Physics

Danish physicist who established the structure of the atom. For this achievement he was awarded the 1922 Nobel Prize for Physics. Bohr made another very important contribution to atomic physics by explaining the process of nuclear fission.

In 1935 Chadwick won the Nobel Prize for his discovery of the neutron.

He became director of a major part of the Manhattan Project at Chicago and built the first reactor with Fermi (1942), publishing an account in his book Atomic Quest (1958).

Marie Curie was a brilliant physicist who discovered radium and polonium and helped to elucidate the nature of radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the first person to win a second Nobel Prize.

German-born US theoretical physicist who revolutionized our understanding of matter, space, and time with his two theories of relativity. Einstein also established that light may have a particle nature and deduced the photoelectric law that governs the production of electricity from light-sensitive metals.

English physicist and chemist who is often regarded as the greatest experimental scientist of the 1800s. He made pioneering contributions to electricity, inventing the electric motor, electric generator and the transformer, and discovering electromagnetic induction and the laws of electrolysis.

Italian-born US physicist best known for bringing about the first controlled chain reaction (in a nuclear reactor) and for his part in the development of the atomic bomb. He also carried out early research using slow neutrons to produce new radioactive elements, for which work he was awarded the 1938 Nobel Prize for Physics.

British theoretical physicist noted for his research into the origin of the universe. His work influenced the development of the big bang and black hole theories.

German physicist who founded quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principle. In recognition of these achievements, he was awarded the 1932 Nobel Prize for Physics.

Maxwell stated that light represented only a small range of the spectrum of electromagnetic waves available. Hertz confirmed this in 1888 by discovering another part of the spectrum, radio waves, but by this time Maxwell was dead.

Austrian-born Swedish physicist who was one of the first scientists to study radioactive decay and the radiations emitted during this process. Her most famous work was done in 1938, in collaboration with her nephew Otto Frisch, describing for the first time the splitting or fission of the uranium nucleus under neutron bombardment.

English physicist and mathematician who is regarded as one of the greatest scientists ever to have lived. In physics, he discovered the three laws of motion that bear his name and was the first to explain gravitation, clearly defining the nature of mass, weight, force, inertia, and acceleration.

From The Hutchinson Dictionary of Scientific Biography
Dutch physicist who is particularly remembered for the contributions he made to the study of the properties of matter at low temperatures. He was the first to liquefy helium and later discovered superconductivity, gaining the 1913 Nobel Prize for Physics in recognition of his work.

Working on quantum mechanics, he contributed the Pauli exclusion principle (1924), which explained much about atomic structure. The principle requires that no two electrons in an atom can be in the same quantum state.

German physicist who discovered that energy consists of fundamental indivisible units, which he called quanta. This discovery, made in 1900, marked the foundation of the quantum theory that revolutionized physics in the early 1900s.

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
German physicist. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1901 for his discovery of X-rays in 1895. While investigating the passage of electricity through gases, he noticed the fluorescence of a barium platinocyanide screen. This radiation passed through some substances opaque to light, and affected photographic plates. Developments from this discovery revolutionized medical diagnosis. Today, the unit of radiation exposure is called the roentgen, or röntgen (symbol R). He refused to make any financial gain out of his findings, believing that the products of scientific research should be made freely available to all.

Rutherford’s studies revealed (1898) that the radioactive emission consisted of at least two kinds of rays; those which were less penetrating he called alpha rays (helium nuclei), and the others beta rays (electrons); 2 years later he discovered a third, and even more penetrating kind, gamma rays (electromagnetic waves).

Austrian physicist who founded wave mechanics with the formulation of the Schrödinger wave equation to describe the behaviour of electrons in atoms.

From 1946 she became expert on beta-decay in radioactive atoms, the process whereby an electron and a neutrino are ejected from a neutron in the nucleus, leaving behind a proton. In 1957 she developed her research on nuclear decay by emission of beta particles by observing that the direction of emission is closely tied to the direction of the spin of the emitting nucleus.

In 1913, Soddy gave the clearest of the statements of the radioactive displacement law that emerged about that time: that emission of an alpha-particle (helium nucleus) from an atom reduces its atomic number by two; whereas the emission of a betaparticle (an electron) increases the atomic number by one.