callings of the archive
Physicist Biographies
Every archived life recorded as physicist, ordered by their place in the ledger.
W. Scott Stornetta
American physicist
Modern era
Rexhep Meidani
b. August 17, 1944
Albanian politician
Modern era
Lúcio Lara
April 9, 1929 – February 27, 2016
Angolan politician (1929-2016)
Contemporary era
Armen Sarkissian
b. June 23, 1953
4th President of Armenia, Member of the Global Leadership Foundation, one of the directors of Eurasia House, physicist, diplomat, politician (born 1953)
Contemporary era
Petr Nečas
b. November 19, 1964
Czech politician, former Prime Minister of the Czech Republic
Contemporary era
Valdis Dombrovskis
b. August 5, 1971
11th Prime Minister of Latvia
Contemporary era
Rimantas Šadžius
b. October 8, 1960
Lithuanian politician
Ancient era
Thales of Miletus
c. 650 BCE – 548 BCE
Ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician
Ancient era
Heraclitus
535 BCE – c. 470 BCE
Greek philosopher (late 6th/early 5th-century BC)
Ancient era
Archimedes
287 BCE – 212 BCE
Greatest mathematician of antiquity, pioneer of mechanics and hydrostatics
Contemporary era
Angela Merkel
b. July 17, 1954
Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021 (born 1954)
Early Modern era
Galileo Galilei
February 15, 1564 – January 8, 1642
Astronomer and physicist, father of observational science
Early Modern era
Isaac Newton
December 25, 1642 – March 31, 1727
Physicist and mathematician who formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation
Modern era
Thomas Edison
February 11, 1847 – October 18, 1931
Prolific American inventor of the phonograph and practical electric light
Modern era
Nikola Tesla
July 10, 1856 – January 7, 1943
Inventor and electrical engineer who pioneered alternating current
Modern era
Marie Curie
November 7, 1867 – July 4, 1934
Physicist and chemist, first person to win Nobel Prizes in two sciences
Contemporary era
Rosalind Franklin
July 25, 1920 – April 16, 1958
Chemist whose X-ray images revealed the structure of DNA
Contemporary era
Katherine Johnson
August 26, 1918 – February 24, 2020
NASA mathematician whose orbital calculations carried astronauts home
Modern era
Vera Rubin
July 23, 1928 – December 25, 2016
American astronomer and physicist (1928-2016)
Early Modern era
Leonhard Euler
April 15, 1707 – September 18, 1783
Swiss mathematician, physicist, and engineer (1707–1783)
Modern era
Bernhard Riemann
September 17, 1826 – July 20, 1866
German mathematician (1826–1866)
Early Modern era
Blaise Pascal
June 19, 1623 – August 19, 1662
French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher (1623-1662)
Early Modern era
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
June 21, 1646 – November 14, 1716
Co-inventor of calculus and pioneer of computation
Medieval era
Ibn al-Haytham
965 CE – 1038
Arab physicist, mathematician and astronomer (c. 965 – c. 1040)
Modern era
David Hilbert
January 23, 1862 – February 14, 1943
German mathematician (1862–1943)
Modern era
Kurt Godel
April 28, 1906 – January 14, 1978
Austrian-American logician, mathematician, and philosopher of mathematics (1906–1978)
Modern era
Emmy Noether
March 23, 1882 – April 14, 1935
German Jewish mathematician (1882–1935)
Modern era
John von Neumann
December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957
Hungarian and American mathematician and physicist (1903–1957)
Early Modern era
Michael Faraday
September 22, 1791 – August 25, 1867
British scientist (1791–1867)
Modern era
James Clerk Maxwell
June 13, 1831 – November 5, 1879
Scottish physicist (1831–1879)
Modern era
Heinrich Hertz
February 22, 1857 – January 1, 1894
German physicist (1857–1894)
Modern era
Ludwig Boltzmann
February 20, 1844 – September 5, 1906
Austrian physicist and philosopher (1844–1906)
Modern era
Lord Kelvin
June 26, 1824 – December 17, 1907
British physicist and engineer (1824–1907)
Early Modern era
Christiaan Huygens
April 14, 1629 – July 8, 1695
Dutch mathematician, physicist and astronomer (1629–1695)
Early Modern era
Robert Hooke
July 18, 1635 – March 3, 1703
English natural philosopher, architect and polymath (1635 — 1703)
Early Modern era
Robert Boyle
January 25, 1627 – December 31, 1691
Anglo-Irish natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, and inventor
Early Modern era
Alessandro Volta
February 18, 1745 – March 5, 1827
Italian chemist and physicist (1745–1827)
Early Modern era
Andre-Marie Ampere
January 20, 1775 – June 10, 1836
French physicist and mathematician (1775–1836)
Early Modern era
Georg Ohm
March 16, 1789 – July 6, 1854
German physicist and mathematician
Modern era
Wilhelm Rontgen
March 27, 1845 – February 10, 1923
German physicist (1845–1923)
Modern era
Henri Becquerel
December 15, 1852 – August 25, 1908
French physicist (1852–1908)
Modern era
Pierre Curie
May 15, 1859 – April 19, 1906
French physicist (1859–1906)
Modern era
J. J. Thomson
December 18, 1856 – August 30, 1940
British physicist (1856-1940)
Modern era
Ernest Rutherford
August 30, 1871 – October 19, 1937
New Zealand physicist (1871–1937)
Modern era
Max Planck
April 23, 1858 – October 4, 1947
German theoretical physicist (1858–1947)
Modern era
Erwin Schrodinger
August 12, 1887 – January 4, 1961
Austrian physicist (1887–1961)
Modern era
Paul Dirac
August 8, 1902 – October 20, 1984
British theoretical physicist (1902–1984)
Modern era
Wolfgang Pauli
April 25, 1900 – December 15, 1958
Physicist, Nobel prize winner (1900–1958)
Modern era
Enrico Fermi
September 29, 1901 – November 28, 1954
Italian–American physicist (1901–1954)
Modern era
Lise Meitner
1878 – October 27, 1968
Austrian-Swedish physicist
Modern era
James Chadwick
October 20, 1891 – July 24, 1974
English physicist (1891-1974), who discovered the neutron in 1932
Modern era
Chien-Shiung Wu
May 31, 1912 – February 16, 1997
Chinese-American physicist (1912–1997) (death at 85 years)
Modern era
Richard Feynman
May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988
American theoretical physicist (1918–1988)
Modern era
Satyendra Nath Bose
January 1, 1894 – February 4, 1974
Indian Bengali physicist and polymath (1894–1974)
Modern era
C. V. Raman
November 7, 1888 – November 21, 1970
Indian physicist (1888–1970)
Modern era
Abdus Salam
January 29, 1926 – November 21, 1996
Theoretical physicist, and Nobel Prize in Physics recipient
Modern era
Peter Higgs
May 29, 1929 – April 8, 2024
British physicist and Nobel Prize winner (1929–2024)
Modern era
Roger Penrose
b. August 8, 1931
English mathematical physicist, recreational mathematician and philosopher
Modern era
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
October 19, 1910 – August 21, 1995
Indian-American astrophysicist
Modern era
Annie Jump Cannon
December 11, 1863 – April 13, 1941
American astronomer (1863-1941)