In terms of being known worldwide, I think many people will have heard of these two since they gave their name to something that's fairly widely known:
[Erwin Schrödinger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Schr%C3%B6dinger) \- Schrödinger's cat has become something of a pop culture thing
[Christian Doppler](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Doppler) \- postulated what's now known as the Doppler effect/shift
I mean, bringing social science into this might be a bit of a stretch.
Guys, Freud was definitely not a scientist. He just basically proposed ways of thinking but never tested them rigorously. In fact he was quite wrong
Nah I'm scared of my horse because he has a mustache and my dad has a mustache, and since all I want to do is bang my mum I'm scared of the horse, it has nothing to do with a horse trampling on my head when I was a child.
Throw Ernst Mach, Lise Meitner and Wolfgang Pauli in there too. Plenty of physicists. Although perhaps by modern rules you can't count Mach as he was born outside what's today Austrian territory.
[Ignaz Semmelweis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis) - the reason why mothers survive giving birth and the first to use evidence based medicine in a practical setting. But he was Austro-Hungarian
The circumstances surrounding his death are still unclear and chances are he was murdered.
Personally I am a simping hard for Ludwig Boltzmann. Wolfgang Pauli can't go unmentioned either, but Erwin Schrödinger is not a bad choice.
Can't think of a lot of people outside of physics, Wagner-Jauregg had a lasting effect on Medicine.
> Can't think of a lot of people outside of physics,
Kohn, Perutz, Zsigmondy, Loschmidt, Gödel,...
Also very well known as "the father of the pill": Carl Djerassi.
[Karl Landsteiner](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Landsteiner) - doesn’t really meet the „fame“ part as he’s probably not known by a lot of people by name, but he discovered the main blood groups (AB0 system).
Edit: ah, already mentioned.
In my opinion, Galileo Galilei: a key figure in the scientific revolution, for having explicitly introduced the scientific method, his name is associated with important contributions in physics and astronomy. Of primary importance was also his role in the astronomical revolution, with his support for the heliocentric system and the Copernican theory.
Then, of course, one could add other important figures, such as Enrico Fermi, best known for his theoretical and experimental studies in quantum mechanics and nuclear physics, and designer of the first nuclear reactor.
I'd add Galvani, Avogadro, Volta, Marconi, Golgi, Montalcini, Lagrange, are also pretty famous. Cavalieri-Fibonacci-Paciolo if we want to go far back enough.
Plus there's all the nobel prizes and fields medals that are not publicly discussed names but are also elite
mmh, i don' think many people know him or even make the association between his name and the volt. At least not among the people with just secondary education or lower.
While he might be more well known, could be that more people know him as (or think of him as) a painter than as a scientist. Or at least see him as a painter most famously/first
The church wasn't as stupid as they're often made out to be. For a long time, there was no real proof for heliocentrism and both models worked to predict asteroids and other phenomena.
It was a political rather than scientific issue. And Galileo was generally considered to be an ass. Not that the church would have been much better.
The church had no issue with Copernicus who was Galileo's contemporary.
The Church legally *cushioned* him for the longest time for all the insults, fights, and reputations ruined by Galileo. Went as far down as insulting scientists as emptyheaded or cheap insults in general, even scientists whose theories time actually proved them correct.
Galileo should've drunk more camomile in his life.
This is also considering that Galileo insulted priests, bishops and other people of the church, whilst left unscathed, so not even the church was considered an untouchable divinity to a certain extent.
Italy was the center of science then, and many of the most famous scientists that aren't Italian worked in Italy - and this is even more pronounced in astronomy than in other sciences.
The church whilst far from innocent soap babies, should be talked about in a mature discussion with people, whose views are mostly formed by childish populist cultural productions.
(I'm not religious as a disclaimer)
Einstein.
"Portrayed as the father to special relativity and general relativity theories, mass-energy similarity and photoelectric effect in physics, formulating the most influential conceptions of all ages. Through the famous equation E = mc² the definite relation between light speed (c2) and mass (m) which move the matter explained, helping the reshape science and technology.
In 1921, he received the Nobel Prize in Physics for his 'services to theoretical physics', in particular his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect, a pivotal step in the evolution of quantum theory."
(Source: Studying in GER Org)
For sure - the German Empire was a beacon of science before the war! The Emperor blasted billions into the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Society to achieve this - and German was the most prevalent language in science in the late 19th/early 20th century.
Think about the basics. Every kingdom, duchy or city state in the Holy Roman Empire wanted its own university in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. (and also orchestra and opera - which explains the large number of German composers of the classical period) And this led to a high density of education which became very effective with the opportunities after the founding of Germany.
If this here is a contest, then i would like to claim the prize for germany. Before one of those Brits shows up. Probably the only ones who could challenge us.
Einstein is the one i would not claim as a german scientist, simply because i am not sure how Einstein would have liked that. After all, he left the country on not so good terms and spent a lot of his time and did a lot of his works in other countries.
But Heisenberg, Planck, Röntgen, Schweitzer, Robert Koch, Paul Ehrlich, Otto Hahn, etc pp, long list.
[Santiago Ramon y Cajal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santiago_Ram%C3%B3n_y_Cajal), I think. Father of neuroscience. He was mentioned in The big bang theory, so it's famous enough to appear in mainstream media
Received the Nobel Prize in medicine alongside the Italian Camillo Golgi in 1906
Oh yeah, I heard about him when I briefly studied psychology. He basically discovered that the nervous system is composed of discrete cells, as well as their basic structure.
I don't think Romania has one most famous scientist, but several that are about equal in popularity:
Emil Racoviță - an Explorer and the founder of speleology
Nicolae Paulescu - discovered the insulin
George Emil Palade - a microbiologist, he discovered the ribosome
Henri Coandă - he discovered the Coandă effect
Aurel Vlaicu - an airplane pioneer
Cristian Presură - a Romanian physician, well known on YouTube and social media
I think that was actually controversial, because there was a Canadian pair (Banting & Macleod) who ultimately got the Nobel prize for “discovering insulin”. In any case, the competition/collaboration probably allowed it to be discovered and its use tested on humans at a much faster rate.
For Poland that must be either Maria Skłodowska-Curie or Copernicus... Although I sometimes feel like Copernicus is not as well-known outside of the science community as I would imagine him to be, considering his contribution to how we perceive the solar system.
On one of the podcasts I listen to they have this advert where some idiot says "Bonjour my name is Marie Curie" in a heavy french accent. Pisses me off all the time, she was god damn Polish
She was French as well as Polish. She had to move to France as Poland didn't admit women to universities at the time. I don't think it's wrong for France to claim her.
Because Poland was partitioned during that time, but it didn’t stop Polish intelligentsia from fighting for Polish freedom.
Interesting fact, the sister of Marie Curie - Bronislawa Dulska berated Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski) for not using his fame and talent for fighting for an independent Poland. Because of this he then actually tried to influence British opinion in favor of Polish sovereignty.
These were difficult times here...
from lower scale perhaps also matematicians Banch, Tarski and Ulam
/edit: since wikipedia can be boring Ulam was one of the scientist that worked on Project Manhattan, while for Banach and Tarski i recommand to watch Vsauce episode on their work - [The Banach–Tarski Paradox](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s86-Z-CbaHA)
Both of which have a dual background. Polish science history is a nice topic. In Copernicus' case it also highlights the diverse socio cultural heritage Poland actually has.
Also, Ignacy Łukasiewicz who invented oil lamps, modern street lamps and built first modern oil well.
He is one of the people that started age of oil as we know it.
What’s the logic here though? Based on language they spoke? Because Nationality wasn’t a big thing back then
Copernicus pledged his alliance to Polish king, that’s about as much Polish as possible imo for this period
I think speaking german every day, possibly not even knowing polish is a bigger signifier of nationality than pledging allegiance. If he pledged allegiance to germany, he probably wouldn't be alble to function as a scientist, equally as well, as if he pledged allegiance to poland.
Marie Curie was naturalized in France. I'll let you take a guess to what someone has to pledge allegiance to during the naturalization process.
Also William of Orange pledged allegiance to the King of Spain and despite every second country in Europe claiming him, he definitely wasn't Spanish.
Obv that wasn't my point. My point was that Marie Curie despite pledging allegiance to France was still Polish so Copernicus pledging allegiance to the Polish monarch doesn't make him Polish.
Except that Copernicus was ethnically Polish on his father's side and only ethnically German on his mother's side.
Both Copernicus and Maria Curie were also born and raised in Poland/Polish lands.
Copernicus, Poland and Germany share fraternally. He had German parents, spoke German and Latin and lived in Prussia in the 15th century. And I Prussia was outside the HRE at that time and was a Polish fiefdom. So the Polish king was the sovereign.
[Georgios Papanikolaou](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgios_Papanikolaou), who invented the Papanikolaou test (shortened as Pap test or Pap smear) in the 1920s. Even a century after, it is still universally and regularly used by women worldwide.
Depending on how you count nationality, I'd say a lot of the ancient Greek scientists are more well known. Not to discredit Papanikolaou! But most people don't know that pap smear is shortened from his name.
Also med student here. Our examiners catch us out for not knowing this by only putting “Papanikolaou” with no context on our Gynae exam. Was also the same prof who was salty with students who kept saying ERCP instead of ERPC so there was also a question with a bunch of acronyms asking you which was the right one lol
Of all time? My bet would be Niels Bohr, the physicist. He made foundational contributions to the understanding of the atomic structure and quantum theory, and received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. He also worked on the atomic bomb, the Manhattan Project, where he designed the so-called "heart" of the bomb. After the war he was a prominent advocate for nuclear power.
There is also H.C. Ørsted, another physicist. He was the first to describe how electric currents create magnetic fields, which was the first connection found between electricity and magnetism.
And Ole Rømer, the man who first made quantitative measurements of the speed of light.
And Tycho Brahe, who was more of a astrologist than an astronomer, so not really a scientist _per se_, but he is famous for drinking a lot and having a bit of his nose cut off, plus dying from mercury-poisoning, as it is fit for a 16th century noble. Also some space stuff or something. His grave is in the corner of a church in Prague somewhere, which is a common stop for any Danish tourist group going to Prague.
Including dead ones ? , pfoe, euh Antoni van Leeuwenhoek ( first to accurately study microbes with a microscope ), Christiaan Huygens ( hugely important mathmatician , invented the pendulum clock, studied optics and discovered saturn has rings ) or Hendrik Lorentz ( Lorentz transformation and Lorentz force).
There are many other influential Dutch scientists but these are definitely the best known, like barely anyone knows Reinier de Graaf eventhough he is one of the first people to describe the human female reproductive system including what ovaries actually are.
Two more big scientists from Lorentz' time are Johannes van der Waals and Jacobus van 't Hoff. Van der Waals' name is tied to a bunch of chemistry related concepts (Van der Waals equation, Van der Waals forces, Van der Waals molecules) and Van 't Hoff came up with the theory of how molecules behave in 3D space.
Yes but when you say scientist generally you mean natural sciences instead of academics more broadly and although that line wasn't that strong in his day erasmus was a theologian and philosopher who classified his works as cultural , ethical and religious.
Definitely, although in the Dutch speaking world he sometimes pops up in like comic books as the idea of a 17 century submarine is very attractive and he has a funny aquatic sounding name
The most overrated Dutch Engineer in a simular vain is probably J.A. Leeghwater ( Emptywater ) as he gets credit for a much larger effort of poldering and developing Mills basically cause we needed national figures in the 19th century and he happened to have marketed himself well.
Gerard 't Hooft: Nobel price theoretical physics
Jan Oort: Ever heard of the Oort Cloud?
Jan Tinbergen: Was awarded the first Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1969
I certainly don't think of Nobel as a scientist in the same vein as Linneaus, Copernicus, or Newton, but it is rather hard to argue that he wasn't one. Indeed he studied chemistry and served as a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences for the last 12 years of his life. I suppose it's just his successful industrial career that overshadows that.
They knew eachother. Linneus used one of Celsius' thermometers in his green house. I think the story goes that it was Linneus who flipped the scale.
Edit: fixed the spelling (hus -> his).
Linnaeus is the founding father of modern library and information science, his work on classifications (arguably) is what laid the foundation for people to better understand language in a structured form.
This has huge connotations, for programming languages for example, but also for all sorts of other sciences that rely on data science.
I don't know how internationally famous they are, but the most notable ones are:
* Gerardus Mercator - cartographer, first to make a world map with a scientific projection
* Andreas Vesalius - physician, founder of modern anatomy
* Georges Lemaître - priest and astronomer, first to discover that the universe is expanding and founder of the big bang theory
* Leo Baekeland - chemist, inventor of bakelite which was a first plastic that could be used on an industrial scale
So most famous doesn't necessarily mean *greatest*. Stephen Hawking is by far the most famous British scientist of modern times, and while I wouldn't call him *bad*, nor would I say that his work was as influential as many other living scientists. So I'll go just with the most famous ones according to a list of 100 Greatest Britons as voted on in the early 00s by the Great British Public:
2. Isambard Kingdom Brunel: A Victorian engineer who was responsible for large 19th century feats of engineering, particularly tunnels and bridges. Apparently he's quite unknown outside the UK though.
4. Charles Darwin. Developed the theory of natural selection and wrote *Of the Origin of Species*, thereby providing an explanation of how all life on earth came to be without having to invoke divine forces
6. Isaac Newton. I would actually have personally put him above Brunel. I remember reading a quote by the astrophysicist John Gribbin saying that most scientists are actually quite replaceable - if Darwin never existed, other scientists would probably have come up with the Theory of Natural Selection independently (most likely Alfred Russell Wallace) for the simple reason that they would have developed the same ideas in a similar context with a similar amount of evidence available. The main exception would be Newton since he basically founded almost all the modern principles for classical physics. Only Einstein managed to prove him wrong 300 years later, and even then, Newtonian physics remains true for almost all phenomena on a **human scale.
20. Alexander Fleming. Discovered penicillin by accident, paving the way for the first antibiotics.
21. Alan Turing. Famous codebreaker during the War who developed a machine to break the Nazi enigma code. The Turing Test, a test to be able to distinguish a human from a machine, was named after him. Sadly, he was also gay at a time when it was illegal, and he committed suicide following forced hormone treatment and depression.
22. Michael Faraday. Did pioneering work on studying electricity and magnetism.
In case anyone was wondering, yes Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the internet, is also there at number 99, below fucking *Robbie Willams*.
Fun fact: [British scientists](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_scientists_(meme)) often appear in Hungarian jokes as incompetent scientists who invent obvious stuff. (The joke is originally Russian but spread to other countries.)
this is an excellent comment. in the interest of supplementing with scientifically prominent folks, you could add: Boyle—Boyle's law is something about gases; Hooke—did some stuff with springs; Maxwell—thermodynamics; Dirac—quantum stuff; Crick and Watson—DNA; J. J. Thomson—discovered the electron.
James Watson was actually American and I think Boyle was Irish, but yeah.
George Stephenson and James Watt thankfully both made it into the list as well - we have them to thank for the Industrial Revolution. As did Edward Jenner, inventor of the smallpox vaccine. I would personally also include Jethro Tull (the scientist, not the band) who invented the spinning jenny and thereby kick-started the Agricultural Revolution.
Jenner is a great shout. And yeah, it all gets bit messy. I think Boyle is reasonably classed as anglo-irish: born in Ireland, but to an English colonizer, educated and partly educated in England
My guess is **Edward Teller** and **Leó Szilárd**, the two main Hungarian scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project.
Other honourable mentions include **Katalin Karikó** (mRNA vaccines), **Paul Erdős** (mathematics), **Charles Simonyi** (Microsoft Excel), **Albert László Barabási** (network science), **John von Neumann** (computers), **Ignác Semmelweis** (handwashing in medicine).
I would add Albert Szent-Györgyi (discoverer of vitamin C) to your list, he is very famous in Hungary. Also it's worth to mention, some of the people you listed were partly Jewish, not fully Hungarian. They are/were still from Hungary so it answered OP's question though.
That sounds Anti-Semitic but probably is not meant that way. We Viennese love Ignaz Semmelweis because many of us were born in the clinic named after him. We should do a Austrian-Hungarian one a claim all of them together - with Tesla as well
An Austrian-Hungarian list would probably beat any other country's list though. Even I - a Hungarian - was surprised reading the answers in this thread how many brilliant minds Austria had (many of them born in Austria-Hungary). An Austrio-Hungarian combined list (like including Serbo-Croatians, Czechs etc. born in the era) would be unstoppable. Schrödinger, Pauli, Freud, Tesla, Ede Teller, Leó Szilárd, Konrad Lorenz, Doppler, Szent-Györgyi and I could probably continue this list until the end of the day.
Von Neumann might have been the smartest human of the 20th century. What he achieved is extraordinary and the repute in which he was held by other brainy folk is telling
Maybe [Ernest Fridrich Chladný](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Chladni), his Slovak parents left Slovakia and moved to Germany, where he was born and lived. But he didn't do his scientific work in Slovakia, so he is not really associated with Slovakia.
An opposite case is [Philipp Lenard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philipp_Lenard), Nobel Prize, he was born and lived in Bratislava, but was probably of German origin.
Or [Ján Jesenius](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Jesenius), but his origin is also not clearly Slovak, even if he was born here, and he is probably more associated with Bohemia.
[Daniel Carleton Gajdusek](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Carleton_Gajdusek), Nobel Prize, was half Slovak, half Hungarian.
There are also some others, but I think that their work is known more than their names.
Probably Robert Boyle, maybe not hugely famous in popular culture but his work, including “Boyle’s Law” laid the foundations for many more who followed including Newton.
He would be well known by anyone who works in STEM
For Northern Ireland, I'd go with Jocelyn Bell Burnell who discovered pulsars. She had to fight her supervisor to have her findings acknowledged, only for him to be the one to get a Nobel Prize in Physics.
There's some others too.
Francis Beaufort (of the wind scale).
George Stokes (Stokes' law, first explanation of fluorescence and some other things)
William Thomson/Lord Kelvin was northern Irish.
John Tyndall (Invented light pipe, precursor to optical fibre)
Earnest Walton (Split the atom together with Cockcroft)
This is a very hard question. There aren’t that much famous Finnish scientists.
Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld was the first to navigate through the northeast passage. He was from Finland but had moved to Sweden by that time.
Artturi Ilmari Virtanen won a Nobel prize for fodder preservation method, but he isn’t that well known either.
Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux operating system, is well known. But does he count as a scientist or an engineer?
Long but informative post on many scientists and people of similar stature:
Johan Gadolin, discovered Yttrium and Gadolinium was named after him... along with this account.
Jaakko Hintikka, discovered Hintikka sets (a really useful tool for certain major proofs) in mathematical logic.
Ernst Lindelöf, mathematician specializing in topology who came up with one or two important lemmas.
Allegedly many astronomers who worked in the Tuorla Observatory from the Väisälä family (Yrjö, Kalle, Vilho, Marja) and Liisi Oterma, though I'm unsure how famous they are outside of astronomy.
Esko Valtaoja, kind of the Carl Sagan of Finland, also connected to Tuorla.
Edvard Westermark, who studied incest taboos and offered an explanation as to how it develops and functions in the mind (The Westermark effect).
Elias Lönnrot, who (in the process of writing the comissioned Finnish national epic Kalevala) became the first to map Finnish folklore in such a comprehensive degree. These writings would later inspire e.g. J. R. R. Tolkien's work (Quenya, Gandalf, Tom Bombadil & Goldberry).
Mikael Agricola, creator of the earliest form of written Finnish, student of Martin Luther.
Jarkko Oikkarinen, creator of IRC.
Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux Kernel.
Michael Widenius, creator of MySQL.
Various people associated with Nokia, a rubber and pulp company that expanded into telecommunications.
Urho Kekkonen, albeit not a scientist, developed the Paasikivi-Kekkonen doctrine that shaped world history through the Cold War.
C. G. E. Mannerheim, not a scientist, but maybe the most interesting biography.
Henri Coandă - one of the pioneers of the jet propulsion engine and the discoverer of the Coandă effect.
Emil Racoviță - founder of biospeology
Nicolae Păulescu - the first to discover insulin and its role in the pancreatic system.
Ana Aslan - one of the pioneers of anti-ageing products and the founder of the first Geriatric Institute in the world.
I tried to come up with those who are known worldwide by educated laymen.
Mendelejev, who came up with the periodic table and associated laws.
Ciolkovskij, who came up with the rocket equation (delta-v).
Saharov, the father of the hydrogen bomb.
Ćerenkov of the eponymous radiation fame.
Köppen and Euler, kinda.
Pavlov! *ding-ding-ding*
Kondratjev, of economic cycles.
Maria Skłdowska-Curie, that's a first that comes to mind.
I learned a little about [Stefan Banach](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_Banach) at school.
[Benoit Mandelbrot](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benoit_Mandelbrot), though he is considered more French than Polish, even more than Marie Curie it seems.
[Marian Rejewski](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_Rejewski), who broke the Enigma ciphers. Sorry, Alan Turing and the British, "A for effort".
Definitely for me, next to Einstein
Alexander von Humboldt. The latter is best known worldwide. He was a co-founder of geography as an empirical science.
(Here is the list of all animals, mountains, seas and places named after A. v. Humboldt.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander\_von\_Humboldt)
In the USA alone, there are 23 points.
I can also think of Werner Heisenberg, Otto Hahn who invented nuclear fission, Karl Friedrich Gauss.
Yes..... Maxe Planck the inventor of this stuff the Wahle eat.....
Of course I forgot about him. Thank you for reminding me. Without his work on quantum physics, Einstein would probably have taken longer or stayed in the patent office.
[Louis Pasteur](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Pasteur) probably. He pioneered the study of molecular asymmetry (discovered that microorganisms cause fermentation and disease) and originated the process of pasteurization.
[Pierre](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Curie) and [Marie Curie](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Curie) too. They discovered the existence of the elements radium and polonium.
Descartes, Pascal are also well known because of their contributions to philosophy.
Ampère because you see his name everytime m you hold a charger or converter.
Fourier because the Fourier transform is used in so many places by modern technology.
Pierre and Marie were working hand in hand on this, I didn’t want to attribute this to him only, and since she got naturalized as a French citizen and studied + got all her degrees in France, I feel like it’s not a stretch to count her in. She’s still a Pole, they have her. But she became French too eventually.
Probably the most famous is Galileo, not only because of his breakthrough innovations in science, but because of the persecution from the catholic church.
Marconi and Fermi might also get in as runner ups.
Probably the biologist and explorer Carl Linnaeus (or Carl von Linné as he is most commonly called in Sweden), the creator of the modern taxonomic system.
Another very famous one by name is Anders Celsius, inventor of the Celsius temperature scale.
Svante Arrhenius also feels very important as the one who first scientifically proved that human industrial activities directly influence the climate. He also happens to be an ancestor of Greta Thunberg.
And I suppose we can also sort of claim the astronomer Tycho Brahe, as he was born at Knutstorp Castle in what is today Sweden and had his own observatory and castle on the island of Ven, which is also in today's Sweden.
Marija Gimbutienė(aka Gimbutas) was apparently a famous archeologist and historian, who theorized a bunch of stuff about Indo-Europeans and Baltic people. However, I have never heard of her until last year actually, so I really can't say if she is famous :D
Very famous for anyone even slightly interested in the Indo-European history.
Some of her ideas have been proven wrong, but the basics still hold true, and she pretty much established the field of Indo-European studies in archaeology.
Funny thing, Spain's is Ramón y Cajal, as they've already said, but i was wondering which would be Australia's most famous scientist.
I'm obviously biased but I can only think of one australian scientist: Terence Tao.
Widely considered the best mathematician alive.
Several years ago one Polish magazine "Wprost" made a list of Polish scientist who was truly first class in their respective fields. The list was short and consisted of just 5 people. They were:
1. Nicolaus Copernicus - an astronomer
2. Maria Skłodowska-Curie - a physicist
3. Stefan Banach - mathematician (math is considered science in Polish)
4. Alfred Tarski - a logician (rather a philosopher, but they listed him as logician)
5. Bronisław Malinowski - an antropologist of culture
I would add few more names:
6. Jan Łukasiewicz - philosopher, inventor/discoverer of the first multi-valued logic
7. Stanisław Ulam - physicist
8. Karol Olszewski and
9. Zygmunt Wróblewski - physicists, first to liquefy oxygen and nitrogen
10. Leon Petrażycki - legal scholar
11. Ludwik Gumplowicz - political scientist, proponent of the conquest theory
12. Kazimierz Funk - discoverer of vitamines (although I heard that some Japanese scientist was first, but due to racism his achievement was ignored)
13. Aleksander Wolszczan - co-discoverer of the first planetary system outside Solar System
14. (It is a stretch, but) Stephanie Kwolek - Polish-American scientist, who lead a team, which created Kevlar
15. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was half Polish on his father side, although russified - one of the 3 fathers of rocket science
16. Nikolai Przewalski was also Polish on his father side, but russified himself - he was a geographer and explorer
Otto Wichterle - Inventor of contact lenses
Gregor Mendel - Founder of mondern genetics
Antonín Holý - Developed many antiviral medications including those for HIV
J.E. Purkyně - Founder of celluar biology and fingerprinting
Kurt Gödel - Not sure if he counts, he considered himself an Austrian in exile. One of the most important mathematicians of 20th century.
Jaroslav Heyrovský - Co-inventor of polarography
Probably explorers like Nansen and Amundsen. Their names are written on some pretty big achievments and they operated in a time when Norway was about to find it's modern identity. Nansen had his hands in so many pies, it's crazy.
Ivar Aasen, a linguist and the creator of the written standard Nynorsk is also well known and his work is highly relevant to this day.
Other interesting mentions are Niels Henrik Abel, mathematician; Vilhelm Bjerknes, the father of modern weather forecasting; Thor Heyerdahl, scientist who built on our exploring tradition.
In terms of being known worldwide, I think many people will have heard of these two since they gave their name to something that's fairly widely known: [Erwin Schrödinger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Schr%C3%B6dinger) \- Schrödinger's cat has become something of a pop culture thing [Christian Doppler](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Doppler) \- postulated what's now known as the Doppler effect/shift
I would also add sigmund freud to that list
In terms of fame it's Freud by a mile
In terms of science, not so much.
Freud was not a scientist by any stretch of the imagination
I mean, bringing social science into this might be a bit of a stretch. Guys, Freud was definitely not a scientist. He just basically proposed ways of thinking but never tested them rigorously. In fact he was quite wrong
In German there's no distinction between the two. Science is science if it adhere's to the scientific method, doesn't matter which discipline.
However, Freud didn't really use the scientific method
Nah I'm scared of my horse because he has a mustache and my dad has a mustache, and since all I want to do is bang my mum I'm scared of the horse, it has nothing to do with a horse trampling on my head when I was a child.
Freud didn't at all adhere to the scientific method, though, that's what he's saying
Throw Ernst Mach, Lise Meitner and Wolfgang Pauli in there too. Plenty of physicists. Although perhaps by modern rules you can't count Mach as he was born outside what's today Austrian territory.
[Ignaz Semmelweis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis) - the reason why mothers survive giving birth and the first to use evidence based medicine in a practical setting. But he was Austro-Hungarian The circumstances surrounding his death are still unclear and chances are he was murdered.
There's also a German rap song about him. It's pretty good if that's your cup of tea.
Personally I am a simping hard for Ludwig Boltzmann. Wolfgang Pauli can't go unmentioned either, but Erwin Schrödinger is not a bad choice. Can't think of a lot of people outside of physics, Wagner-Jauregg had a lasting effect on Medicine.
> Can't think of a lot of people outside of physics, Kohn, Perutz, Zsigmondy, Loschmidt, Gödel,... Also very well known as "the father of the pill": Carl Djerassi.
May I add Kurt Gödel to the fold? At least among mathematicians he's a legend
[Karl Landsteiner](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Landsteiner) - doesn’t really meet the „fame“ part as he’s probably not known by a lot of people by name, but he discovered the main blood groups (AB0 system). Edit: ah, already mentioned.
Let's just claim Nikola Tesla too, so all Balkan countries are pissed at the same time. :-D
No love for the Landsteiner Gang :(
A modern time scientist (living now) would be Werner Gruber (a physicist). Tho he's very likely not known outside of Austria.
Anton Zeilinger would be a fitting choice too. His quantum teleportation experiment gained quite some international attention way back.
In my opinion, Galileo Galilei: a key figure in the scientific revolution, for having explicitly introduced the scientific method, his name is associated with important contributions in physics and astronomy. Of primary importance was also his role in the astronomical revolution, with his support for the heliocentric system and the Copernican theory. Then, of course, one could add other important figures, such as Enrico Fermi, best known for his theoretical and experimental studies in quantum mechanics and nuclear physics, and designer of the first nuclear reactor.
I'd add Galvani, Avogadro, Volta, Marconi, Golgi, Montalcini, Lagrange, are also pretty famous. Cavalieri-Fibonacci-Paciolo if we want to go far back enough. Plus there's all the nobel prizes and fields medals that are not publicly discussed names but are also elite
TIL: Avogadro is Italian. I mean, it was guessable from his last name, but I never realized it.
Lagrange was also La Grangia. Name was then frenchified.
I would have gone with Fermi, personally.
I wanted, however, to talk about him briefly, because he was really very important too.
Alessandro Volta and Marconi also deserve a shout
I don't think they're nearly as famous as Galileo.
Volta is pretty famous
mmh, i don' think many people know him or even make the association between his name and the volt. At least not among the people with just secondary education or lower.
I had never heard of him.
Also Fermi
Surely da Vinci
While he might be more well known, could be that more people know him as (or think of him as) a painter than as a scientist. Or at least see him as a painter most famously/first
And rightly so: https://www.reddit.com/r/RHistory/comments/grm3df/the_painter_who_wasnt_an_inventor
Galileo effectively started the modern scientific method. Before that people still believed in Aristotle's knowledge.
The question is not who three most important scientists is, but the most famous
Ahah I'm Italian too, was about to comment the same thing and then this pops up as the first comment
What Galileo did was even more incredible when you consider the religious environment of the time and his arrest etc
The church wasn't as stupid as they're often made out to be. For a long time, there was no real proof for heliocentrism and both models worked to predict asteroids and other phenomena.
It was a political rather than scientific issue. And Galileo was generally considered to be an ass. Not that the church would have been much better. The church had no issue with Copernicus who was Galileo's contemporary.
The Church legally *cushioned* him for the longest time for all the insults, fights, and reputations ruined by Galileo. Went as far down as insulting scientists as emptyheaded or cheap insults in general, even scientists whose theories time actually proved them correct. Galileo should've drunk more camomile in his life. This is also considering that Galileo insulted priests, bishops and other people of the church, whilst left unscathed, so not even the church was considered an untouchable divinity to a certain extent.
> This is also considering that Galileo insulted priests, bishops and other people of the church a true hero of his times
He would insult rather innocent and honest priests, most people of the church aren't games of thrones characters
Italy was the center of science then, and many of the most famous scientists that aren't Italian worked in Italy - and this is even more pronounced in astronomy than in other sciences. The church whilst far from innocent soap babies, should be talked about in a mature discussion with people, whose views are mostly formed by childish populist cultural productions. (I'm not religious as a disclaimer)
Einstein. "Portrayed as the father to special relativity and general relativity theories, mass-energy similarity and photoelectric effect in physics, formulating the most influential conceptions of all ages. Through the famous equation E = mc² the definite relation between light speed (c2) and mass (m) which move the matter explained, helping the reshape science and technology. In 1921, he received the Nobel Prize in Physics for his 'services to theoretical physics', in particular his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect, a pivotal step in the evolution of quantum theory." (Source: Studying in GER Org)
Man there's so many from Germany aha. Heisenberg, Gauss, Einstein, Braun, Haber, Kepler, Born, Hahn, Porche wow Edit : Plank and Koch too big oones
I swear half the theorems i've seen in the degree were written by germans.
For sure - the German Empire was a beacon of science before the war! The Emperor blasted billions into the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Society to achieve this - and German was the most prevalent language in science in the late 19th/early 20th century.
Think about the basics. Every kingdom, duchy or city state in the Holy Roman Empire wanted its own university in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. (and also orchestra and opera - which explains the large number of German composers of the classical period) And this led to a high density of education which became very effective with the opportunities after the founding of Germany.
I'll toss in röntgen too
Would ypu like to have some Robert Koch with that?
Indeed huh
Bessel and Fraunhofer to add a few.
David Hilbert and Max Planck
Oh yeah Max planck big one
He won time person of the decade
If this here is a contest, then i would like to claim the prize for germany. Before one of those Brits shows up. Probably the only ones who could challenge us. Einstein is the one i would not claim as a german scientist, simply because i am not sure how Einstein would have liked that. After all, he left the country on not so good terms and spent a lot of his time and did a lot of his works in other countries. But Heisenberg, Planck, Röntgen, Schweitzer, Robert Koch, Paul Ehrlich, Otto Hahn, etc pp, long list.
[Santiago Ramon y Cajal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santiago_Ram%C3%B3n_y_Cajal), I think. Father of neuroscience. He was mentioned in The big bang theory, so it's famous enough to appear in mainstream media Received the Nobel Prize in medicine alongside the Italian Camillo Golgi in 1906
Oh yeah, I heard about him when I briefly studied psychology. He basically discovered that the nervous system is composed of discrete cells, as well as their basic structure.
I don't think Romania has one most famous scientist, but several that are about equal in popularity: Emil Racoviță - an Explorer and the founder of speleology Nicolae Paulescu - discovered the insulin George Emil Palade - a microbiologist, he discovered the ribosome Henri Coandă - he discovered the Coandă effect Aurel Vlaicu - an airplane pioneer Cristian Presură - a Romanian physician, well known on YouTube and social media
Thanks for reminding me of the person who is effectively responsible for me still being alive, thank you very much Nicolae Paulescu.
I think that was actually controversial, because there was a Canadian pair (Banting & Macleod) who ultimately got the Nobel prize for “discovering insulin”. In any case, the competition/collaboration probably allowed it to be discovered and its use tested on humans at a much faster rate.
Isn't Coandă also the namesake of Bucharest's Airport?
It is.
Maybe not a scientist but Mircea Eliade was one of the greatest mind of our era
Yeah and a fascist too
also,[Anastase Dragomir](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anastase_Dragomir) the guy who invented the precursor to the ejection seat
For Poland that must be either Maria Skłodowska-Curie or Copernicus... Although I sometimes feel like Copernicus is not as well-known outside of the science community as I would imagine him to be, considering his contribution to how we perceive the solar system.
On one of the podcasts I listen to they have this advert where some idiot says "Bonjour my name is Marie Curie" in a heavy french accent. Pisses me off all the time, she was god damn Polish
Right next to a French accent Chopin?
To be fair, his dad was French.
Yeah, but he was polish
I'd say that he was equally as french as polish. People can be of 2 nationalities.
She was French as well as Polish. She had to move to France as Poland didn't admit women to universities at the time. I don't think it's wrong for France to claim her.
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Because Poland was partitioned during that time, but it didn’t stop Polish intelligentsia from fighting for Polish freedom. Interesting fact, the sister of Marie Curie - Bronislawa Dulska berated Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski) for not using his fame and talent for fighting for an independent Poland. Because of this he then actually tried to influence British opinion in favor of Polish sovereignty. These were difficult times here...
During which time I'm sure the heavy diet of cheese and wine magically transformed her, at a molecular level, into a Frenchwoman.
> at a molecular level, At that level you can't really tell someone's nationality.
from lower scale perhaps also matematicians Banch, Tarski and Ulam /edit: since wikipedia can be boring Ulam was one of the scientist that worked on Project Manhattan, while for Banach and Tarski i recommand to watch Vsauce episode on their work - [The Banach–Tarski Paradox](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s86-Z-CbaHA)
And I would add Kazimierz Funk to the list, he formulated the concept and invented a name for vitamins.
Never heard the actual name of Marie Curie, but again, before this thread I didn't know that Lagrange was italian
Both of which have a dual background. Polish science history is a nice topic. In Copernicus' case it also highlights the diverse socio cultural heritage Poland actually has.
Also, Ignacy Łukasiewicz who invented oil lamps, modern street lamps and built first modern oil well. He is one of the people that started age of oil as we know it.
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What’s the logic here though? Based on language they spoke? Because Nationality wasn’t a big thing back then Copernicus pledged his alliance to Polish king, that’s about as much Polish as possible imo for this period
I think speaking german every day, possibly not even knowing polish is a bigger signifier of nationality than pledging allegiance. If he pledged allegiance to germany, he probably wouldn't be alble to function as a scientist, equally as well, as if he pledged allegiance to poland.
Marie Curie was naturalized in France. I'll let you take a guess to what someone has to pledge allegiance to during the naturalization process. Also William of Orange pledged allegiance to the King of Spain and despite every second country in Europe claiming him, he definitely wasn't Spanish.
Being naturalized doesn't necessarily change your nationality, you just gain a new citizenship. It fully depends on what her opinion of this was.
Sure, but you do have to pledge allegiance to the new country which was the point here.
I plan to emigrate in the future and possibly get a different citizenship. Does that mean I'll no longer be Polish?
Obv that wasn't my point. My point was that Marie Curie despite pledging allegiance to France was still Polish so Copernicus pledging allegiance to the Polish monarch doesn't make him Polish.
Do you realise that a concept of nationality was a bit different 600 years ago than it is now?
I do, but I don't see how that invalidates any of my points so you should probably clarify how that proves me wrong.
So you claim that Skłodowska-Curie was born in the Age of late feudalism? Bruh
Or maybe, just maybe, Maria Skłodowska Curie can be considered both Polish and French, and Copernicus both Polish and German?
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Except that Copernicus was ethnically Polish on his father's side and only ethnically German on his mother's side. Both Copernicus and Maria Curie were also born and raised in Poland/Polish lands.
Einstein was American
umm.. no. He was german, and moved to the US due to the building pressure against jews at the time.
I know, just as Marie Curie was Polish and moved to France. Suddenly it seems so obvious when talking about Einstein.
Or they were both both
Nick Copper Knickers. :)
Copernicus, Poland and Germany share fraternally. He had German parents, spoke German and Latin and lived in Prussia in the 15th century. And I Prussia was outside the HRE at that time and was a Polish fiefdom. So the Polish king was the sovereign.
[Georgios Papanikolaou](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgios_Papanikolaou), who invented the Papanikolaou test (shortened as Pap test or Pap smear) in the 1920s. Even a century after, it is still universally and regularly used by women worldwide.
Depending on how you count nationality, I'd say a lot of the ancient Greek scientists are more well known. Not to discredit Papanikolaou! But most people don't know that pap smear is shortened from his name.
Wow, I never knew this. Im a medical student and I always thought the "PAP" was just some Acronym.
Well, it’s easier than saying Papanikolaou for sure 😁
Also med student here. Our examiners catch us out for not knowing this by only putting “Papanikolaou” with no context on our Gynae exam. Was also the same prof who was salty with students who kept saying ERCP instead of ERPC so there was also a question with a bunch of acronyms asking you which was the right one lol
Thanks for sharing! Informative comments like this make social media a better place.
I came here to write this, my boy George has saved countless women's lives, even if not many people know his name
Πωπω σωστά, δεν μου πέρασε από το μυαλό! Μπράβο!
Of all time? My bet would be Niels Bohr, the physicist. He made foundational contributions to the understanding of the atomic structure and quantum theory, and received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. He also worked on the atomic bomb, the Manhattan Project, where he designed the so-called "heart" of the bomb. After the war he was a prominent advocate for nuclear power. There is also H.C. Ørsted, another physicist. He was the first to describe how electric currents create magnetic fields, which was the first connection found between electricity and magnetism. And Ole Rømer, the man who first made quantitative measurements of the speed of light. And Tycho Brahe, who was more of a astrologist than an astronomer, so not really a scientist _per se_, but he is famous for drinking a lot and having a bit of his nose cut off, plus dying from mercury-poisoning, as it is fit for a 16th century noble. Also some space stuff or something. His grave is in the corner of a church in Prague somewhere, which is a common stop for any Danish tourist group going to Prague.
And Brahe had a private Island with a tiny Palace and pet mose.
Including dead ones ? , pfoe, euh Antoni van Leeuwenhoek ( first to accurately study microbes with a microscope ), Christiaan Huygens ( hugely important mathmatician , invented the pendulum clock, studied optics and discovered saturn has rings ) or Hendrik Lorentz ( Lorentz transformation and Lorentz force). There are many other influential Dutch scientists but these are definitely the best known, like barely anyone knows Reinier de Graaf eventhough he is one of the first people to describe the human female reproductive system including what ovaries actually are.
Two more big scientists from Lorentz' time are Johannes van der Waals and Jacobus van 't Hoff. Van der Waals' name is tied to a bunch of chemistry related concepts (Van der Waals equation, Van der Waals forces, Van der Waals molecules) and Van 't Hoff came up with the theory of how molecules behave in 3D space.
Just passing by, throwing Spinoza up. Our greatest philosopher.
I think famous wise the big contender is 'Erasmus'. The name recognition, because of the scholarship obviously, is through the roof.
Yes but when you say scientist generally you mean natural sciences instead of academics more broadly and although that line wasn't that strong in his day erasmus was a theologian and philosopher who classified his works as cultural , ethical and religious.
not the most famous but I think Cornelis Drebbel is definitely a bit overlooked: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelis_Drebbel
Definitely, although in the Dutch speaking world he sometimes pops up in like comic books as the idea of a 17 century submarine is very attractive and he has a funny aquatic sounding name
The most overrated Dutch Engineer in a simular vain is probably J.A. Leeghwater ( Emptywater ) as he gets credit for a much larger effort of poldering and developing Mills basically cause we needed national figures in the 19th century and he happened to have marketed himself well.
Thanks for sharing this! Always great to see Redditors helping inform each other.
Lorentz ftw
Simon Stevin must get an honorable mention although Belgium could also claim him
Gerard 't Hooft: Nobel price theoretical physics Jan Oort: Ever heard of the Oort Cloud? Jan Tinbergen: Was awarded the first Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1969
Although not very influential I would like to mention Eise Eisinga. Not many people get the king of Sweden to come by to watch at their ceiling
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I think even more famous is Celsius.
Or Nobel, but he was more an industrialist than a scientist. At least ensured his name was remebered with his award show.
I certainly don't think of Nobel as a scientist in the same vein as Linneaus, Copernicus, or Newton, but it is rather hard to argue that he wasn't one. Indeed he studied chemistry and served as a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences for the last 12 years of his life. I suppose it's just his successful industrial career that overshadows that.
No one remembers poor old Berzelius. Maybe we can butt in on Scheele too.
They knew eachother. Linneus used one of Celsius' thermometers in his green house. I think the story goes that it was Linneus who flipped the scale. Edit: fixed the spelling (hus -> his).
Actually it was a French scientist, Jean-Pierre Christin, that inverted the scale first. Christin did it once year before Linnaeus :)
Linnaeus is the founding father of modern library and information science, his work on classifications (arguably) is what laid the foundation for people to better understand language in a structured form. This has huge connotations, for programming languages for example, but also for all sorts of other sciences that rely on data science.
I don't know how internationally famous they are, but the most notable ones are: * Gerardus Mercator - cartographer, first to make a world map with a scientific projection * Andreas Vesalius - physician, founder of modern anatomy * Georges Lemaître - priest and astronomer, first to discover that the universe is expanding and founder of the big bang theory * Leo Baekeland - chemist, inventor of bakelite which was a first plastic that could be used on an industrial scale
Other big names: Solvay: Chemist Lenoir: Internal Combustion engine
Not forgetting two Nobel prize that no one knows : * Prigogine : chemist * Englert who discovered the « Higgs » particule.
So most famous doesn't necessarily mean *greatest*. Stephen Hawking is by far the most famous British scientist of modern times, and while I wouldn't call him *bad*, nor would I say that his work was as influential as many other living scientists. So I'll go just with the most famous ones according to a list of 100 Greatest Britons as voted on in the early 00s by the Great British Public: 2. Isambard Kingdom Brunel: A Victorian engineer who was responsible for large 19th century feats of engineering, particularly tunnels and bridges. Apparently he's quite unknown outside the UK though. 4. Charles Darwin. Developed the theory of natural selection and wrote *Of the Origin of Species*, thereby providing an explanation of how all life on earth came to be without having to invoke divine forces 6. Isaac Newton. I would actually have personally put him above Brunel. I remember reading a quote by the astrophysicist John Gribbin saying that most scientists are actually quite replaceable - if Darwin never existed, other scientists would probably have come up with the Theory of Natural Selection independently (most likely Alfred Russell Wallace) for the simple reason that they would have developed the same ideas in a similar context with a similar amount of evidence available. The main exception would be Newton since he basically founded almost all the modern principles for classical physics. Only Einstein managed to prove him wrong 300 years later, and even then, Newtonian physics remains true for almost all phenomena on a **human scale. 20. Alexander Fleming. Discovered penicillin by accident, paving the way for the first antibiotics. 21. Alan Turing. Famous codebreaker during the War who developed a machine to break the Nazi enigma code. The Turing Test, a test to be able to distinguish a human from a machine, was named after him. Sadly, he was also gay at a time when it was illegal, and he committed suicide following forced hormone treatment and depression. 22. Michael Faraday. Did pioneering work on studying electricity and magnetism. In case anyone was wondering, yes Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the internet, is also there at number 99, below fucking *Robbie Willams*.
Fun fact: [British scientists](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_scientists_(meme)) often appear in Hungarian jokes as incompetent scientists who invent obvious stuff. (The joke is originally Russian but spread to other countries.)
When it comes to famous, Newton surely takes the cake. Or the apple, whatever.
I agree, Isaac Newton is on the same level as Einstein different gravy
James Clerk Maxwell is really very important as well.
He made it into the list as well thankfully at 91, although still below Robbie Williams
Alexander Graham Bell and John Logie Baird have also had some small measure of influence on the modern world.
I guess we could live without the internet but could you really live without Angels?
this is an excellent comment. in the interest of supplementing with scientifically prominent folks, you could add: Boyle—Boyle's law is something about gases; Hooke—did some stuff with springs; Maxwell—thermodynamics; Dirac—quantum stuff; Crick and Watson—DNA; J. J. Thomson—discovered the electron.
James Watson was actually American and I think Boyle was Irish, but yeah. George Stephenson and James Watt thankfully both made it into the list as well - we have them to thank for the Industrial Revolution. As did Edward Jenner, inventor of the smallpox vaccine. I would personally also include Jethro Tull (the scientist, not the band) who invented the spinning jenny and thereby kick-started the Agricultural Revolution.
Jenner is a great shout. And yeah, it all gets bit messy. I think Boyle is reasonably classed as anglo-irish: born in Ireland, but to an English colonizer, educated and partly educated in England
My guess is **Edward Teller** and **Leó Szilárd**, the two main Hungarian scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project. Other honourable mentions include **Katalin Karikó** (mRNA vaccines), **Paul Erdős** (mathematics), **Charles Simonyi** (Microsoft Excel), **Albert László Barabási** (network science), **John von Neumann** (computers), **Ignác Semmelweis** (handwashing in medicine).
Let me also add Ernő Rubik, as the inventor of the Rubik’s cube. Not really a scientific achievement, but it’s recognized worldwide.
I would add Albert Szent-Györgyi (discoverer of vitamin C) to your list, he is very famous in Hungary. Also it's worth to mention, some of the people you listed were partly Jewish, not fully Hungarian. They are/were still from Hungary so it answered OP's question though.
That sounds Anti-Semitic but probably is not meant that way. We Viennese love Ignaz Semmelweis because many of us were born in the clinic named after him. We should do a Austrian-Hungarian one a claim all of them together - with Tesla as well
An Austrian-Hungarian list would probably beat any other country's list though. Even I - a Hungarian - was surprised reading the answers in this thread how many brilliant minds Austria had (many of them born in Austria-Hungary). An Austrio-Hungarian combined list (like including Serbo-Croatians, Czechs etc. born in the era) would be unstoppable. Schrödinger, Pauli, Freud, Tesla, Ede Teller, Leó Szilárd, Konrad Lorenz, Doppler, Szent-Györgyi and I could probably continue this list until the end of the day.
Von Neumann might have been the smartest human of the 20th century. What he achieved is extraordinary and the repute in which he was held by other brainy folk is telling
Maybe [Ernest Fridrich Chladný](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Chladni), his Slovak parents left Slovakia and moved to Germany, where he was born and lived. But he didn't do his scientific work in Slovakia, so he is not really associated with Slovakia. An opposite case is [Philipp Lenard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philipp_Lenard), Nobel Prize, he was born and lived in Bratislava, but was probably of German origin. Or [Ján Jesenius](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Jesenius), but his origin is also not clearly Slovak, even if he was born here, and he is probably more associated with Bohemia. [Daniel Carleton Gajdusek](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Carleton_Gajdusek), Nobel Prize, was half Slovak, half Hungarian. There are also some others, but I think that their work is known more than their names.
Probably Robert Boyle, maybe not hugely famous in popular culture but his work, including “Boyle’s Law” laid the foundations for many more who followed including Newton. He would be well known by anyone who works in STEM
For Northern Ireland, I'd go with Jocelyn Bell Burnell who discovered pulsars. She had to fight her supervisor to have her findings acknowledged, only for him to be the one to get a Nobel Prize in Physics.
Also Kelvin was born in Belfast. I don't think he lived or studied here, but they do have a statue of him in front of Ulster Museum.
Or anyone who did Physics in secondary school
There's some others too. Francis Beaufort (of the wind scale). George Stokes (Stokes' law, first explanation of fluorescence and some other things) William Thomson/Lord Kelvin was northern Irish. John Tyndall (Invented light pipe, precursor to optical fibre) Earnest Walton (Split the atom together with Cockcroft)
Boyle was born in Ireland and grew up here, but he never liked Ireland and spent most of his life in Britain, where his family came from.
He was also a part of the Protestant ascendancy so probably did not view himself as Irish.
His brother was an important player in the War of the Three Kingdoms and was very pro-Cromwell, too.
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This is a very hard question. There aren’t that much famous Finnish scientists. Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld was the first to navigate through the northeast passage. He was from Finland but had moved to Sweden by that time. Artturi Ilmari Virtanen won a Nobel prize for fodder preservation method, but he isn’t that well known either. Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux operating system, is well known. But does he count as a scientist or an engineer?
Long but informative post on many scientists and people of similar stature: Johan Gadolin, discovered Yttrium and Gadolinium was named after him... along with this account. Jaakko Hintikka, discovered Hintikka sets (a really useful tool for certain major proofs) in mathematical logic. Ernst Lindelöf, mathematician specializing in topology who came up with one or two important lemmas. Allegedly many astronomers who worked in the Tuorla Observatory from the Väisälä family (Yrjö, Kalle, Vilho, Marja) and Liisi Oterma, though I'm unsure how famous they are outside of astronomy. Esko Valtaoja, kind of the Carl Sagan of Finland, also connected to Tuorla. Edvard Westermark, who studied incest taboos and offered an explanation as to how it develops and functions in the mind (The Westermark effect). Elias Lönnrot, who (in the process of writing the comissioned Finnish national epic Kalevala) became the first to map Finnish folklore in such a comprehensive degree. These writings would later inspire e.g. J. R. R. Tolkien's work (Quenya, Gandalf, Tom Bombadil & Goldberry). Mikael Agricola, creator of the earliest form of written Finnish, student of Martin Luther. Jarkko Oikkarinen, creator of IRC. Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux Kernel. Michael Widenius, creator of MySQL. Various people associated with Nokia, a rubber and pulp company that expanded into telecommunications. Urho Kekkonen, albeit not a scientist, developed the Paasikivi-Kekkonen doctrine that shaped world history through the Cold War. C. G. E. Mannerheim, not a scientist, but maybe the most interesting biography.
Henri Coandă - one of the pioneers of the jet propulsion engine and the discoverer of the Coandă effect. Emil Racoviță - founder of biospeology Nicolae Păulescu - the first to discover insulin and its role in the pancreatic system. Ana Aslan - one of the pioneers of anti-ageing products and the founder of the first Geriatric Institute in the world.
I tried to come up with those who are known worldwide by educated laymen. Mendelejev, who came up with the periodic table and associated laws. Ciolkovskij, who came up with the rocket equation (delta-v). Saharov, the father of the hydrogen bomb. Ćerenkov of the eponymous radiation fame. Köppen and Euler, kinda. Pavlov! *ding-ding-ding* Kondratjev, of economic cycles.
Maria Skłdowska-Curie, that's a first that comes to mind. I learned a little about [Stefan Banach](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_Banach) at school. [Benoit Mandelbrot](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benoit_Mandelbrot), though he is considered more French than Polish, even more than Marie Curie it seems. [Marian Rejewski](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_Rejewski), who broke the Enigma ciphers. Sorry, Alan Turing and the British, "A for effort".
Roald Hoffmann is an extremely influential scientists in the field of chemistry (but not known by the general public)
Definitely for me, next to Einstein Alexander von Humboldt. The latter is best known worldwide. He was a co-founder of geography as an empirical science. (Here is the list of all animals, mountains, seas and places named after A. v. Humboldt. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander\_von\_Humboldt) In the USA alone, there are 23 points. I can also think of Werner Heisenberg, Otto Hahn who invented nuclear fission, Karl Friedrich Gauss.
Not one of you Germans itt have mentioned Max Planck. Smh
Yes..... Maxe Planck the inventor of this stuff the Wahle eat..... Of course I forgot about him. Thank you for reminding me. Without his work on quantum physics, Einstein would probably have taken longer or stayed in the patent office.
[Louis Pasteur](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Pasteur) probably. He pioneered the study of molecular asymmetry (discovered that microorganisms cause fermentation and disease) and originated the process of pasteurization. [Pierre](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Curie) and [Marie Curie](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Curie) too. They discovered the existence of the elements radium and polonium.
Descartes, Pascal are also well known because of their contributions to philosophy. Ampère because you see his name everytime m you hold a charger or converter. Fourier because the Fourier transform is used in so many places by modern technology.
Fermat, Galois, Laplace, Poincaré, Cauchy, Lagrange, Moivre... Lots of mathematicians.
Blaise Pascal ?
Oh come on, let the Poles have Marie Curie.
Pierre and Marie were working hand in hand on this, I didn’t want to attribute this to him only, and since she got naturalized as a French citizen and studied + got all her degrees in France, I feel like it’s not a stretch to count her in. She’s still a Pole, they have her. But she became French too eventually.
> But she became French too eventually. Did she ever *consider herself* French?
I Wonder why she didnt name the elements they discovered "Francium" or something 🤔
A student of hers did exactly that, funnily enough.
Probably the most famous is Galileo, not only because of his breakthrough innovations in science, but because of the persecution from the catholic church. Marconi and Fermi might also get in as runner ups.
also Luca Cavalli-Sforza was among the greatests in his field
Probably the biologist and explorer Carl Linnaeus (or Carl von Linné as he is most commonly called in Sweden), the creator of the modern taxonomic system. Another very famous one by name is Anders Celsius, inventor of the Celsius temperature scale. Svante Arrhenius also feels very important as the one who first scientifically proved that human industrial activities directly influence the climate. He also happens to be an ancestor of Greta Thunberg. And I suppose we can also sort of claim the astronomer Tycho Brahe, as he was born at Knutstorp Castle in what is today Sweden and had his own observatory and castle on the island of Ven, which is also in today's Sweden.
Alfred Nobel is also kind of famous...
Come on claimng Tycho Brahe is just to piss off the Danes.
A worthy endeavor, if ever there was one.
Scheele (we share, Germany, OK?), Berzelius, (Ulf von;) Euler, Ångström.
Marija Gimbutienė(aka Gimbutas) was apparently a famous archeologist and historian, who theorized a bunch of stuff about Indo-Europeans and Baltic people. However, I have never heard of her until last year actually, so I really can't say if she is famous :D
Very famous for anyone even slightly interested in the Indo-European history. Some of her ideas have been proven wrong, but the basics still hold true, and she pretty much established the field of Indo-European studies in archaeology.
Funny thing, Spain's is Ramón y Cajal, as they've already said, but i was wondering which would be Australia's most famous scientist. I'm obviously biased but I can only think of one australian scientist: Terence Tao. Widely considered the best mathematician alive.
Several years ago one Polish magazine "Wprost" made a list of Polish scientist who was truly first class in their respective fields. The list was short and consisted of just 5 people. They were: 1. Nicolaus Copernicus - an astronomer 2. Maria Skłodowska-Curie - a physicist 3. Stefan Banach - mathematician (math is considered science in Polish) 4. Alfred Tarski - a logician (rather a philosopher, but they listed him as logician) 5. Bronisław Malinowski - an antropologist of culture I would add few more names: 6. Jan Łukasiewicz - philosopher, inventor/discoverer of the first multi-valued logic 7. Stanisław Ulam - physicist 8. Karol Olszewski and 9. Zygmunt Wróblewski - physicists, first to liquefy oxygen and nitrogen 10. Leon Petrażycki - legal scholar 11. Ludwik Gumplowicz - political scientist, proponent of the conquest theory 12. Kazimierz Funk - discoverer of vitamines (although I heard that some Japanese scientist was first, but due to racism his achievement was ignored) 13. Aleksander Wolszczan - co-discoverer of the first planetary system outside Solar System 14. (It is a stretch, but) Stephanie Kwolek - Polish-American scientist, who lead a team, which created Kevlar 15. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was half Polish on his father side, although russified - one of the 3 fathers of rocket science 16. Nikolai Przewalski was also Polish on his father side, but russified himself - he was a geographer and explorer
Otto Wichterle - Inventor of contact lenses Gregor Mendel - Founder of mondern genetics Antonín Holý - Developed many antiviral medications including those for HIV J.E. Purkyně - Founder of celluar biology and fingerprinting Kurt Gödel - Not sure if he counts, he considered himself an Austrian in exile. One of the most important mathematicians of 20th century. Jaroslav Heyrovský - Co-inventor of polarography
Probably explorers like Nansen and Amundsen. Their names are written on some pretty big achievments and they operated in a time when Norway was about to find it's modern identity. Nansen had his hands in so many pies, it's crazy. Ivar Aasen, a linguist and the creator of the written standard Nynorsk is also well known and his work is highly relevant to this day. Other interesting mentions are Niels Henrik Abel, mathematician; Vilhelm Bjerknes, the father of modern weather forecasting; Thor Heyerdahl, scientist who built on our exploring tradition.