Optics

Greek mathematician of Alexandria whose Elements organized the geometry and arithmetic of his predecessors into the model of an axiomatic deductive science.

geometry, number theory, optics

Hellenistic geometer, called the Great Geometer in antiquity, whose eight-book Conics named and systematized the ellipse, parabola and hyperbola and who proved the theorem on planetary stationary points.

geometry, conic sections, astronomy

Alexandrian astronomer of the second century AD whose Almagest set out the geocentric models, chord table and star catalogue that governed astronomy until Copernicus and Kepler.

astronomy, trigonometry, geography

Scholar of Basra and Cairo whose Book of Optics founded the intromission theory of vision on experiment and geometry, and whose Doubts concerning Ptolemy demanded physically realizable planetary models.

optics, astronomy, mathematics

Persian physician and philosopher whose Book of the Cure recast Aristotelian physics, including a theory of imparted inclination (mayl) for projectiles, and whose Canon of Medicine organized medicine as a science and was taught in Europe for five centuries.

natural philosophy, medicine, logic

Discoverer of the three laws of planetary motion and founder of modern optics, who made astronomy a physical science.

astronomy, optics, mathematics

Philosopher and mathematician who joined algebra to geometry, published the sine law of refraction and the theory of the rainbow, and built a mechanical physics of inertia and vortices.

analytic geometry, algebra, optics

Jesuate friar and Bologna professor whose method of indivisibles, with Cavalieri's principle and the quadrature of the higher parabolas, prepared the integral calculus.

geometry, method of indivisibles, logarithms and trigonometry

Toulouse magistrate whose letters founded modern number theory, co-founded analytic geometry and probability, anticipated differential calculus and introduced the principle of least time.

number theory, analytic geometry, calculus

Dutch mathematician and physicist who invented the pendulum clock, discovered Titan and the ring of Saturn, founded probability theory in print and proposed the wave theory of light.

mechanics, optics, astronomy

First Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, whose geometric lectures proved that tangent and area problems are inverse to each other.

geometry, calculus, optics

English experimental philosopher, the Royal Society's first Curator of Experiments, author of Micrographia and of the law of elasticity, and an architect of London's rebuilding after the Great Fire.

experimental physics, elasticity, microscopy

Author of the laws of motion and universal gravitation in the Principia, co-inventor of the calculus, and founder of the modern theory of colours.

mechanics, gravitation, calculus

Danish astronomer who showed from the eclipses of Io that light travels at a finite speed, invented the transit instrument and meridian circle, and standardized Danish weights, measures and the calendar.

astronomy, optics, instrument making

Third Astronomer Royal, who discovered the aberration of light and the nutation of the Earth's axis.

astronomy, astrometry, optics

The most prolific mathematician in history, who shaped modern analysis and notation, founded graph theory, and wrote the equations of rigid bodies and ideal fluids.

analysis, number theory, graph theory

Musician turned astronomer who discovered Uranus and infrared radiation, built the largest telescopes of his age, showed that binary stars orbit each other, and founded the study of the structure of the Milky Way.

astronomy, optics, telescope making

Physician turned chemist who made platinum malleable, discovered palladium and rhodium, first saw the dark lines of the solar spectrum, and invented the camera lucida and reflecting goniometer.

chemistry, metallurgy, optics

French physicist who co-discovered the Biot–Savart law, founded polarimetry through the laws of optical rotation, and established the extraterrestrial origin of meteorites.

electromagnetism, optics, polarimetry

French engineer-physicist who discovered polarization by reflection, found the cosine-squared law of polarized intensity, and founded the geometric theory of ray systems.

optics, geometrical optics, polarization

Scottish physicist who found the law of polarization by reflection, discovered stress birefringence and biaxial crystals, and invented the kaleidoscope and the lenticular stereoscope.

optics, polarization, crystal optics

Astronomer and physicist who discovered chromatic polarization and magnetism of rotation, championed Fresnel's wave theory, led the Académie des sciences and abolished slavery in the French colonies as minister in 1848.

astronomy, optics, electromagnetism

Bavarian optician who mapped the dark lines of the solar spectrum, introduced the diffraction grating for measuring wavelengths, and made the finest achromatic telescopes of his time.

optics, spectroscopy, optical glass and instrument making

Founder of rigorous analysis and complex function theory, and creator of the stress tensor and the theory of linear elasticity.

analysis, complex analysis, differential equations

Astronomer and mathematician who surveyed the southern sky, catalogued nebulae and double stars, introduced the notation f^{-1}, and founded much of the chemistry and vocabulary of photography.

astronomy, mathematics, optics

Astronomer Royal for 46 years who fixed the Greenwich meridian and gave his name to the Airy disk, the Airy function, Airy isostasy and the Airy stress function.

astronomy, optics, geodesy

Irish mathematician who unified optics and mechanics through a single characteristic function, created Hamiltonian mechanics, and discovered the quaternions.

optics, classical mechanics, algebra

Experimental physicist who made the first terrestrial measurement of the speed of light, showed that flowing water partly drags light, explained Doppler shifts of spectral lines, and founded interferometric metrology and stellar interferometry.

optics, experimental physics, astronomy

Experimental physicist who demonstrated the Earth's rotation with his pendulum and gyroscope, showed that light is slower in water than in air, measured the speed of light in the laboratory, discovered eddy-current heating, and created the silvered-glass reflecting telescope and the knife-edge test.

experimental physics, optics, mechanics

Irish-born Cambridge mathematical physicist, Lucasian Professor for 54 years, known for the Navier–Stokes equations, Stokes's law, fluorescence, the Stokes parameters and Stokes's theorem.

fluid dynamics, optics, mathematical physics

Irish physicist who first measured the absorption of infrared radiation by atmospheric gases, discovered the Tyndall effect and succeeded Faraday at the Royal Institution.

radiant heat, atmospheric physics, diamagnetism

Mathematical physicist who formulated the circuit laws, founded spectral analysis with Bunsen, and stated the law of thermal radiation that defined the black-body problem.

mathematical physics, electrical circuits, spectroscopy

Physicist who founded the modern theory of sound and vibration, explained the blue sky by scattering, and discovered argon.

acoustics, optics, fluid dynamics

French physicist who discovered the spontaneous radioactivity of uranium in 1896 and showed that beta rays are fast electrons.

physics, radioactivity, optics

Experimental physicist who measured the speed of light with unprecedented accuracy, invented the interferometer used in the Michelson–Morley experiment, and became the first American Nobel laureate in science.

optics, experimental physics, metrology

Founder of the electron theory of matter, author of the Lorentz force and the Lorentz transformation, and 1902 Nobel laureate for the theory of the Zeeman effect.

theoretical physics, electromagnetism, electron theory

Discoverer of the diffraction of X-rays by crystals, author of the first relativity textbook, and a public defender of Einstein's physics in Nazi Germany.

x-ray diffraction, crystallography, special relativity

Theoretical physicist who co-founded matrix mechanics, gave the wave function its statistical interpretation, and founded the dynamical theory of crystal lattices.

theoretical physics, quantum mechanics, solid-state physics