-

American studied nuclear structure, pion absorption in nuclei, ion traps and crystalline beams, heavy-ion physics, and the Mössbauer effect

Akito Arima ca. 1931- Japanese co-developed the Interacting Boson Model of the atomic nucleus

T. Kenneth Fowler 1931-American contributed to the theory of plasma physics and magnetic fusion

Tullio Regge 1931-Italian developed the theory of Regge trajectories by investigating the asymptotic behavior of potential-scattering processes through the analytic continuation of the angular momentum to the complex plane

Oscar Wallace Greenberg 1932-American introduced color as a quantum number to resolve the quark statistics paradox

John Dirk Walecka 1932- American contributed to the theoretical understanding of the atomic nucleus as a relativistic quantum many-body system; provided theoretical guidance in exploiting electromagnetic and weak probes of the nucleus

Daniel Kleppner 1932-American co-invented the hydrogen maser; explores quantum chaos by optical spectroscopy of Rydberg atoms

Jeffrey Goldstone 1933-American contributed to understanding the role of massless particles in spontaneous symmetry breaking (Goldstone bosons)

John N. Bahcall 1934-2005American made important theoretical contributions to understanding solar neutrinos and quasars

James D. Bjorken 1934- American formulated the scaling law for deep inelastic processes and made other outstanding contributions to particle physics and quantum field theory

Ludvig Faddeev 1934- Russian made many theoretical contributions in quantum field theory and mathematical physics; developed the Faddeev equation in connection with the three-body system; co-developed the Faddeev-Popov covariant prescription for quantizing non-Abelian gauge theories; contributed to the quantum inverse scattering method and the quantum theory of solitons

David J. Thouless 1934-American contributed to condensed matter theory, especially vortices in superfluids, the quantum Hall effect, and topological quantum numbers

Peter A. Carruthers 1935-1997American contributed to several areas of theoretical physics, including condensed matter, quantum optics, elementary particle physics, and field theory; statistics and dynamics of galaxy distributions

Gordon A. Baym 1935-American contributed to several areas of theoretical physics, including condensed matter, low-temperature physics including superfluidity, statistical physics, nuclear physics, and astrophysics; made advances in quantum statistical mechanics and the study of neutron stars

Stanley J. Brodsky 1940-American contributed to theoretical understanding of high-energy physics, especially the quark-gluon structure of hadrons in quantum chromodynamics

Haim Harari 1940- Israeli predicted the existence of the top quark, which he named; also named the bottom quark

Kip S. Thorne 1940-American contributed to theoretical understanding of black holes and gravitational radiation; co-founded the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory Project (LIGO)

Francesco Iachello 1942-Italian-born American co-developed the Interacting Boson Model of the atomic nucleus; introduced supersymmetry in nuclei (1980); developed the Vibron Model of molecules (1981)

Gabriele Veneziano 1942- Italian first introduced string theory to describe the strong force without using quantum fields

Chris Quigg 1944-American contributed to theoretical understanding of high-energy collisions and the fundamental interactions of elementary particles

Thomas A. Witten 1944-American contributed to theory of soft condensed matter; structured fluids

Howard Georgi 1947-American co-developed the SU(5) and SO(10) grand unified theories of all elementary particle forces; developed the modern QCD-inspired quark model; helped develop the modern theory of perturbative QCD

Nathan Isgur 1947-2001American contributed to understanding the quark structure of baryon resonances; discovered a new symmetry of nature that describes the behavior of heavy quarks

Edward Witten 1951-American made fundamental contributions to manifold theory, string theory, and the theory of supersymmetric quantum mechanics

Ralph Charles Merkle 1952- American leading theorist of molecular nanotechnology; invented the encryption technology that allows secure translations over the internet

K. Eric Drexler 1955-American father of nanotechnology

Nathan Seiberg 1956-American contributed to the development of supersymmetric field theories and string theories in various dimensions

Stephen Wolfram 1959-British created Mathematica, the first modern computer algebra system; contributed to development of complexity theory