Which are the great physicists of all time to be ranked in the top ten

This kind of ranking is generally arranged by individuals according to their own opinions or preferences, and it is difficult to have any completely uniform standard. In the previous Q&A, the author tried to give a basis for the ranking as objectively as possible, that is, according to the role and influence of different figures in history on the development process of physical science, especially the contribution of the physical revolution, as the standard, and finally listed 30 figures. Of course, it is only a personal opinion, and it is not a conclusive conclusion.

Now it should be easier to list 10 people. According to the above criteria, the soul of the two physical revolutions is roughly included, including roughly 10 physicists. There is no doubt that the soul of the first scientific revolution was Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and Newton, and finally formed the classical system of physics, and it was Maxwell who pushed this system to its final peak.

In other words, in the classical scientific system of the first scientific revolution, five great scientific figures were produced, but Copernicus and Kepler among them can hardly be counted as physicists. Therefore, the physicists in the first scientific revolution should be Galileo, Newton and Maxwell.

The soul of the second scientific revolution is Einstein, who founded the theory of relativity, and the second is the group that created quantum theory. These two groups of people add up, there are about 6, namely Einstein, Planck, Bohr, Schrödinger, Heisenberg, Dirac, etc. If we take into account the latest advances in the modern physical system, such as quantum field theory, astrophysics and other fields, I personally think that Hubble is a figure that cannot be bypassed.

In this way, a list of ten people is formed. These ten people are the most central figures in the history of the development of physics to the present.

The final ranking does not necessarily have to be in historical order, but in terms of contribution size and historical status, and I personally think it should be the following list:

1. Newton. 2. Albert Einstein.

3. Maxwell.

4. Galileo.

5. Bohr. 6. Planck.

7, Schrödinger.

8. Heisenberg.

9, Dirac.

10. Hubble.

Among these ten, Newton, Maxwell, and Dirac were English; Planck and Heisenberg were Germans; Einstein was once German, Swiss, and finally American; Galileo was Italian; Bohr was Danish; Schrödinger was Austrian; Hubble is American.

There is no official ranking, and we would not be able to make such a ranking.

It's just a vote, take a look.

The greatest physicist.

TOP10 Greatest Physicists.

TOP10physicsweb has conducted a poll of the greatest physicists in history, and the results are as follows:

Ranking. Physicist. Main work.

Newton. Classical mechanics, optics.

Einstein. Founder of the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics.

Maxwell. Classical electrodynamics, classical statistical mechanics.

Galileo. Kinematics, astronomy.

Dirac. He is the completer of the theoretical system of quantum mechanics.

Bohr. Founder of quantum mechanics.

Planck. Founder of quantum mechanics.

Feynman. Quantum electrodynamics, quantum mechanical path integral representation.

Faraday. Experimental studies in electromagnetism.

Schrodinger. Founder of quantum mechanics.

Their specific contributions can be found in:

The top 20 greatest physicists were Newton, Albert Einstein, Maxwell, Galileo Galilei, Dirac, Bohr, Planck, Feynman, Faraday, Schrödinger, Chenning Yang, Marie Curie, Johann Bardeen, Johann Berbonsand, Archimedes, Copernicus, Pierre Curie, Gerard Tehoft, Hubble, Kepler.

To name a list of the top four:

1. Newton (classical mechanics, optics).

Sir Isaac Newtonfrs (4 January 1643 – 31 March 1727), a member of the Royal Society, was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher and alchemist.

2. Albert Einstein (founder of the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics).

Albert Einstein (March 14, 1879 – April 18, 1955) was a world-famous German-American scientist and the founder and founder of modern physics.

3. Maxwell (classical electrodynamics, classical statistical mechanics).

James Clark Maxwell was an English physicist and mathematician. Maxwell's research interests include electromagnetic theory, molecular physics, statistical physics, optics, mechanics, and elastic theory.

4. Galileo (kinematics, astronomy).

Italian physicist, astronomer and philosopher, pre-osmotic expenditizer of modern experimental science. His achievements included improvements to telescopes and the astronomical observations they bringed, as well as support for Copernicus' heliocentric theory.

The top twenty greatest physicists were Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Joule, Werner Heisenberg, Ernest Rutherford, Paul Dirac, Richard Feynman, Michael Faraday, Henry Cavendis, Erwin Schrödinger, Paul Dirac, Max Planck, Maxwell, Bohr, Gell-Mann, Rubin, Galileo, Ampere, Ohm, Oppenheimer.

1. Isaac Newton.

He was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher. He is best known for his description of gravitation and Newton's laws of motion in Prinoginia Mathematica of Natural Philosophy, which laid the foundation for the scientific view of the physical world in the following three horizons and is the foundation of modern engineering.

2. Albert Einstein.

Einstein's great thing is that, on the one hand, he knew some mathematics and had the ability to intuitively appreciate the wonderful parts of mathematics; On the other hand, he also has his intimate knowledge of phenomena in physics. What sets him apart from everyone else is that he can see both up close and far away. He is widely regarded as the greatest physicist since Galileo and Newton.

On December 26, 1999, Albert Einstein was selected as a "Great Man of the Century" by Time Magazine.

3. Joules. For Joule's contributions to thermal, thermodynamics, and electricity, the Royal Society awarded him the highest honor, the Copley Medal. In order to commemorate him, later generations named the unit of energy or work "joule", referred to as "coke"; And the first letter of Joule's surname "j" is used to mark heat as well as the unit of "work". When Joule studied the nature of heat, he discovered the conversion relationship between heat and work, and derived the law of conservation of energy, and finally developed the first law of thermodynamics.

The top 20 greatest physicists were Newton, Albert Einstein, Maxwell, Galileo, Dirac, Bohr, Planck, Feynman, Faraday, Schrödinger, Chenning Yang, Marie Curie, John Bardeen, John Bell, Archimedes, Copernicus, Pierre Curie, Gerard Tehoft, Hubble, and Kepler.

1. Kepler.

Kepler took over planetary observations from his teacher Tycho and used his mathematical talents to discover the three laws of planetary motion. This was a major event in the history of human understanding, and Kepler was able to find out the laws followed by objects in the sky, and Kepler could become a great astronomer by doing so. In some rankings of scientists, Kepler's name often appears in the dozens.

But compared to Newton, Kepler had to retreat to the next level.

2. Newton. Newton's three laws and the law of universal gravitation are written in the "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy", he gives the laws that the motion of all things in the universe follows, which is an all-encompassing theory, and the motion of objects can be calculated with mathematical equations. The law of gravitation can not only derive Kepler's law, but also predict unknown celestial objects, and can also direct the launch of satellites and spacecraft today. Kepler's three laws belong to the phenomenological theory, and I only see it like this, but I don't know why it is like this.

Newton's theory can tell you why it is the way it is.

3. Maxwell.

Faraday discovered the phenomenon of electromagnetic induction and gave a specific method for generating electricity from magnetism. Faraday invented the generator and brought mankind into the electric age, but his magnetism and electricity were only a speciative thing, and I don't know why he could generate electricity in that way. Maxwell gave mathematical equations, four simple equations that encompass all the electromagnetic phenomena in the universe, not only to know why magnetic energy generates electricity, but also to derive Ohm's law, Ampere's loop law, and so on, and can also use this to predict new things.

That's Maxwell's greatness. In the face of Maxwell's exploits, the work of Faraday, Ampere, Coulomb, Auster and others must be ranked second.

Top 20 greatest physicists: Newton, Einstein, Maxwell, Galileo, Dirac, Bohr, Planck, Feynman, Faraday, Schrödinger, Chenning Yang, Marie Curie, Johann Bardeen, John Bell, Archimedes, Copernicus, Pierre Curie, Gerald Tehoft, Hubble, Kepler.

The top three:

1. Dirac.

Dirac and Erwin Schrödinger were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933 for "discovering a new form of atomic theory." In addition, Dirac was awarded the Royal Medal in 1939, the Copley Medal and the Max Planck Medal in 1952. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1930 and an Honorary Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1948 and the British Physical Society in 1971.

2. Feynman. Feynman developed a method for expressing quantum amplitude by path integration in the 40s, and proposed a new theoretical form, calculation method and renormalization method for quantum electrodynamics in 1948, thus avoiding the divergence difficulties in quantum electrodynamics. In quantum field theory, "Feynman amplitude", "Feynman propagator", "Feynman rule", etc., are all named after his surname.

3. Archimedes.

Archimedes made great contributions to the development of mathematics and physics, and made an indelible impact on social progress and human development, even Newton and Einstein drew wisdom and inspiration from him, he was "the ideal embodiment of a theoretical genius and an experimental genius in one", and Leonardo da Vinci and Galileo in the Renaissance used him as their model.

Newton, Einstein, Galileo, Tsung-Dao Lee, Bohr, Schrödinger, Maxwell, Faraday, Dirac, Feynman, Boltzmann, Hawking, Archimedes, John Bell, Carl Anderson, Aristotle, Charles Bennett, John Bardeen, Copernicus, Chen-Ning Yang.

John Bardeen (May 23, 1908 – January 30, 1991) was an American physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics twice for the transistor effect and the BCS theory of superconductivity.

Charles Bennett is a professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University. Senior Experimental Cosmologist at NASA's Goddarden Space Flight Center. On April 26, 2019, he won the 2019 "Mozi Quantum Award".

Maxwell's equations are commonly applied to the "macroscopic mean field" of various fields. When the scale is reduced to the microscopic scale to the point where it is close to the size of a single atom, the differences in the local fluctuations of these fields become negligible and quantum phenomena begin to appear. It is only under the premise of macroscopic averaging that some physical quantities such as the permittivity and permeability of matter are meaningfully defined.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the city hall of Aberdeen, Scotland, wanted to pay a dividend to the donors of the year, but they could not find a donor named "James Maxwell", so they had to post a search notice.

By this time, Maxwell had been dead for more than 20 years, and the electromagnetism he founded had become a curricula in many universities, wireless telegraphy had been developed, and power systems were being built in various parts of Europe and the United States.

Maxwell was a gentle and humble English gentleman, who found no flaws in public and private morality, and lacked the gossip stories that the public liked to see, which was one of the differences between him and Newton and Einstein. His popular science activities focused on demonstrating the mechanism of light and color mixing, a simple and interesting experiment that is the starting point for all color screens today.

Galileo, who improved the telescope, discovered the doctrine of heliocentrism.

Newton, gravitation, and the three theorems of motion.

Thomas, Young, the founder of the wave theory of light, proposed the wave-particle duality of lightAugustine, Fresnel, one of the main founders of wave optics Faraday, electromagnetic induction, and magnetogenetic.

Maxwell, founder of classical electrodynamics.

Albert Einstein, the father of modern physicists.

Nilspol, Hydrogen Atom Spectrum.

Heisenberg, a representative figure of the Copenhagen School.

Schrödinger, Schrödinger equation.

Fermi, one of the founders of quantum mechanics and quantum field theory.

A pioneer in the study of Marie Curie's radioactive phenomenon.

Feynman, proposed the Feynman diagram, Feynman's rule and the calculation method of renormalization.

Dirac? One of the founders of quantum mechanics.

Landau is a well-known physicist in the former Soviet Union and the founder of condensed matter physics.

Stephen Hawking is known as the most outstanding theoretical physicist since Albert Einstein.

Clausius. The basic concept of the second law of thermodynamics was first proposed.

Plank. Founder of quantum mechanics.

Kelvin is the inventor of the thermodynamic temperature scale.

Copernicus, the first European astronomer to propose the sun-centered, heliocentric theory.