February 2026 Scientists’ Birthdays
Connecting Physics Nobel laureates to the calendar and their Nobel lectures (internet required)…
The scientists behind the discoveries
Explore the people, ideas, and discoveries that shaped modern science.
★ Emilio Gino Segrè
Co-discovered the antiproton with Owen Chamberlain and contributed to the discovery of technetium. Their antiproton research earned the 1959 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Wikipedia ↗Melba Newell Phillips
Theoretical physicist known for the Oppenheimer–Phillips process describing nuclear reactions involving deuterons. She also became an influential physics educator.
Wikipedia ↗John Glover
Developed the Glover tower, an important improvement in industrial sulfuric-acid manufacture by recovering nitrogen oxides and heat.
Wikipedia ↗Elizabeth Blackwell
The first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States. She helped open medical education and professional practice to women and promoted public-health reform.
Wikipedia ↗Ludwig Prandtl
Established modern boundary-layer theory in 1904, explaining fluid behavior near surfaces and transforming the analysis of lift, drag and practical aerodynamics.
Wikipedia ↗Clyde William Tombaugh
Discovered Pluto in 1930 through painstaking comparison of photographic sky plates, expanding astronomers’ picture of the outer Solar System.
Wikipedia ↗★ Robert Hofstadter
Used high-energy electron scattering to probe the structure of atomic nuclei and nucleons, receiving the 1961 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Wikipedia ↗★ Charles Édouard Guillaume
Investigated nickel–steel alloys and discovered Invar, valued for its extremely low thermal expansion; awarded the 1920 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Wikipedia ↗Charles Wheatstone
Advanced electrical measurement and telegraphy. The Wheatstone bridge, associated with his name, became a standard method for measuring resistance.
Wikipedia ↗Mary Leakey
Discovered major early hominin fossils and helped document the Laetoli footprints, key evidence of upright walking millions of years ago.
Wikipedia ↗Alfred Adler
Founded individual psychology and emphasized the roles of social context, belonging and perceived inferiority in human behavior.
Wikipedia ↗Dmitri Mendeleev
Developed the periodic table, ordering elements by recurring chemical properties and predicting the existence and properties of elements not yet discovered.
Wikipedia ↗Daniel Bernoulli
Formulated principles of fluid dynamics in Hydrodynamica, linking fluid speed and pressure; also contributed to probability, mechanics and kinetic theory.
Wikipedia ↗★ Walter Houser Brattain
Co-invented the point-contact transistor with John Bardeen, with major contributions from William Shockley; shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Wikipedia ↗Josiah Willard Gibbs
Founded much of chemical thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, introducing powerful concepts such as free energy and the Gibbs ensemble.
Wikipedia ↗Leó Szilárd
Conceived the nuclear chain reaction and helped initiate research that led to the first nuclear reactor; later advocated nuclear-arms control.
Wikipedia ↗Thomas Alva Edison
Developed commercially successful electric-lighting systems, sound recording technology and research laboratories that helped industrialize invention.
Wikipedia ↗Charles Darwin
Developed the theory of evolution by natural selection, presented in On the Origin of Species, providing a unifying explanation for the diversity of life.
Wikipedia ↗Heinrich Friedrich Emil Lenz
Formulated Lenz’s law, which establishes the direction of induced electrical currents and expresses conservation of energy in electromagnetic induction.
Wikipedia ↗Julian Schwinger
American theoretical physicist whose rigorous formulation of renormalized quantum electrodynamics explained precision phenomena such as the electron’s anomalous magnetic moment. He developed influential methods across quantum field theory and shared the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics with Feynman and Tomonaga.
Wikipedia ↗★ William Shockley
Played a central role in the development of the transistor and semiconductor physics; shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Wikipedia ↗★ Charles Thomson Rees Wilson
Invented the cloud chamber, which makes the tracks of electrically charged particles visible; received the 1927 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Wikipedia ↗Galileo Galilei
Established experimental and mathematical approaches to motion and used telescopic observations of Jupiter’s moons, Venus and the Moon to challenge traditional cosmology.
Wikipedia ↗Ernst Haeckel
Promoted Darwinian evolution, studied marine organisms and coined or popularized several biological terms, including ecology; some of his embryological claims were later rejected.
Wikipedia ↗Francis Galton
Advanced correlation, regression and statistical approaches to human variation; his work was also intertwined with the harmful early eugenics movement.
Wikipedia ↗★ Otto Stern
Pioneered molecular-beam experiments, including the Stern–Gerlach experiment with Walther Gerlach; won the 1943 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Wikipedia ↗Horace-Bénédict de Saussure
Pioneered Alpine geology and meteorology, designed scientific instruments and studied heat and the physical environment of mountain regions.
Wikipedia ↗Alessandro Volta
Invented the voltaic pile, the first continuously operating electric battery, establishing a new basis for experimental electricity and electrochemistry.
Wikipedia ↗Ernst Mach
Studied shock waves, sound and mechanics; the Mach number bears his name and his criticism of absolute space influenced later physics.
Wikipedia ↗Francesco Redi
Used controlled experiments on meat and flies to challenge spontaneous generation, helping establish experimental methods in biology.
Wikipedia ↗Nicolaus Copernicus
Proposed a mathematical heliocentric system with Earth orbiting the Sun, a central turning point of the Scientific Revolution.
Wikipedia ↗★ Svante Arrhenius
Developed electrolyte dissociation theory, studied reaction rates and made early quantitative estimates of how atmospheric carbon dioxide affects climate.
Wikipedia ↗★ Jennifer Doudna
Co-developed CRISPR–Cas9 as a programmable genome-editing technique with Emmanuelle Charpentier, earning the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Wikipedia ↗Ludwig Boltzmann
Developed statistical mechanics, connecting the microscopic behavior of particles with thermodynamics and giving entropy a probabilistic interpretation.
Wikipedia ↗Benjamin Bloom
Developed an influential taxonomy of educational objectives and research on mastery learning, shaping assessment and instructional design.
Wikipedia ↗Heinrich Rudolf Hertz
Experimentally demonstrated electromagnetic waves predicted by Maxwell, establishing an essential foundation for radio and wireless communications.
Wikipedia ↗Adolphe Quetelet
Applied statistical methods to social phenomena, popularized the idea of the average person and introduced the index now commonly called BMI.
Wikipedia ↗★ Didier Queloz
Co-discovered 51 Pegasi b, the first confirmed exoplanet orbiting a Sun-like star, sharing the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Wikipedia ↗Steve Jobs
Technology entrepreneur whose leadership at Apple helped popularize personal computing, graphical interfaces, smartphones and integrated consumer devices.
Wikipedia ↗Giordano Riccati
Studied mechanics, elastic materials and mathematical physics in eighteenth-century Italy, contributing to early analysis of vibrating systems.
Wikipedia ↗François Arago
Contributed to optics, magnetism and astronomy; his experiments and public scientific leadership made him a major figure in nineteenth-century French physics.
Wikipedia ↗★ Giulio Natta
Co-developed stereospecific polymerization methods enabling materials such as isotactic polypropylene; shared the 1963 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Wikipedia ↗★ Ahmed Zewail
Founded femtochemistry, using ultrafast laser pulses to observe chemical reactions on femtosecond time scales; won the 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Wikipedia ↗Alan Guth
Proposed cosmic inflation, a phase of rapid expansion in the very early universe that provides an influential framework for modern cosmology.
Wikipedia ↗★ Linus Pauling
Explained chemical bonding using quantum principles and transformed structural chemistry. Received Nobel Prizes for Chemistry (1954) and Peace (1962).
Wikipedia ↗★ Leon Cooper
Co-developed BCS theory of superconductivity with John Bardeen and John Schrieffer; shared the 1972 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Wikipedia ↗★ Daniel C. Tsui
Co-discovered the fractional quantum Hall effect, revealing new behavior of electrons in two-dimensional systems; shared the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Wikipedia ↗★ Steven Chu
Developed laser-cooling and atom-trapping methods, sharing the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics, and later worked on clean-energy science.
Wikipedia ↗Historical dating · Birth dates before widespread Gregorian calendar adoption can depend on Old Style or New Style conventions. Ratings reflect editorial judgement of scientific impact, not the value of a person. February 2026 has 28 days.