Physics · Curated list
Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Galileo Galilei and 37 more, ranked by how much of the world has written about each one.
Most written-about first. Each description summarises the physicist's Wikipedia article, which its name links to.
1
German-born theoretical physicist (1879–1955)
A theoretical physicist, born in Germany, known above all for his theory of relativity. He also made important contributions to quantum theory.
Wikidata · Photo: Oren Jack Turner, Public domain
2
English polymath (1642–1727)
An English polymath whose work spanned mathematics, physics and astronomy as well as alchemy and theology; he was also an author and an inventor. He played a central part in the Scientific Revolution and in the Enlightenment that came after it.
Wikidata · Photo: Godfrey Kneller, Public domain
3
Italian physicist and astronomer (1564–1642)
An Italian astronomer, physicist, engineer and polymath whose full name was Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei, usually shortened to Galileo Galilei or simply Galileo. He was born in Pisa, which then belonged to the Duchy of Florence.
Wikidata · Photo: Justus Sustermans, Public domain
4
French philosopher and mathematician (1596–1650)
A French mathematician, scientist and philosopher whose work underpins both mathematics and modern philosophy. He joined geometry and algebra, until then separate, into analytic geometry, and set out a systematic method of inquiry that shaped early modern philosophy.
Wikidata · Photo: After Frans Hals, Public domain
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5
Polish-French physicist and chemist (1867–1934)
Maria Salomea Skłodowska Curie, a physicist and chemist who was Polish and a naturalised French citizen. The 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics went jointly to her and her husband, Pierre Curie, "for their joint researches on the radioactivity phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel".
Wikidata · Photo: Unknown author, Public domain
%2C%20por%20Domenico%20Fetti.jpg?width=800)
6
Greek mathematician and physicist (c. 287 – 212 BC)
A mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer and inventor of Ancient Greece, from Syracuse in Sicily. Little is known of his life, but his surviving work places him among the foremost scientists of classical antiquity and the greatest mathematicians ever.
Wikidata · Photo: Domenico Fetti, Public domain
7
Serbian-American engineer and inventor (1856–1943)
A Serbian-American inventor, engineer and futurist. He is known for what he contributed to the design of the modern electricity supply system using alternating current (AC).
Wikidata · Photo: Napoleon Sarony, Public domain
8
Mathematician and astronomer (1473–1543)
A Renaissance polymath who proposed a model of the universe with the Sun, not the Earth, at its centre. He published it in De revolutionibus orbium coelestium shortly before he died in 1543; the book was a landmark in the history of science, setting off the Copernican Revolution and helping to open the Scientific Revolution.
Wikidata · Photo: Unknown author, Public domain
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9
English theoretical physicist (1942–2018)
Stephen William Hawking, an English author, cosmologist and theoretical astrophysicist, who directed research at the University of Cambridge's Centre for Theoretical Cosmology. From 1979 to 2009 he held Cambridge's Lucasian Professorship of Mathematics, widely seen as one of the world's most prestigious academic posts.
Wikidata · Photo: Tanya Hart, CC BY-SA 2.0
10
German polymath and scholar (1777–1855)
A German scientist who worked as a physicist, geodesist and astronomer as well as a mathematician, contributing across mathematics and science. In mathematics alone his work reached into number theory, algebra and analysis, geometry, probability and statistics.
Wikidata · Photo: Gottlieb Biermann / After Christian Albrecht Jensen, Public domain
11
French polymath (1623–1662)
A French mathematician, physicist, inventor and philosopher, and a Catholic writer.
Wikidata · Photo: unknown; a copy of the painting of François II Quesnel, which was made for Gérard Edelinck en 1691 [réf. nécessaire] ., Public domain
12
Swiss mathematician (1707–1783)
A Swiss polymath who worked as an astronomer, physicist, engineer, logician, geographer and music theorist, and as a mathematician. Graph theory and topology began with him, and he made important discoveries across mathematics, among them in infinitesimal calculus, complex analysis and analytic number theory.
Wikidata · Photo: Jakob Emanuel Handmann, Public domain
13
German astronomer and mathematician (1571–1630)
A German polymath: astronomer, astrologer, mathematician, music theorist and natural philosopher. A leading figure of the Scientific Revolution of the 17th century, he is remembered chiefly for the laws of planetary motion that bear his name, and for three books: Harmonice Mundi, Astronomia nova and Epitome Astronomiae Copernicanae.
Wikidata · Photo: Hans von Aachen, Public domain
14
Danish physicist (1885–1962)
Niels Henrik David Bohr, a Danish theoretical physicist whose foundational work on quantum theory and on how atoms are structured earned him the 1922 Nobel Prize in Physics. He was a philosopher too, and promoted scientific research.
Wikidata · Photo: The American Institute of Physics credits the photo [1] to AB Lagrelius & Westphal , which is the Swedish company used…, Public domain
15
German physicist (1858–1947)
Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck, a German theoretical physicist. His many contributions to theoretical physics came chiefly as the originator of quantum theory and as a founder of modern physics, which transformed how atomic and subatomic processes are understood.
Wikidata · Photo: Courtesy of the Clendening History of Medicine Library, University of Kansas Medical Center., CC BY-SA 3.0
16
English chemist and physicist (1791–1867)
An English physicist and chemist who contributed enormously to the study of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. Among his main discoveries are the principles behind electromagnetic induction, electrolysis and diamagnetism.
Wikidata · Photo: Thomas Phillips, Public domain
17
New Zealand physicist and chemist (1871–1937)
Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, a physicist and chemist from New Zealand who pioneered research in both nuclear and atomic physics. He has been called "the father of nuclear physics" and "the greatest experimentalist since Michael Faraday".
Wikidata · Photo: George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress), Public domain
18
Italian-American physicist (1901–1954)
A physicist, Italian and a naturalised American, famed for creating Chicago Pile-1, the world's first artificial nuclear reactor, and for his part in the Manhattan Project. The Nobel Prize in Physics for 1938 was his, awarded "for his demonstrations of the existence of new radioactive elements produced by neutron irradiation, and for his related discovery of nuclear reactions brought about by slow neutrons".
Wikidata · Photo: Department of Energy-Office of Public Affairs, restored by Yann, Public domain
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19
Austrian physicist (1887–1961)
Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger, whose name is sometimes anglicised as Schroedinger or Schrodinger, an Austrian theoretical physicist who produced fundamental results in quantum theory. He is known above all for the Schrödinger equation, which gives a way to calculate a system's wave function and how it evolves over time.
Wikidata · Photo: Unknown author, Public domain
20
Scottish physicist and mathematician (1831–1879)
A Scottish physicist and mathematician who produced the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation, the first to treat electricity, magnetism and light as forms of one phenomenon. His equations for electromagnetism were the second great unification in physics, after the first, which Isaac Newton had achieved.
Wikidata · Photo: Unknown author, Public domain
21
American theoretical physicist (1918–1988)
Richard Phillips Feynman, an American theoretical physicist. The 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics was divided between him, Shin'ichirō Tomonaga and Julian Schwinger "for their fundamental work in quantum electrodynamics (QED), with deep-ploughing consequences for the physics of elementary particles".
Wikidata · Photo: Copyright Tamiko Thiel 1984, CC BY-SA 3.0
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22
German physicist (1845–1923)
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, a German experimental physicist who generated and detected the electromagnetic radiation of the wavelengths known as X-rays. In 1901 he became the first person awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by the discovery of the remarkable rays subsequently named after him."
Wikidata · Photo: Erwin Hanfstaengl, Public domain
23
American scientist and science communicator (1934–1996)
Carl Edward Sagan, an American planetary scientist, astronomer and science communicator. He started as an assistant professor at Harvard and later went to Cornell, where he directed the Laboratory for Planetary Studies and held the David Duncan Professorship of Astronomy and Space Sciences.
24
German physicist (1901–1976)
Werner Karl Heisenberg, a German theoretical physicist, one of the chief pioneers of quantum mechanics and a leading scientist of Germany's nuclear programme in World War II.
Wikidata · Photo: Unknown author, CC BY-SA 3.0 de
25
English physicist (1818–1889)
An English physicist who studied what heat is and discovered how it relates to mechanical work.
26
French mathematician, physicist and engineer (1854–1912)
Jules Henri Poincaré, a French philosopher of science, engineer, theoretical physicist and mathematician. Often called a polymath, he is known in mathematics as "The Last Universalist" because he excelled in every branch of the subject as it stood in his time.
Wikidata · Photo: Unknown author, Public domain
27
French physicist and chemist (1859–1906)
A French physicist and chemist who pioneered work in magnetism and crystallography. For their work on radioactivity, he and his wife, Maria Skłodowska-Curie, received half of the Nobel Prize in Physics for 1903.
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28
American theoretical physicist (1904–1967)
An American theoretical physicist who directed the Los Alamos Laboratory of the Manhattan Project during World War II. Because he oversaw the development of the first nuclear weapons, he is often called the "Father of the Atomic Bomb".
Wikidata · Photo: Unknown author, Public domain
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29
French polymath (1749–1827)
Pierre-Simon, Marquis de Laplace, a French polymath whose work was key to physics, astronomy, mathematics, engineering, statistics and philosophy. His five-volume Mécanique céleste (1799–1825) summed up and extended the work of those before him.
Wikidata · Photo: Jean-Baptiste Paulin Guérin, Public domain
30
British physicist (1902–1984)
Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac, an English theoretical physicist regarded as one of the founders of quantum mechanics. He laid the groundwork for quantum field theory and for quantum electrodynamics, a name he coined himself.
Wikidata · Photo: Nobel Foundation, Public domain
31
Hungarian and American mathematician and physicist (1903–1957)
A mathematician of Hungarian and American nationality who was also a physicist, an engineer and a computer scientist. He may have covered more ground than any other mathematician of his day, bringing pure and applied science together and contributing greatly to mathematics, physics, economics, computing and statistics.
32
Dutch mathematician and physicist (1629–1695)
Christiaan Huygens, Lord of Zeelhem, a Dutch inventor, astronomer, engineer, physicist and mathematician seen as a key figure of the Scientific Revolution. He made seminal contributions to optics and mechanics, and as an astronomer he studied Saturn's rings and discovered Titan, its largest moon.
Wikidata · Photo: Bernard Vaillant, Public domain
33
French physicist and mathematician (1775–1836)
A French mathematician and physicist, one of the founders of classical electromagnetism, the science he called electrodynamics. He also contributed importantly to philosophy and chemistry.
Wikidata · Photo: Anonymous Unknown author, Public domain
34
German–British physicist (1882–1970)
A German–British theoretical physicist who played a key part in developing quantum mechanics. He also contributed to optics and solid-state physics, and in the 1920s and 1930s supervised the work of several notable physicists.
35
British physicist (1856–1940)
Sir Joseph John Thomson, a physicist from Britain, awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for 1906 "in recognition of the great merits of his theoretical and experimental investigations on the conduction of electricity by gases."
Wikidata · Photo: Bain News Service, publisher, Public domain
36
Indian physicist (1888–1970)
Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, an Indian physicist known for his work on how light scatters. With a spectrograph of his own design, he and his student K. S. Krishnan found that light passing through a transparent material changes wavelength when deflected.
Wikidata · Photo: Nobel Foundation, Public domain
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37
Dutch physicist (1853–1928)
Hendrik Antoon Lorentz, a theoretical physicist from the Netherlands. For discovering the Zeeman effect and explaining it in theory, he and Pieter Zeeman shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for 1902. He derived the Lorentz transformation of special relativity, and the Lorentz force, the force a charged particle feels in an electromagnetic field.
Wikidata · Photo: Unknown author, Public domain
38
Soviet nuclear physicist and human rights activist (1921–1989)
Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov, a Soviet physicist who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975 for championing human rights around the world.
Wikidata · Photo: Vladimir Fedorenko / Владимир Федоренко, CC BY-SA 3.0
39
French mathematician (1717–1783)
A French mathematician who was also a music theorist, philosopher and physicist. Up to 1759 he co-edited the Encyclopédie with Denis Diderot.
Wikidata · Photo: After Maurice Quentin de La Tour, Public domain
40
German-British astronomer and composer (1738–1822)
Frederick William Herschel, a German–British composer and astronomer. He often worked together with his younger sister, the astronomer Caroline Herschel.
Wikidata · Photo: Lemuel Francis Abbott, Public domain
Every Wikidata item that is a person whose occupation is physicist and whose field of work is physics or a branch of it, and that has its own English Wikipedia article, ranked by the number of Wikimedia sites with a page about it — Wikipedia's language editions, mostly, and sister projects such as Wikiquote. That counts how many communities independently thought it worth describing, and nobody can buy a place on it. The top 40 are shown.
Wikidata files these under this list's query, but they are not what the list is about:
These belong on the list but Wikidata does not file them where the query looks:
Fetched from Wikidata on 2026-09-25. Each description is this site's summary of the entry's Wikipedia article, which its name links to: the wording is ours, the facts are Wikipedia's, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. To correct an entry, correct it there; the next refresh carries the change.
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