Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel invented dynamite and other explosives. He used his enormous fortune from 355 patents to institute the Nobel Prizes.
1833-1896
1942-
1894-1989
1927-
1901-1958
1832-1891
1912-2008
Blaise Pascal was a French mathematician, physicist and religious philosopher, who laid the foundation for the modern theory of probabilities.
1623-1662
Scientist Louis Pasteur came up with the food preparing process known as pasteurization; he also developed a vaccination for anthrax and rabies.
1822-1895
Mina Stevens was an astronomer who was a pioneer in the classification of stellar spectra.
1857-1911
1900-1958
1901-1994
Russian physiologist Ivan Petrovich Pavlov studied "conditioned reflex" through an experiment that made hungry dogs salivate at the sound of a dinner bell.
1849-1936
Psychologist Jean Piaget identified stages of mental development, called Schema, and established the fields of cognitive theory and developmental psychology.
1896-1980
Czech experimental physiologist Johannes Purkinje discovered the Purkinje effect, Purkinje cells and Purkinje fibers and first introduced the term protoplasm.
1787-1869
1908-2005
Physicist Ernest Rutherford was the central figure in the study of radioactivity who led the exploration of nuclear physics.
1871-1937
1845-1923
1934-1996
William Shockley was an engineer and co-winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1956 for his development of the transistor.
1910-1989
1943-2005
Roger W. Sperry was a 20th century scientist who won the Nobel Prize for his groundbreaking research on brain hemispheres.
1913-1994
1915-1980
A student of such famed physicists as Albert Einstein and Max Planck, Leo Szilard was key in getting the United States to work on the atomic bomb.
1898-1964
1800-1877
1909-1975
1915-2005
American radio astronomer and physicist Joseph H. Taylor Jr. was the co-recipient of the 1993 Nobel Prize for Physics for discovering the first binary pulsar.
1941-
1856-1943
1903-1982
J.J. Thomson was a Nobel Prize winning physicist whose research led to the discovery of electrons.
1856-1940
1824-1907
1837-1923
Rudolf Virchow was a German pathologist and statesman, widely credited for his advancements in public health, particularly with his cell theory.
1821-1902
James D. Watson is a Nobel Prize-winning biophysicist and researcher credited with co-discovering the double-helix structure of DNA.
1928-
1846-1914
1929-
Known as "Black Edison," Granville Woods was an African-American inventor who made key contributions to the development of the telephone, street car and more.
1856-1910
1946-