Science has been what has allowed the world to be as it is today, and it would never have occurred in the way it has without the emergence of great minds.
From mathematics, biology, medicine and even physics theory, great scientists have emerged who have helped the advancement of the human species. Next we will see some famous scientists in history
Fortunately, there are thousands of scientists, all of them collaborating in the advancement and progress of the human species, however, not all have contributed in the same way. That is why now we are going to see the 30 most notable scientists in history, a little about their lives and their main scientific milestones.
1. Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955)
He is considered the greatest scientist of the last century There is no person on earth who cannot identify this German Jewish physicist in photographs. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 1921. His theory of relativity is probably the greatest scientific advance of modern times, with his equation E = mc ^ 2 being known to everyone.
Although his work is considered the foundation for the creation of the atomic bomb, this scientist always advocated for peace.
2. Isaac Newton (1643 – 1727)
Isaac Newton was practically everything there was to be in his time. Physicist, alchemist, astronomer, mathematician and inventor
The story is well known that he developed his law of gravity after an apple fell on his head while he was taking a nap under a tree, although it is nothing more than a myth.
3. Stephen Hawking (1942-2018)
Stephen Hawking is perhaps the most famous scientist after Einstein. He was a theoretical physicist known for his theories about the universe and general relativity
Also known for suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and being probably the person who has survived the disease the longest, his genius helped make this disease visible.
He received up to twelve honorary doctorates and several awards, and is known outside the world of physics for having been very televisual, making cameo appearances in series such as The Big Bang Theory or even offering his particular humor while being interviewed.
Marie Curie, of Polish origin but resident in France, She is probably the best-known female scientist
She was the first woman to be a professor at the University of Paris. In addition to this, she is known for being the only person to have won not one but two Nobel Prizes, one in physics and the other in chemistry.
Pioneer, together with her husband Pierre, in the study of radioactivity, discovering radium and polonium what made her famous was also the way in which her exposure to radiation was wearing down her health.
5. Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642)
Galileo Galilei is the symbol of the scientific revolution which occurred between the 16th and 17th centuries.
As a great character of his time, He touched all the fields of knowledge he had at hand, such as astronomy, the arts and physics He is considered by many to be the father of science as we know it today.
6. Charles Darwin (1809 – 1882)
Charles Darwin, who was originally going to be an Anglican clergyman, theorized about biological evolution, which was a real controversy in deeply Christian Victorian England. Today, his findings in evolution and natural selection lay the foundations of modern biology.
His trip aboard the Beagle visiting the Galapagos Islands and studying the morphological and behavioral differences of the finches of that archipelago is one of the best-known studies in history, along with his work The origin of species (1859).
7. Nicholas Copernicus (1473 – 1543)
Nicholas Copernicus is considered the most important astronomer in history, in addition to laying the foundations for the scientific revolution along with Galileo Galilei.
This Polish scientist developed the heliocentric theory which maintained that it was not the Sun that rotated around the Earth, but rather the Earth that rotated around this star.
8. Louis Pasteur (1822 – 1895)
Louis Pasteur reformulated the ideas we had about infectious diseases founding modern microbiology.
His most notable achievement is having discovered the vaccine against rabies, in addition to creating the technique for sterilizing food, which was later called pasteurization in his honor.
9. Alexander Fleming (1881 – 1955)
Alexander Fleming is responsible for making effective drugs available today against diseases that until a century ago were a death sentence.
His most important discovery, almost by serendipity, was that of the penicillin fungus, a substance which is an antibiotic. This substance is still used today, and has been responsible for saving millions of lives around the globe.
10. Gregor Mendel (1822 – 1884)
Gregor Mendel was a Czech monk who, thanks to his work with pea plants, laid the foundation for the field of genetics
He discovered how traits were inherited, according to relationships of dominance and recessiveness, and formulated a series of laws that today are called Mendel’s laws.
11. Thomas Alva Edison (1847 – 1931)
The figure of Thomas Alva Edison, although well known, is also controversial. He has been the author of countless inventions although it must be said that there are many who consider that he really took many ‘borrowed’ ideas when creating new devices.
What can be recognized about this character is that, in addition to being a great inventor, he knew how to take advantage of his creations, becoming an important businessman.
12. Archimedes of Syracuse (287 BC – 212 BC)
Archimedes of Syracuse is known for his advances in physics and mathematics, and is also seen as the most important scientist of the Classical Era. The principles of the lever and Archimedes are widely known.
13. Leonardo da Vinci (1452 – 1519)
Leonardo da Vinci, In addition to being a great artist, he was an impressive inventor He dedicated himself to botany, astronomy, engineering and biology, in addition to carrying out important studies and detailed drawings of human anatomy.
Sometimes he obtained corpses from morgues in a somewhat murky form so that he could dissect them calmly at home.
Among his drawings, the most notable are those that refer to a prototype of a flying machine, which has allowed the development of the modern helicopter.
14. Nikola Tesla (1856 – 1943)
Nikola Tesla’s main scientific breakthrough is the study of electromagnetism which years later would allow for a better study and application of the concepts of alternating current and polyphase system.
He patented nearly three hundred new ideas, among which was the radio.
15. Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852 – 1934)
Santiago Ramón y Cajal is one of the few Spanish scientists who have achieved wide recognition worldwide, winning the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1906, along with Camillo Golgi.
He specialized in the study of tissues of the human body and diseases of the organism his studies on the neuron being well known and having formulated the doctrine of this cell regarding its functioning and reproduction.
16. Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC)
Aristotle, although in a still primitive form, He is considered the first person to use something similar to the scientific method
His work is widely known for having dedicated himself to classifying hundreds of species of animals and plants based on their anatomy and similar characteristics.
17. Erwin Schrödinger (1887 – 1961)
Erwin Schrödinger is known for his contributions and development of quantum physics, quantum mechanics and thermodynamics He received the Nobel Prize in physics in 1933.
Schrödinger’s paradox is a mental exercise conceived by this same great scientist which allows us to understand his interpretations of quantum physics.
18. Severo Ochoa (1905 – 1993)
Being another of the few great Spanish scientists known worldwide, Severo Ochoa was a specialist in biochemistry and molecular biology
Like Ramón y Cajal, he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1959 for his study on RNA synthesis.
19. Alfred Nobel (1833 – 1896)
Alfred Nobel is known not only for the prize in his honor, awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, but also for having invented dynamite
The invention of this was not accidental. He was interested in the manufacture and experimentation of substances for war purposes.
20. Pythagoras (579 BC – 475 BC)
Pythagoras He is well known for his contributions to mathematics the Pythagorean theorem being something that is not missing in the educational curriculum of any country.
But he not only dedicated himself to numbers and geometry. He also studied about music, ethics and astronomy.
21. John Dalton (1766 – 1844)
John Dalton was a chemist and mathematician and, coincidentally, the discoverer of color blindness a visual disorder that is named after him and that he himself presented.
The discovery of this problem was by chance, when he saw how people were surprised by colors that he saw as gray, or when he got confused in the laboratory when he thought that one chemical was another when he saw it the same color.
But his great contribution is to the study of the atom, formulating a model to explain what is considered the fundamental particle of our universe.
22. René Descartes (1596 – 1650)
René Descartes is studied in institutes for his role as a philosopher, but He also contributed to the fields of mathematics and physics
This great French thinker is one of the precursors of modern philosophy, in addition to having contributed to shaping science as we understand it today.
23. Jane Goodall (1934-present)
Jane Goodall is one of the most influential women of the 20th and 21st centuries, in addition to being a UN messenger of peace.
She is considered the greatest expert on chimpanzees, dedicating her life to the study of social interactions between these apes. Her work has not been solely descriptive. It has contributed to the preservation of many threatened species by hunting and by climate change.
24. Isaac Asimov (1920 – 1992)
Isaac Asimov He is known for his laws on robotics, although he was a biochemistry professor. He is best known for being the author of countless works of science fiction in which the laws that should govern future robots with artificial intelligence are set out.
25. Alexander Graham Bell (1847 – 1922)
Alexander Graham Bell is known for having contributed to the development of telecommunications
It happens to this scientist like Edison, since he is enveloped in an aura of controversy because there are certain inventions that he patented but it is not entirely known if he was the one who really tried them, an example of this being the telephone.
26. Hypatia of Alexandria (350/370-415)
Hypatia of Alexandria was a Neoplatonic philosopher and teacher, of Greek origin and resident in Egypt. He excelled in mathematics and astronomy.
At a time when the Roman Empire was collapsing and giving way to Christianity, she educated both aristocratic followers of the old faith and those who had accepted the word of Christ.
His life is presented quite faithfully in the 2009 film ‘Ágora’, by Alejandro Amenábar.
27. Rosalind Franklin (1920-1958)
Rosalind Franklin is the woman who basically discovered the structure of life: DNA This is probably the greatest discovery in biology in history.
His contributions on the structure of RNA, viruses, graphite and carbon are also famous.
28. Charles Linnaeus (1707-1778)
Carlos Linnaeus was a Swedish botanist, doctor and zoologist, known for being the creator of the current modern taxonomic system which uses two words to identify each species.
During his lifetime, the importance of this man’s findings was so great in his native Sweden that thousands of people have since named their children Linnaeus, Linné and Linnea in his honor.
29. Dimitri Mendeleev (1834-1907)
Dimitri Mendeleev He is the most important Russian chemist Its popularity lies in the fact that it has managed to organize the chemical elements in a table based on their atomic weight and other properties.
30. Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849-1936)
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov He is widely known in psychology due to his studies on classical conditioning in animals the experiment with dogs and bells as a stimulus associated with the arrival of food being especially famous.
