Physics

Matter, energy, and the workings of the universe.

People in Physics

84 profiles

Scientist

Marie Curie

Discovering polonium and radium.

Physicist

Albert Einstein

Developing the theory of relativity.

Physicist

Isaac Newton

Formulating the laws of motion and universal gravitation.

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.

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.

Physicist

John Bardeen

Co-inventing the transistor and helping explain superconductivity.

Mathematician

Blaise Pascal

Advancing probability, pressure research and early mechanical calculation.

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.

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.

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.

Physicist

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar

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

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.

Physicist

Lise Meitner

Helping explain nuclear fission after decades of research into radioactivity.

Physicist

Fabiola Gianotti

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

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.

Physicist

Hideki Yukawa

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

Physicist

Lawrence Bragg

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

Physicist

Arthur Compton

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

Physicist

Julian Schwinger

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

Physicist

Murray Gell-Mann

Proposing quarks: the building blocks inside protons and neutrons.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Physicist

Max von Laue

Discovering that crystals diffract X-rays.

Physicist

John Clauser

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

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.

Physicist

Reinhard Genzel

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

Physicist

Rainer Weiss

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

Physicist

Alain Aspect

Testing quantum entanglement with landmark experiments using photons.

Physicist

Anton Zeilinger

Testing quantum entanglement and pioneering the transfer of quantum information.

Physicist

Ferenc Krausz

Generating isolated attosecond light pulses to investigate electrons in motion.

Physicist

Pierre Agostini

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

Physicist

Hans Bethe

Explaining the nuclear reactions that power stars.

Physicist

Lev Landau

Explaining superfluid helium and building influential theories of matter.

Physicist

John Theophilus Desaguliers

Bringing Newtonian science to public audiences through experimental lectures.

Physicist

Alessandro Volta

Inventing the voltaic pile, an early electric battery.

Physicist

Ernst Ruska

Developing the electron microscope.

Physicist

Franz Ernst Neumann

Formulating mathematical descriptions of electromagnetic induction.

Physicist

Andre Geim

Isolating graphene with Konstantin Novoselov and colleagues.

Physicist

Hans Christian Ørsted

Discovering that an electric current produces a magnetic field.

Physicist

Albert A. Michelson

Measuring light with precision interferometers.

Physicist

James Prescott Joule

Demonstrating the relationship between heat and mechanical work.

Physicist

Stuart Parkin

Spintronic materials that helped expand hard-drive storage.