Modern Era Scientists with brief Descriptions



Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was a German physicist who lived between 1879-1955. Probably the most well-known scientist of the twentieth century, Einstein came up with many original theories and invented modern physics.

He is most famous for his theory of relativity, which makes bold statements about the nature of light and also shows the relationship between mass and energy. Einstein's accurate predictions on the link between gravity with space and time also made him a celebrity.



Edwin Hubble

Edwin Hubble was an American astronomer who lived between 1889-1953. His observations of galaxies helped him develop the idea of an expanding universe, which forms the basis of modern cosmology, the study of the origin of the universe. He also discovered a relationship between a galaxy's speed and its distance.

Hubble's studies were interrupted by service in both World Wars. The Hubble space telescope, currently on an observation project in space, bears his name.



Ernest Rutherford

Ernest Rutherford was a New Zealand-born physicist who lived between 1871-1937. He is considered the father of nuclear physics because of his discoveries on atomic structure. Rutherford believed that an atom is like a small planetary system, with the protons and neutrons in the center (like the sun), circled by electrons (like planets).

Rutherford also studied radioactivity. He named and identified alpha and beta particles, and showed how an element changes when it experiences radioactive decay.



Florence Bascom

Florence Bascom was one of the first female geologists in the United States and her fellow scientists thought she was one of the nation’s most important geologists. She lived from 1862 until 1945 and is well known for her work at Bryn Mawr College where she taught for many years.

Bascom studied mineral crystals by looking at them with a microscope. She also studied metamorphic rocks, how mountains form, and how rocks from mountain erode into sand. At the time she went to college, it wasn’t easy for a woman to go to study for advanced degrees in the United States. But that didn’t stop Florence Bascom! She earned two bachelor’s degrees and a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin and a Ph.D. in geology from Johns Hopkins University. She was the second woman to ever earn a Ph.D. in geology in the United States.

Florence started teaching geology at Bryn Mawr, a women’s college, in 1895. She collected minerals, rocks, and fossils for the college and taught hundreds of students over the years, many of whom became successful geologists too!



George Hale

George Hale was an American astronomer born in 1868. Even as a child, Hale was interested in the stars. When George was young, his father even built him his own observatory in the backyard.
After attending college, Hale volunteered at Harvard College's Observatory. While working at the observatory, he invented an instrument called the spectrohelioscope. A spectrohelioscope is a combination of a telescope and a spectroscope. It is used to measure the chemicals that make up the stars.

George Hale then set up many observatories across the nation including the Mt. Wilson Observatory in California. He is also known for developing the field of Astrophysics. George Hale passed away in 1938.



Marie Curie

Marie Curie was a Polish physicist and chemist who lived between 1867-1934. Together with her husband, Pierre, she discovered two new elements and studied the x-rays they emitted. She found that the harmful properties of x-rays could be used in medical treatment to kill tumors.

Marie Curie contributed greatly to our understanding of radioactivity and the effects of x-rays. She received two Nobel prizes for her brilliant work, but died of leukemia, caused by her repeated exposure to radioactive material.

Max Planck

Max Planck was a German physicist who lived between 1858-1947. His theories changed our understanding of atomic processes and started the field of quantum physics, which studies energy inside atoms. Many of Planck's ideas were later used by Einstein when he developed his theory of relativity.

Planck believed that the physical universe exists independently of humans and that we have no control over the laws of nature. He claimed that we can observe and try to understand such laws, but we can't change them.



Niels Bohr

Niels Bohr was a Danish physicist who lived between 1885-1962. He investigated atomic structure, modifying Rutherford's old model of an atom. Bohr also claimed that an atom's chemical properties are determined only by the electrons with the largest orbits.

After helping build the first nuclear bomb, Bohr spent the later years of his life promoting peaceful uses of atomic energy.



Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison was an American inventor who lived between 1847-1931. He patented over a thousand inventions, including the light bulb, which generates light using electricity passed through a filament.


Edison also invented the phonograph (which records and plays back sound), and a motion picture machine used to make movies. He credited hard work for his success and used to say that "genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration".



Werner Heisenberg

Werner Heisenberg was a German physicist who lived between 1901-1976. He developed new theories in quantum mechanics about the behavior of electrons which agreed with the results of previous experiments.

Heisenberg is most famous for his "uncertainty principle", which explains the impossibility of knowing exactly where something is and how fast it is moving. However, this principle is only significant for tiny particles such as electrons.

Heisenberg also wrote the plans for the first nuclear reactor in Germany and promoted such peaceful uses of nuclear energy.



Wilhelm Roentgen

Wilhelm Roentgen was a German physicist who lived between 1845-1923. His accidental discovery of x-rays in 1895 changed the fields of physics and medicine.

X-rays are a type of radiation which can penetrate materials that ordinary light cannot. They allow us to "view" the insides of objects (like a human body) without having to open them. Today, we use x-rays to locate bone fractures and breaks, cancerous tumors, and tooth cavities.

For his brilliant experimental work, Roentgen received the first Nobel Prize, in 1901.



Williamina Fleming

Williamina Paton Stevens Fleming was a Scottish-American astronomer who lived from 1857-1911. She discovered 10 of the 24 novae then known. Novae are stars that suddenly increase their brightness then fade to their former dimness over a period of months or years. She also discovered over 200 variable stars. Variable stars are those that change in light intensity over time. Fleming worked at the Harvard Observatory for many years.




Robert Goddard

Robert Goddard was an American physicist who lived between 1882-1945. He was a pioneer of modern rocketry who discovered that liquid fuel is more efficient than solid fuel. Although Goddard's first rocket flew for only 2 1/2 seconds, it made him believe that travel into space and to the Moon was possible, a position for which he was often ridiculed.

Goddard spent much of his life perfecting the liquid propulsion system which he had invented. He also learned how to control rocket flight and how to equip them with parachutes so they could land safely.

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The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta,
held as a votive, not in vain, for the value
and veracity of such shall one day vindicate
the vigilant and the virtuous.
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