Great Scientists
Welcome to our web site! Here you can explore fascinating information about the greatest scientific minds in history.
Thales of Miletus
Information
Born: c. 624/623 BCE
Died: c. 548/545 BCE
Location: Miletus, Ionia (modern-day Turkey)
Fields: Mathematics, Astronomy, Philosophy
"The most difficult thing in life is to know yourself."
Thales of Miletus was a Greek mathematician, astronomer and pre-Socratic philosopher. He is considered one of the Seven Sages of Greece and is often regarded as the first philosopher in Western tradition.
Pythagoras
Information
Born: c. 570 BCE
Died: c. 495 BCE
Location: Samos, Greece
Fields: Mathematics, Philosophy, Music Theory
"Number rules the universe."
Pythagoras was an ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician who founded the Pythagorean school. He is best known for the Pythagorean theorem in geometry, though the theorem was known to the Babylonians 1000 years earlier.
Al-Khwarizmi (Harezmi)
Information
Born: c. 780 AD
Died: c. 850 AD
Education: House of Wisdom, Baghdad
Fields: Mathematics, Astronomy, Geography
"What is easiest is best in mathematics."
He worked at the House of Wisdom in Baghdad and made foundational contributions to algebra, arithmetic, and astronomy.
Isaac Newton
Information
Born: 4 January 1643
Died: 31 March 1727
Education: Trinity College, Cambridge
Fields: Physics, Mathematics, Astronomy
"If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants."
He became a member of the Royal Society in 1672 and served as its president from 1703 to 1727.
Galileo Galilei
Information
Born: 15 February 1564
Died: 8 January 1642
Education: Pisa University
Fields: Physics, Mathematics, Astronomy, Engineering
"Philosophy is written in this grand book — I mean the universe — which stands continually open to our gaze, but it cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language in which it is written."
Comments about Galileo:
Stephen Hawking said that Galileo had a greater influence on the birth of modern science than Einstein, who is considered the father of modern science.
Nikola Tesla
Information
Born: 10 July 1856
Died: 7 January 1943
Education: Graz University of Technology
Fields: Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering
Nikola Tesla was a Serbian-American inventor known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system.
Albert Einstein
Information
Born: 14 March 1879
Died: 18 April 1955
Education: Swiss Federal Polytechnic, University of Zurich
Fields: Physics
"Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."
Albert Einstein won the Nobel Prize in Physics in
1922 1921 for his explanation of the
photoelectric effect.
Marie Curie
Information
Born: 7 November 1867
Died: 4 July 1934
Education: University of Paris, Sorbonne
Fields: Physics, Chemistry
"Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood."
She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the only woman to win twice, and the only person to win in two different scientific fields (Physics and Chemistry).
Antoine Lavoisier
Information
Born: 26 August 1743
Died: 8 May 1794
Education: Collège des Quatre-Nations, University of Paris
Fields: Chemistry, Biology, Economics
"Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed."
Known as the "Father of Modern Chemistry", he recognized and named oxygen and hydrogen, helped construct the metric system, and formulated the law of conservation of mass.
Dmitri Mendeleev
Information
Born: 8 February 1834
Died: 2 February 1907
Education: Saint Petersburg University
Fields: Chemistry, Physics
"There is nothing in this world that I fear to say."
"The elements, if arranged according to their atomic weights, exhibit an apparent periodicity of properties."
Best known for formulating the Periodic Law and creating the first version of the periodic table of elements, which he used to predict the properties of elements yet to be discovered.
| Info\Scientist | Thales | Pythagoras | Al-Khwarizmi | Isaac Newton | Galileo Galilei | Nikola Tesla | Albert Einstein | Marie Curie | Antoine Lavoisier | Dmitri Mendeleev |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Born: | c. 624 BCE | c. 570 BCE | c. 780 AD | 1643 | 1564 | 1856 | 1879 | 1867 | 1743 | 1834 |
| Died: | c. 546 BCE | c. 495 BCE | c. 850 AD | 1727 | 1642 | 1943 | 1955 | 1934 | 1794 | 1907 |
| Nationality: | Greek (Miletus) | Greek (Samos) | Persian | British | Italian | Serbian-American | German-Swiss-American | Polish-French | French | Russian |
| Key Contribution: | Early philosophy, Thales' theorem | Pythagorean theorem | Algebra, Algorithms | Laws of motion, Calculus | Heliocentrism, Telescope | Alternating current | Theory of relativity | Radioactivity research | Modern chemistry | Periodic table |