Famous Scientists Names

History stands as a testimony to the fact that contributions made by innovators and thinkers, has helped the human civilization to live a comfortable life. The list of famous scientists in history is a mix of great mathematicians, physicists, botanists, chemists, astrologers, and experts from every other field.

There is no subject or topic that hasn't be enlightened by their genius. In this story, I have tried to enlist the names of a few famous scientists and their discoveries, which no matter how small or insignificant they seemed initially, have gone on to shape human life, and have continually brought us new knowledge from the endless frontiers of science.

While there is a long list of famous inventors, there are some scientists whose contributions created the basic foundations for scientific research. We can safely assume that without their inputs, human knowledge would be pushed back by many decades.

An Italian physicist, mathematician, philosopher, astronomer, and a revolutionary thinker, Galileo is known as the 'father of modern observational astronomy' as he was the first to use a telescope to study the skies and identify four moons of Jupiter and the phases of Venus.

He is credited with the responsibility of the birth of modern science, as his theories, ideas, and beliefs based on scientific reasoning, started challenging the orthodox beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church.

He advocated heliocentrism proclaiming that the Earth revolved around the Sun, and suffered severe criticism from the clergy during the days of the Renaissance.

"All saw the Apple fall, but only Newton thought over it" - is a popular quote about Newton. Sir Isaac Newton, an English physicist and mathematician known for his most influential work in history of physical sciences, the Principia, introduced us to the revolutionary concept of gravity and changed the world of physics.

In his book, Newton also explained the three laws of motion and the principles of classic mechanics. Till date he is considered to be the most influential scientific mind of all time.

Thomas Edison, also known as the 'Wizard of Menlo Park' and the greatest inventor ever to have ever lived, is credited with over a thousand patented inventions. His discoveries on electric light and power, along with instruments to record motion pictures and sound can be credited with starting a revolution in the ways that people communicated and used electric power in their daily lives.

This Serbian American inventor was an highly accomplished electric and mechanical engineer. He initially worked under Thomas Edison, but over the years he broke away and turned into fierce rival for Edison. He is best known for his contribution in designing an alternating current system for supplying electricity.

This theoretical physicist shook the world with one of the most interesting and intriguing theories in physics, the theory of relativity. He is best known for his formula on mass-energy equivalence, E=mc². He has also won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of the photoelectric effect.

Understanding Einstein's theory of relativity may not be possible for every one of us, but it has given birth to a new branch of relativistic mechanics.

None can deny that every scientist has in some or the other way contributed to the growth of human development. However, describing the work of every scientist is not possible in this limited space. The names of famous scientists that are exceptionally worthy of mention are given below.

• Archimedes (287 - 212 BC): Archimedean principles, theory of buoyancy, and many other mathematical and mechanical discoveries.
• Heinrich Hertz (1857 - 1894): Electromagnetic theory of light and electromagnetic waves.

• Andre Marie Ampere (1775 - 1836): Unit of measurement to measure electric current.
• Amedeo Avogadro (1776 - 1856): Avogadro's Law, that is, "equal volumes of different gases, at the same pressure and temperature, contain the same number of molecules".

• Neils Hendrik David Bohr (1885 - 1962): Bohr Model of an atom
• Johannes Gutenberg (398 - 1468): Letterpress printing press, also known as the mechanical printing press.
• Rudolf Diesel (1858 - 1913): Diesel combustion engine.
• Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (1845-1923): X-rays
• Karl Friedrich von Drais (1785 - 1851): Bicycle

• Peter Henlein (1479 - 1542): Pocket Watch
• Ferdinand Verbiest (1623 - 1688): First steam automobile.
• Alexander Graham Bell (1847 - 1922): Graham Bell invented the first practical telephone.
• Johann Philipp Reis (1834 - 1874): Reis is known for the creation of the earliest model of a telephone.

• John Logie Baird (1888 - 1946): John Logie Baird invented the television.
• Werner von Siemens (1816 - 1892): Pointer Telegraph
• Hans von Ohain (1911 - 1998): Jet engine
• Artur Fischer (1919): Plastic wall plugs
• Felix Hoffmann (1868 - 1946): Aspirin
• Hugo Junkers (1859 - 1935): Civilian Aviation
• Otto Lilienthal (1848 - 1896): Gliding flights

• Melitta Bentz (1873 - 1950): Coffee Filter
• Konrad Zuse (1910 - 1995): First 'programmable' computer.
• Gottlieb Daimler (1834 - 1900): Automobile & internal combustion machine, High speed petrol engine.
• Robert Koch (1843 - 1910): Isolation of Bacillus anthracis, tuberculosis bacteria & Vibrio cholerae. Also known for his Koch's postulates.

• Karlheinz Brandenburg (1954): MP3 Technology
• Heinrich Göbel (1818 - 1893): Incandescent light bulb
• Samuel Hahnemann (1755 - 1843 ): Creation of an alternative medicinal practice called homeopathy.
• Heinrich Focke (1890 - 1979): Helicopter propulsion system
• Levi Strauss (1829 - 1902): Jeans

• Julius Lothar Meyer (1830 - 1895): First person to draw the periodic table of chemical elements.
• Emil Berliner (1851 - 1929): Disc-record gramophone
• Emil Berliner (1851 - 1929): Disc-record gramophone
• Fritz Pfleumer (1881 - 1945): Magnetic audio tape

• Elias Howe (1819 - 1867): Sewing machine
• László József Bíró (1899 - 1985): Ballpoint pen
• Garrett Augustus Morgan (1877 - 1963): Traffic signal, respiratory protective mask (gas mask), hair straightening solution.
• Samuel F. B. Morse (1791 - 1872): Single wire Telegraph

• Percy Spencer (1894 - 1970): Microwave oven
• Orville Wright, Wilbur Wright (1871 - 1948, 1867 - 1912): Invention of the Airplane
• Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790): One of the founding fathers of America, Franklin is attributed to have invented the lightning rod, and bifocal spectacles.

• Lynn Margulis
• Nicolaus Copernicus
• Noam Chomsky
• Paul Dirac
• Paul Ehrlich
• Pierre Simon de Laplace
• Richard Feynman

• Karl Landsteiner
• Konrad Lorenz
• Leonard Euler
• Linus Pauling
• Louis Victor de Broglie
• Lucretius
• Ludwig Boltzmann

• Willard Libby
• William Bayliss
• Sheldon Glashow
• Sigmund Freud
• Marcello Malpighi
• Marie Curie
• Stephen Hawking
• Theodosius Dobzhansky
• Thomas Hunt Morgan
• Trofim Lysenko
• Tycho Brahe

• Werner Heisenberg
• Wilhelm Wundt
• Rudolf Virchow
• William Harvey
• William Herschel
• Jean Piaget
• John Bardeen
• John Dalton
• Albrecht von Haller
• Max Born
• Max Delbruck
• Max Planck
• Max von Laue
• Michael Faraday
• Murray Gell-Mann

• Edward Teller
• Emil Fischer
• Alexander Fleming
• Andreas Vesalius
• Antoine Laurent Lavoisier
• Anton van Leeuwenhoek
• Arthur Eddington
• August Kekule
• C.V. Raman
• Homi Jehnagir Bhabha
• Jagdish Chandra Bose
• Vikram Sarabhai
• B. F. Skinner
• Karl Friedrich Gauss

• Charles Lyell
• Charles Sherrington
• Christiaan Huygens
• Claude Bernard
• Claude Levi-Strauss
• Comte de Buffon
• Dmitri Mendeleev
• Edward O. Wilson
• Emil Kraepelin
• Enrico Fermi
• Ernest Rutherford
• Ernst Haeckel
• Ernst Mayr
• Erwin Schrodinger
• Euclid

• Francis Crick
• Francis Galton
• Franz Boas
• Frederick Sanger
• Alfred Binet
• Alfred Kinsey
• Alfred Wegener
• George Gaylord Simpson
• Gertrude Belle Elion
• Gregor Mendel
• Gustav Kirchhoff
• Hans Bethe
• Hans Selye
• Heike Kamerlingh Onnes

• Hermann von Helmholtz
• J. Robert Oppenheimer
• Charles Drew
• James Clerk Maxwell
• James Watson
• Srinivasa Ramanujan
• Har Gobind Khorana
• Meghnad Saha
• Prafulla Chandra Ray
• Satyendra Nath Bose

• Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar
• Subramaniam Chandrasekhar
• C. R. Rao
• K. Chandrasekharan
• Jean Baptiste Lamarck
• John von Neumann
• Jonas Salk
• Joseph J. Thomson
• Justus Liebig

In case, you find, that I have missed some of the names, please comment below and share the rich legacy of these scientists with millions of readers!