1737 1789 1841 1893 1945

Luigi Galvani

1737 - 1798

Italian medical doctor and biophysicist who discovered 'animal electricity' through his famous frog leg experiments, leading to the field of bioelectricity and the term 'galvanism'.

Michael Faraday

1791 - 1867

English scientist who made groundbreaking discoveries in electromagnetic induction and diamagnetism. His work laid the foundation for the modern field theory in physics.

Rudolf Clausius

1822 - 1888

German physicist who formulated the mathematical concept of entropy (1865) and introduced the first and second laws of thermodynamics. His work on gas theory introduced the concept of mean free path, applicable to both gas particles and electrons in solids.

Johann Balmer

1825 - 1898

Swiss mathematician who discovered the mathematical pattern in the wavelengths of light emitted by hydrogen atoms, now known as the Balmer series.

James Maxwell

1831 - 1879

Scottish mathematician who unified electricity and magnetism through Maxwell's equations, building on work by Ampere and Gauss. His equations demonstrated the wave nature of electromagnetic fields.

Ludwig Boltzmann

1844 - 1906

Austrian physicist who made significant contributions to statistical mechanics and the statistical interpretation of thermodynamics.

Johannes Rydberg

1854 - 1919

Swedish physicist who developed the Rydberg formula (1888), which describes the wavelengths of light emitted during electron transitions in a hydrogen atom.

Max Planck

1858 - 1947

German physicist and founder of quantum theory (1900), who discovered that energy is emitted and absorbed in discrete packets called quanta.

Lise Meitner

1878 - 1968

Austrian nuclear physicist who played a key role in the discovery of nuclear fission. Despite her crucial contributions, she was overlooked for the Nobel Prize.

Niels Bohr

1885 - 1962

Danish physicist who developed the Bohr model of the atom, which confines electron energy levels to discrete values. His work was fundamental to understanding atomic structure.

World War I

1914 - 1918

Global conflict that significantly impacted scientific research and collaboration in the physics community.

World War II

1939 - 1945

Second global conflict that had profound effects on physics research, including the development of nuclear physics through the Manhattan Project.