Science

Discoveries that change how we understand the world.

People in Science

332 profiles

Scientist

Marie Curie

Discovering polonium and radium.

Physicist

Albert Einstein

Developing the theory of relativity.

Naturalist

Charles Darwin

Explaining evolution through natural selection.

Physicist

Isaac Newton

Formulating the laws of motion and universal gravitation.

Mathematician

Katherine Johnson

Calculating flight paths for early US space missions.

Chemist

Rosalind Franklin

Producing crucial X-ray evidence for DNA’s structure.

Physicist

Pierre Curie

Discovering polonium and radium with Marie Curie.

Physicist

Stephen Hawking

Predicting that black holes emit radiation.

Physicist

Satyendra Nath Bose

The particle statistics behind bosons and Bose–Einstein condensates.

Physicist

C. V. Raman

Discovering how scattered light reveals the molecules it meets.

Scientist

Jagadish Chandra Bose

Pioneering microwave experiments and measuring electrical responses in plants.

Physicist

Homi J. Bhabha

Building the institutions behind India’s nuclear programme.

Agricultural scientist

M. S. Swaminathan

Helping transform India’s food production through the Green Revolution.

Botanist

Janaki Ammal

Using plant chromosomes to improve crops and understand their diversity.

Statistician

C. R. Rao

Establishing fundamental ways to measure and improve statistical estimates.

Mathematician

Srinivasa Ramanujan

Extraordinary discoveries about numbers, infinite series and partitions.

Biophysicist

G. N. Ramachandran

Mapping how protein chains can fold and proposing collagen’s triple helix.

Scientist

Galileo Galilei

Using telescopic observations to challenge the Earth-centred universe.

Astronomer

Nicolaus Copernicus

Placing the moving Earth around the Sun in a new model of the heavens.

Chemist

Linus Pauling

Explaining chemical bonds and winning separate Nobel Prizes for chemistry and peace.

Chemist

Otto Hahn

Finding chemical evidence that uranium nuclei can split.

Primatologist

Jane Goodall

Revealing that wild chimpanzees make and use tools.

Chemist

Percy Julian

Synthesising medicinal compounds and developing industrial chemistry from soybeans.

Chemist

Glenn T. Seaborg

Helping discover transuranium elements and reorganising the periodic table’s actinide series.

Neuroscientist

Santiago Ramón y Cajal

Establishing that the nervous system is built from individual cells.

Physicist

John Bardeen

Co-inventing the transistor and helping explain superconductivity.

Geneticist

Barbara McClintock

Discovering mobile genetic elements, often called jumping genes.

Mathematician

Blaise Pascal

Advancing probability, pressure research and early mechanical calculation.

Biologist

Gregor Mendel

Revealing patterns of inheritance through pea-plant experiments.

Scientist

Irène Joliot-Curie

Discovering artificial radioactivity with Frédéric Joliot-Curie.

Scientist

Michael Faraday

Discovering electromagnetic induction, the basis of electric generators.

Physicist

Enrico Fermi

Leading the first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.

Physicist

Niels Bohr

Explaining atomic energy levels and helping establish quantum physics.

Astronomer

Edwin Hubble

Showing that galaxies exist beyond the Milky Way and helping establish the expanding universe.

Microbiologist

Louis Pasteur

Explaining microbial fermentation, developing pasteurisation and advancing vaccination.

Physicist

Chien-Shiung Wu

Leading the experiment that showed nature’s weak interaction does not obey mirror symmetry.

Physicist

Abdus Salam

Helping develop electroweak theory, which connects two fundamental forces.

Mathematician

Al-Khwarizmi

Writing a foundational algebra treatise and helping transmit positional arithmetic.

Agricultural scientist

George Washington Carver

Helping farmers restore worn-out soil and grow alternatives to cotton.

Astronomer

Carl Sagan

Bringing astronomy into ordinary homes through Cosmos and exploring the possibility of life beyond Earth.

Physicist

J. Robert Oppenheimer

Directing Los Alamos during the development of the first atomic bombs.

Physicist

Ibn al-Haytham

Explaining vision through light entering the eye and developing experimental studies of optics.

Biologist

Yoshinori Ohsumi

Revealing how cells dismantle and recycle their own components through autophagy.

Chemist

Ahmed Zewail

Using ultrafast laser pulses to observe chemical bonds breaking and forming.

Biologist

Venki Ramakrishnan

Mapping the ribosome, the molecular machinery that builds proteins.

Physicist

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar

Discovering the mass limit beyond which a white dwarf cannot support itself.

Chemist

Dorothy Hodgkin

Using X-rays to reveal the structures of penicillin, vitamin B12 and insulin.

Biochemist

Jennifer Doudna

Co-developing CRISPR-Cas9 as a programmable tool for editing DNA.

Microbiologist

Emmanuelle Charpentier

Co-developing CRISPR-Cas9 as a programmable method for editing DNA.

Geneticist

Svante Pääbo

Recovering ancient human DNA and revealing our genetic connections with Neanderthals and Denisovans.

Physicist

Max Planck

Introducing energy quanta and helping launch quantum physics.

Physicist

Werner Heisenberg

Formulating matrix mechanics and the uncertainty principle.

Physicist

Erwin Schrödinger

Developing the wave equation at the heart of quantum mechanics.

Physicist

Paul Dirac

Developing a relativistic equation for the electron that pointed towards antimatter.

Physicist

Richard Feynman

Developing quantum electrodynamics tools and explaining physics with unusual clarity.

Physicist

Chen Ning Yang

Challenging mirror symmetry in particle physics and co-developing Yang–Mills theory.

Physicist

Tsung-Dao Lee

Helping reveal that weak interactions do not obey mirror symmetry.

Physicist

Peter Higgs

Proposing a mechanism that helps explain how elementary particles acquire mass.

Biochemist

Har Gobind Khorana

Helping decipher how the genetic code specifies proteins.

Biologist

Richard Dawkins

Explaining evolution through The Selfish Gene and becoming a prominent advocate of atheism.

Astronomer

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Bringing astronomy to mass audiences through Cosmos and StarTalk.

Mathematician

Maryam Mirzakhani

Becoming the first woman to receive the Fields Medal for work on curved surfaces.

Mathematician

Aryabhata

Developing influential mathematical and astronomical methods in the Aryabhatiya.

Biochemist

Luis Federico Leloir

Discovering how sugar nucleotides help cells build carbohydrates.

Mathematician

Terence Tao

Making major contributions across analysis, number theory and combinatorics.

Chemist

Mario Molina

Showing how CFC gases threaten the ozone layer.

Mathematician

Emmy Noether

Connecting symmetry with conservation laws and transforming abstract algebra.

Mathematician

Brahmagupta

Setting out influential rules for zero, negative numbers and algebra.

Agricultural scientist

Yuan Longping

Helping develop high-yield hybrid rice for large-scale cultivation.

Scientist

Al-Biruni

Combining mathematical astronomy with detailed studies of cultures and calendars.

Physicist

Donna Strickland

Developing a method for producing extremely intense, short laser pulses.

Mathematician

Bhaskara II

Writing influential works on arithmetic, algebra and mathematical astronomy.

Mathematician

Omar Khayyam

Working on cubic equations and calendar reform, alongside a lasting poetic reputation.

Mathematician

David Blackwell

Advancing statistics, decision theory and the mathematical study of information.

Physicist

Lise Meitner

Helping explain nuclear fission after decades of research into radioactivity.

Mathematician

John von Neumann

Shaping modern computing, game theory and mathematical physics.

Mental calculator

Shakuntala Devi

Performing extraordinary calculations mentally before live audiences.

Physicist

Fabiola Gianotti

Leading CERN and helping present the discovery of the Higgs boson.

Mathematician

John Nash

Developing the equilibrium concept central to modern game theory.

Mathematician

Dorothy Vaughan

Leading Black women mathematicians at Langley and helping them move into computer programming.

Physicist

Ernest Rutherford

Revealing the tiny nucleus at the centre of the atom.

Physicist

James Clerk Maxwell

Uniting electricity, magnetism and light in one theory.

Physicist

Heinrich Hertz

Proving that radio waves exist.

Physicist

Max Born

Explaining quantum waves in terms of probability.

Physicist

Wolfgang Pauli

Formulating the exclusion principle that helps explain atomic structure.

Chemist

Ada Yonath

Revealing the structure of the ribosome, the cell’s protein-making machinery.

Chemist

Frances Arnold

Using directed evolution to engineer useful enzymes.

Neuroscientist

Rita Levi-Montalcini

Discovering nerve growth factor, a signal that supports nerve cells.

Biologist

Shinya Yamanaka

Reprogramming adult cells into stem cells.

Neuroscientist

May-Britt Moser

Discovering grid cells that help the brain map space.

Neuroscientist

Edvard Moser

Co-discovering the grid cells used in the brain’s spatial navigation.

Biologist

Flossie Wong-Staal

Cloning HIV and mapping genes central to understanding AIDS.

Biologist

Ernest Everett Just

Showing the importance of the cell surface in fertilisation and development.

Chemist

Alice Ball

Developing an injectable chaulmoogra-oil treatment for Hansen’s disease.

Chemist

Lloyd Quarterman

Contributing fluorine chemistry to the Manhattan Project and later nuclear research.

Biologist

Charles Henry Turner

Demonstrating learning and flexible behaviour in insects.

Astronomer

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin

Showing that stars consist mainly of hydrogen and helium.

Astronomer

Vera Rubin

Finding powerful evidence for dark matter through galaxy rotation.

Astronomer

Jocelyn Bell Burnell

Discovering the first pulsars as a research student.

Astronomer

Annie Jump Cannon

Creating the stellar classification sequence used to organise stars by their spectra.

Astronomer

Henrietta Swan Leavitt

Discovering a relationship that made Cepheid stars cosmic distance markers.

Mathematician

Leonhard Euler

Transforming mathematics, from calculus and number theory to the beginnings of graph theory.

Mathematician

Carl Friedrich Gauss

Reshaping number theory and geometry, and calculating the orbit that helped astronomers recover Ceres.

Mathematician

Bernhard Riemann

Developing the geometry later used in general relativity and posing the Riemann hypothesis about prime numbers.

Mathematician

David Hilbert

Setting out 23 problems that helped shape twentieth-century mathematics.

Mathematician

Georg Cantor

Showing that infinite sets can have different sizes and helping establish set theory.

Mathematician

Henri Poincaré

Pioneering topology and revealing the unpredictable behaviour now associated with chaos theory.

Mathematician

Sophie Germain

Advancing number theory and the mathematics of vibrating surfaces while excluded from formal university study.

Mathematician

Sofya Kovalevskaya

Making major advances in differential equations and becoming a pioneering woman professor of mathematics.

Mathematician

Julia Robinson

Helping prove that no universal algorithm can solve every whole-number equation of a certain kind.

Mathematician

Karen Uhlenbeck

Pioneering geometric analysis and becoming the first woman to receive the Abel Prize.

Mathematician

Ingrid Daubechies

Developing wavelets that helped make digital image compression practical.

Mathematician

Andrew Wiles

Proving Fermat’s Last Theorem after it had resisted mathematicians for more than three centuries.

Mathematician

Grigori Perelman

Solving the Poincaré conjecture, a century-old problem about the shape of three-dimensional spaces.

Mathematician

Cédric Villani

Winning the Fields Medal for work explaining how physical systems approach equilibrium.

Mathematician

Manjul Bhargava

Winning the Fields Medal for new ways to count and understand important number systems.

Mathematician

Archimedes

Explaining buoyancy and using geometry to calculate the sizes of curved shapes with extraordinary precision.

Chemist

Carolyn Bertozzi

Developing chemical reactions that can work inside living systems without disrupting their normal chemistry.

Physicist

Hideki Yukawa

Predicting a particle that could carry the force binding atomic nuclei, becoming Japan’s first Nobel laureate.

Mathematician

Jamshid al-Kashi

Calculating pi with remarkable accuracy and developing powerful arithmetic methods at Samarkand’s scientific court.

Mathematician

Akshay Venkatesh

Connecting number theory with geometry and dynamics, earning the 2018 Fields Medal.

Physicist

Lawrence Bragg

Using X-rays to reveal crystal structures and sharing the 1915 physics Nobel with his father at age 25.

Chemist

Moungi Bawendi

Developing a practical way to make high-quality quantum dots, tiny crystals with size-dependent colours.

Mathematician

Artur Avila

Transforming the study of dynamical systems and becoming the first Latin American Fields medallist in 2014.

Mathematician

Euclid

Organising geometry into a logical system of definitions, assumptions and proofs in the Elements.

Physicist

Arthur Compton

Showing that X-rays scatter like particles in the Compton effect, a crucial result in quantum physics.

Mathematician

Shing-Tung Yau

Proving the Calabi conjecture and transforming the study of curved spaces through geometric analysis.

Mathematician

Nasir al-Din al-Tusi

Developing trigonometry and planetary models, and establishing the great observatory at Maragha.

Chemist

Dmitri Mendeleev

Creating a periodic table that predicted the properties of elements before they were discovered.

Physicist

Julian Schwinger

Developing quantum electrodynamics, the theory describing how light and electrically charged particles interact.

Mathematician

Liu Hui

Explaining the reasoning behind ancient Chinese mathematical procedures and refining calculations of pi.

Mathematician

Caucher Birkar

Making major advances in classifying algebraic shapes, including a proof of boundedness for Fano varieties.

Chemist

Antoine Lavoisier

Transforming chemistry through precise measurement and explaining combustion in terms of oxygen.

Physicist

Murray Gell-Mann

Proposing quarks: the building blocks inside protons and neutrons.

Mathematician

Zu Chongzhi

Calculating an exceptionally accurate value of pi in fifth-century China.

Mathematician

Jean-Pierre Serre

Connecting topology, algebraic geometry and number theory in work that reshaped modern mathematics.

Physicist

Wilhelm Röntgen

Discovering X-rays, making it possible to see inside the body without surgery.

Physicist

Steven Weinberg

Helping unify electromagnetism and the weak nuclear force in the theory of elementary particles.

Mathematician

Michael Atiyah

Connecting geometry and equations through the Atiyah–Singer index theorem.

Physicist

Maria Goeppert Mayer

Explaining the structure of atomic nuclei and sharing the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Physicist

Sheldon Glashow

Helping unify electromagnetism with the weak nuclear force and predict the charm quark.

Mathematician

Ngô Bảo Châu

Proving the fundamental lemma, a central result in the Langlands programme.

Physicist

Anne L'Huillier

Helping make it possible to study electrons using flashes of light lasting attoseconds.

Physicist

Steven Chu

Developing methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light.

Physicist

Shin'ichirō Tomonaga

Helping make quantum electrodynamics a workable theory of how light and matter interact.

Mathematician

Maryna Viazovska

Solving the sphere-packing problem in eight dimensions and winning a Fields Medal.

Physicist

Samuel C. C. Ting

Co-discovering the J/psi particle, helping establish the charm quark.

Physicist

Masatoshi Koshiba

Detecting neutrinos from a supernova and helping establish neutrino astronomy.

Mathematician

Pierre de Fermat

Posing Fermat’s Last Theorem and pioneering number theory and probability.

Physicist

Burton Richter

Co-discovering the J/psi particle and advancing particle accelerators.

Physicist

Takaaki Kajita

The Nobel-winning physicist whose neutrino experiments showed that these elusive particles have mass.

Physicist

Roger Penrose

The mathematical physicist who showed that black-hole formation follows robustly from general relativity.

Physicist

Martin Lewis Perl

The Nobel-winning experimental physicist who discovered the tau lepton.

Chemist

Akira Yoshino

The chemist who developed a practical lithium-ion battery without a reactive lithium-metal anode.

Physicist

James Chadwick

The physicist who discovered the neutron, the electrically neutral particle inside atomic nuclei.

Physicist

Arthur B. McDonald

The physicist whose Sudbury neutrino experiment helped explain the Sun’s apparently missing neutrinos.

Engineer

Koichi Tanaka

The engineer whose soft laser-desorption method helped scientists analyse large biological molecules.

Physicist

Paul Ehrenfest

The theoretical physicist whose work connected statistical mechanics, quantum theory and classical motion.

Physicist

Andrea M. Ghez

Tracking stars to establish the presence of a supermassive black hole at the Milky Way’s centre.

Chemist

Osamu Shimomura

Discovering green fluorescent protein, later transformed into a tool for seeing processes inside cells.

Physicist

Hendrik Lorentz

Developing electron theory and mathematical foundations used in special relativity.

Physicist

Kip Thorne

Helping establish LIGO and the science of detecting gravitational waves.

Mathematician

John Milnor

Discovering exotic spheres and transforming the study of higher-dimensional shapes.

Physicist

Pieter Zeeman

Discovering how magnetic fields split the spectral lines of light.

Physicist

Barry Barish

Leading LIGO through the development that enabled gravitational-wave detection.

Mathematician

Stephen Smale

Transforming topology and developing tools for understanding chaotic dynamical systems.

Physicist

Max von Laue

Discovering that crystals diffract X-rays.

Physicist

John Clauser

Testing quantum entanglement in experiments that challenged classical ideas about reality.

Mathematician

June Huh

Connecting geometry and combinatorics to solve longstanding mathematical problems.

Physicist

William Henry Bragg

Developing X-ray crystallography with his son, revealing how atoms are arranged in crystals.

Physicist

Isidor Rabi

Developing a resonance method for measuring atomic nuclei’s magnetic properties.

Physicist

Louis de Broglie

Proposing that particles of matter also behave as waves.

Chemist

Robert Burns Woodward

Constructing complex natural molecules through planned chemical synthesis.

Physicist

Reinhard Genzel

Tracking stars that revealed a supermassive black hole at the Milky Way’s centre.

Chemist

Karl Barry Sharpless

Developing selective chemical reactions and click chemistry, earning two chemistry Nobel Prizes.

Physicist

Rainer Weiss

Helping design LIGO, which detected gravitational waves from colliding black holes.

Chemist

Louis E. Brus

Discovering how the size of tiny semiconductor crystals changes their properties.

Physicist

Alain Aspect

Testing quantum entanglement with landmark experiments using photons.

Scientist

John B. Goodenough

Developing materials that made powerful rechargeable lithium-ion batteries possible.

Physicist

Anton Zeilinger

Testing quantum entanglement and pioneering the transfer of quantum information.

Chemist

Morten Meldal

Co-developing copper-catalysed click chemistry, a reliable way to join molecular building blocks.

Chemist

Roger Y. Tsien

Turning fluorescent proteins into tools for watching processes inside living cells.

Physicist

Ferenc Krausz

Generating isolated attosecond light pulses to investigate electrons in motion.

Biologist

Martin Chalfie

Showing how green fluorescent protein could mark living cells for scientific study.

Physicist

Pierre Agostini

Developing attosecond light-pulse methods that made electron motion accessible to experiment.

Physicist

Edward Witten

Connecting quantum physics with mathematics, from the shapes of knots to string theory.

Physicist

Hans Bethe

Explaining the nuclear reactions that power stars.

Physicist

Lev Landau

Explaining superfluid helium and building influential theories of matter.

Scientist

Robert Boyle

Formulating Boyle’s law and helping make chemistry an experimental science.

Chemist

John Dalton

Developing an atomic theory that explained how elements combine in fixed proportions.

Scientist

Amedeo Avogadro

Explaining why equal volumes of gases contain equal numbers of molecules.

Scientist

Jöns Jacob Berzelius

Developing the chemical symbols and atomic measurements used to describe matter.

Scientist

August Kekulé

Proposing the ring structure of benzene.

Chemist

Friedrich Wöhler

Synthesising urea from inorganic starting materials in 1828.

Chemist

Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff

Helping establish stereochemistry and winning the first Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Chemist

Svante Arrhenius

Explaining ions in solution and calculating an early link between carbon dioxide and climate.

Chemist

Fritz Haber

Developing ammonia synthesis and directing Germany’s First World War poison-gas programme.

Chemist

Carl Bosch

Turning ammonia synthesis into an industrial process.

Chemist

Hermann Staudinger

Establishing that polymers are long chains of chemically bonded units.

Chemist

Giulio Natta

Developing stereospecific polymerisation and isotactic polypropylene.

Chemist

Karl Ziegler

Discovering catalysts that made high-density polyethylene possible at low pressure.

Chemist

Roald Hoffmann

Explaining chemical reactions through orbital symmetry.

Biologist

David A. Sinclair

Researching ageing, sirtuins and epigenetics.

Biologist

Peter Medawar

Establishing acquired immune tolerance in transplantation research.

Mathematician

Stanislav Smirnov

Proving conformal invariance in models of statistical physics.

Astronomer

Heinrich Christian Schumacher

Founding Astronomische Nachrichten and organising geodetic surveys.

Geophysicist

Edward Sabine

Organising a global programme of magnetic observation.

Astronomer

Kees de Jager

Studying the Sun and the most luminous stars.

Mathematician

Kunihiko Kodaira

Advancing complex geometry and the theory of algebraic surfaces.

Mathematician

Karl Weierstrass

Giving mathematical analysis rigorous definitions of limits and continuity.

Mathematician

Jean Bourgain

Connecting major problems across mathematical analysis.

Astronomer

Caroline Herschel

Discovering comets and helping catalogue the night sky.

Mathematician

Alessio Figalli

Advancing optimal transport and its applications to analysis.

Chemist

Kurt Wüthrich

Using NMR to determine protein structures in solution.

Mathematician

Lars Ahlfors

Advancing complex analysis and becoming an inaugural Fields medallist.

Mathematician

Sergei Novikov

Advancing algebraic topology and the mathematics of solitons.

Astronomer

Hermann Carl Vogel

Measuring stellar motion through photographic spectroscopy.

Biochemist

Jens Christian Skou

Discovering the sodium-potassium pump enzyme.

Astronomer

Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander

Mapping more than 324,000 stars in the Bonner Durchmusterung.

Astronomer

Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel

Measuring the distance to 61 Cygni through stellar parallax.

Biochemist

Hartmut Michel

Determining the structure of a photosynthetic reaction centre.

Astronomer

Giovanni Schiaparelli

Mapping Mars and connecting meteor showers with comet orbits.

Chemist

Justus von Liebig

Transforming laboratory teaching and agricultural chemistry.

Chemist

Eduard Buchner

Demonstrating that fermentation can occur without living yeast cells.

Chemist

Ilya Prigogine

Explaining ordered structures in systems far from equilibrium.

Astronomer

Fritz Zwicky

Identifying evidence for dark matter in galaxy clusters.

Mathematician

René Thom

Founding cobordism theory and developing catastrophe theory.

Physicist

Julius von Mayer

Helping establish the principle of conservation of energy.

Chemist

Jaroslav Heyrovský

Inventing polarography for chemical analysis.

Biochemist

Avram Hershko

Discovering how ubiquitin marks proteins for destruction.

Chemist

George de Hevesy

Developing radioactive tracers and co-discovering hafnium.

Chemist

Ben Feringa

Building molecular motors that turn in a controlled direction.

Physicist

John Theophilus Desaguliers

Bringing Newtonian science to public audiences through experimental lectures.

Chemist

Richard Willstätter

Determining the chemistry of chlorophyll and other plant pigments.

Physicist

Alessandro Volta

Inventing the voltaic pile, an early electric battery.

Chemist

Heinrich Otto Wieland

Investigating the chemical structure of bile acids.

Mathematician

Pierre Deligne

Proving the final Weil conjecture in algebraic geometry.

Botanist

Thomas Andrew Knight

Using experiments and selective breeding to improve fruit crops.

Scientist

Jacques Dubochet

Developing methods for cryo-electron microscopy.

Astronomer

Thomas Brisbane

Establishing observatories and supporting the mapping of southern stars.

Astronomer

Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve

Cataloguing double stars and initiating the Struve Geodetic Arc.

Physicist

Ernst Ruska

Developing the electron microscope.

Mathematician

Lars Hörmander

Transforming the theory of linear partial differential equations.

Mathematician

Alexander Grothendieck

Transforming the foundations of modern algebraic geometry.

Mathematician

Maxim Kontsevich

Connecting geometry, topology and mathematical physics.

Chemist

John Cornforth

Explaining the stereochemistry of enzyme-catalysed reactions.

Chemist

Theodor Svedberg

Developing the ultracentrifuge for studying colloids and proteins.

Chemist

Adolf von Baeyer

Synthesising indigo and investigating organic dyes.

Physicist

Franz Ernst Neumann

Formulating mathematical descriptions of electromagnetic induction.

Chemist

Hans Fischer

Determining the chemistry of biological pigments and synthesising haemin.

Astronomer

James Bradley

Discovering stellar aberration and the nutation of Earth’s axis.

Physicist

Andre Geim

Isolating graphene with Konstantin Novoselov and colleagues.

Astronomer

Heinrich Schwabe

Discovering the periodic variation in sunspot numbers.

Astronomer

Annibale de Gasparis

Discovering asteroids including Hygiea.

Mathematician

Yu Deng

Studying nonlinear equations and the mathematics of waves and particles.

Mathematician

Peter Scholze

Introducing perfectoid spaces in arithmetic geometry

Chemist

Wilhelm Ostwald

Advancing physical chemistry and the study of catalysis.

Mathematician

Elon Lindenstrauss

Connecting ergodic theory with problems in number theory.

Physicist

Hans Christian Ørsted

Discovering that an electric current produces a magnetic field.

Astronomer

Willem de Sitter

Developing relativistic models of the universe.

Chemist

Charles Hatchett

Discovering the element now called niobium.

Physicist

Albert A. Michelson

Measuring light with precision interferometers.

Mathematician

Klaus Roth

Proving a landmark theorem on approximating algebraic numbers.

Mathematician

Gerd Faltings

Proving the Mordell conjecture in arithmetic geometry.

Mathematician

Laurent Lafforgue

Proving a major case of the Langlands correspondence.

Chemist

Jean-Pierre Sauvage

Developing mechanically interlocked molecules for molecular machines.

Biochemist

Aziz Sancar

Explaining how cells repair damaged DNA.

Biochemist

Tim Hunt

Discovering cyclins, proteins that help control cell division.

Mathematician

James Maynard

Advancing the study of gaps between prime numbers.

Mathematician

Alain Connes

Developing noncommutative geometry and the theory of operator algebras

Chemist

William Crookes

Discovering thallium and investigating electrical discharges in vacuum tubes

Chemist

Gerhard Ertl

Explaining chemical reactions on solid surfaces

Mathematician

Jean-Christophe Yoccoz

Fields Medal-winning work on dynamical systems

Biologist

Francis Crick

Co-developing the double-helix model of DNA

Biochemist

Marshall Warren Nirenberg

Helping decipher the genetic code

Scientist

Donald Lynden-Bell

Explaining how massive black holes power quasars

Biologist

François Jacob

Explaining how genes are switched on and off

Chemist

Adolf Windaus

Research on sterols and vitamin D

Chemist

Joseph Priestley

Independently isolating oxygen and experimenting with gases

Biochemist

Richard Laurence Millington Synge

Co-developing partition chromatography

Biochemist

Peter D. Mitchell

The chemiosmotic explanation of cellular energy production

Chemist

Georg Wittig

Developing the Wittig reaction for building carbon–carbon double bonds.

Mathematician

Martin Hairer

Developing regularity structures for stochastic equations.

Physicist

James Prescott Joule

Demonstrating the relationship between heat and mechanical work.

Astronomer

Leon Mestel

Research on stellar magnetism, star formation and astrophysical dynamics.

Biochemist

Alec Todd

Determining the chemistry of nucleotides and their coenzymes.

Biochemist

Ronald Vale

Discovering kinesin and explaining cellular motor proteins.

Biochemist

Gerty Cori

Explaining how the body stores and uses carbohydrate energy.

Botanist

Robert Brown

Microscopic observations of plant cells and Brownian motion.

Physicist

Gerhard Herzberg

Using spectroscopy to reveal molecular structure.

Mathematician

Hugo Duminil-Copin

Probability research explaining phase transitions in lattice models.

Chemist

Victor Grignard

Discovering organomagnesium reagents used to build carbon–carbon bonds.

Astronomer

David Gill

Precision stellar distances and photographic mapping of the southern sky.

Biologist

Charles David Allis

Showing how histone modifications help regulate gene activity.

Mathematician

Heisuke Hironaka

Resolving singularities in algebraic geometry.

Astronomer

Charles Pritchard

Measuring stellar brightness and testing photographic astronomy.

Biochemist

Rodney Porter

Determining the chemical structure of antibodies.

Chemist

Richard Robson

Designing extended molecular frameworks with open spaces.

Physiologist

Edgar Adrian

Recording the electrical signals of individual nerve fibres.

Chemist

Alan Fersht

Protein engineering and the chemistry of folding.

Physicist

James Jeans

Mathematical work on gases, stars and gravitational instability.

Biochemist

Fritz Albert Lipmann

Discovering coenzyme A and its role in metabolism.

Chemist

Alfred Werner

Explaining the three-dimensional structure of coordination compounds.

Mathematician

George Salmon

Influential nineteenth-century textbooks in algebra and geometry.

Chemist

Otto Diels

The Diels–Alder reaction for building carbon rings.

Neuroscientist

Torsten Wiesel

Explaining how the brain processes visual information.

Mathematician

Pierre-Louis Lions

Partial differential equations and the calculus of variations.

Biologist

John Sulston

Tracing cell development and championing public genome data.

Biophysicist

Hugh Huxley

The sliding-filament explanation of muscle contraction.

Chemist

George Porter

Using flash photolysis to study fleeting chemical reactions.

Biophysicist

Michael Levitt

Computer models for complex molecules and chemical systems.

Biochemist

Konrad Emil Bloch

Tracing how the body synthesises cholesterol.

Physicist

Stuart Parkin

Spintronic materials that helped expand hard-drive storage.

Chemist

Richard R. Ernst

Methods that transformed nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy.

Microbiologist

André Michel Lwoff

Research into viruses and their relationship with bacteria.

Astronomer

Robert Main

Stellar observations and astronomical catalogues at Greenwich and Oxford.

Mathematician

Wendelin Werner

Understanding the geometry of random processes.

Astronomer

William Lassell

Discovering Triton, Ariel and Umbriel with self-built telescopes.

Biochemist

Hans Krebs

Discovering the citric acid cycle.

Biologist

Martin Evans

Developing embryonic stem-cell methods used in gene targeting.

Mathematician

Enrico Bombieri

Major advances in analytic number theory and the large sieve.

Mathematician

Atle Selberg

The Selberg sieve and advances in analytic number theory.

Chemist

John E. Walker

Revealing the structure of ATP-producing molecular machinery.

Astronomer

Bengt Edlén

Identifying the source of mysterious lines in the solar corona’s spectrum.

Mathematician

Hong Wang

Advancing the three-dimensional Kakeya problem with Joshua Zahl.

Biologist

Don Craig Wiley

Revealing structures involved in viral infection and immune recognition.

Mathematician

Andrei Okounkov

Connecting probability, representation theory and algebraic geometry

Mathematician

Jacob Tsimerman

Connecting number theory with algebraic geometry

Astronomer

Karl Friedrich Küstner

Detecting changes in latitude and cataloguing stars.

Mathematician

Alan Baker

Effective methods in transcendental number theory.

Mathematician

Simon Donaldson

Transforming the study of smooth four-dimensional spaces.

Astronomer

James Dunlop

Cataloguing stars and deep-sky objects in the southern sky.