Scientist Stephen Hawking was known for his groundbreaking work with black holes and relativity, and was the author of several popular science books including 'A Brief History of Time.'

Marie Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, in Physics, and with her later win, in Chemistry, she became the first person to claim Nobel honors twice.

African-American physicist and astronaut Ronald McNair was one of the seven crew members killed in the 1986 Space Shuttle 'Challenger' explosion.

In 1983, astronaut and astrophysicist Sally Ride became the first American woman in space aboard the space shuttle Challenger. Ride died on July 23, 2012 at the age of 61, following a battle with pancreatic cancer.

Physicist Enrico Fermi built the prototype of a nuclear reactor and worked on the Manhattan Project to develop the first atomic bomb.

English physicist and mathematician Sir Isaac Newton, most famous for his law of gravitation, was instrumental in the Scientific Revolution of the 17th century.

Chinese-American nuclear physicist Chien-Shiung Wu, also known as "the First Lady of Physics,” contributed to the Manhattan Project and made history with an experiment that disproved the hypothetical law of conservation of parity.

Through his experiments in wireless telegraphy, Nobel Prize-winning physicist/inventor Guglielmo Marconi developed the first effective system of radio communication.

French physicist Pierre Curie was one of the founding fathers of modern physics and is best known for being a pioneer in radioactive studies.

J. Robert Oppenheimer is often called the "father of the atomic bomb" for leading the Manhattan Project, the program that developed the first nuclear weapon during World War II.

Albert Einstein was a German-born physicist who developed the general theory of relativity. He is considered one of the most influential physicists of the 20th century.

Scientist George Carruthers created inventions, such as the ultraviolet camera, or spectograph, which was used by NASA in the 1972 Apollo 16 flight, revealing the mysteries of space and the Earth's atmosphere.

Robert Hooke is known as a "Renaissance Man" of 17th century England for his work in the sciences, which covered areas such as astronomy, physics and biology.

Erwin Schrödinger was a Nobel Prize-winning Austrian physicist whose groundbreaking wave equation changed the face of quantum theory.

Blaise Pascal was a French mathematician, physicist and religious philosopher who laid the foundation for the modern theory of probabilities.

Niels Bohr was a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and humanitarian whose revolutionary theories on atomic structures helped shape research worldwide.

Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose is known for working with Albert Einstein on the Bose-Einstein Condensate and as namesake of the boson, or “God particle.”

James C. Maxwell was a 19th century pioneer in chemistry and physics who articulated the idea of electromagnetism.

French engineer and physicist Charles de Coulomb made pioneering discoveries in electricity and magnetism, and came up with the theory called Coulomb's Law.

Mileva Einstein-Maric was the first wife of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Albert Einstein.

J.J. Thomson was a Nobel Prize winning physicist whose research led to the discovery of electrons.

Physicist Ernest Rutherford was the central figure in the study of radioactivity who led the exploration of nuclear physics.