Historical Physicists

Interactive Presentations

37 interactive presentations exploring the lives, experiments, and theories of history's greatest physicists — from Galileo's telescopic revolution through Deutsch's quantum computation. Each presentation traces the physicist's journey, their core contributions with illustrated diagrams, their intellectual connections, and their lasting legacy.

The Scientific Revolution
01

Galileo Galilei

Kinematics, telescopic astronomy, heliocentrism, scientific method

MechanicsAstronomy
Launch Presentation
02

Johannes Kepler

Three laws of planetary motion, elliptical orbits, celestial mechanics

Astronomy Optics
Launch Presentation
03

Christiaan Huygens

Wave theory of light, pendulum clock, Saturn's rings, Titan

Optics Mechanics
Launch Presentation
04

Isaac Newton

Laws of motion, universal gravitation, optics, the Principia

Mechanics Gravity Optics
Launch Presentation
19th Century — Classical Physics & Electromagnetism
05

André-Marie Ampère

Electrodynamics, force between currents, Ampère's circuital law

Electromagnetism
Launch Presentation
06

Michael Faraday

Electromagnetic induction, field concept, electrolysis

Electromagnetism
Launch Presentation
07

Lord Kelvin

Absolute temperature, transatlantic cable, thermodynamics

ThermodynamicsSignals
Launch Presentation
08

Peter Guthrie Tait

Thomson & Tait, quaternions, knot theory

MechanicsTopology
Launch Presentation
09

James Clerk Maxwell

Maxwell's equations, electromagnetic waves, kinetic theory

ElectromagnetismThermodynamics
Launch Presentation
10

Ludwig Boltzmann

Statistical mechanics, entropy formula, H-theorem

Thermodynamics
Launch Presentation
11

Josiah Willard Gibbs

Chemical thermodynamics, ensembles, vector analysis, Gibbs phenomenon

ThermodynamicsSignals
Launch Presentation
Late 19th Century — Waves, Signals & the Electron
12

George Francis FitzGerald

Length contraction, Maxwellian physics, antenna radiation

ElectromagnetismRelativity
Launch Presentation
13

Oliver Lodge

Radio detection, coherer, wireless telegraphy, syntonic tuning

RadioSignals
Launch Presentation
14

Heinrich Hertz

Proved electromagnetic waves, photoelectric effect, dipole antenna

RadioElectromagnetism
Launch Presentation
15

Nikola Tesla

AC power, polyphase motor, Tesla coil, radio, wireless power

ElectronicsRadio
Launch Presentation
16

J.J. Thomson

Electron discovery, cathode rays, plum pudding model, mass spectrometry

AtomicElectronics
Launch Presentation
Turn of the Century — The Old Quantum Theory
17

Marie Curie

Radioactivity, polonium and radium, two Nobel Prizes

RadioactivityNuclear
Launch Presentation
18

Max Planck

Quantum hypothesis, black-body radiation, Planck constant

QuantumThermodynamics
Launch Presentation
19

Ernest Rutherford

Nuclear atom, gold foil experiment, proton, transmutation

NuclearAtomic
Launch Presentation
20

Albert Einstein

Special & general relativity, photoelectric effect, E=mc²

RelativityQuantum
Launch Presentation
21

Niels Bohr

Bohr model, complementarity, Copenhagen interpretation

QuantumAtomic
Launch Presentation
22

Thomas Bromwich

Inverse Laplace transform, contour integration, signal analysis

SignalsMathematics
Launch Presentation
The Quantum Revolution
23

Max Born

Born rule, probability interpretation, Born approximation

Quantum
Launch Presentation
24

Erwin Schrödinger

Wave equation, cat paradox, What Is Life?

QuantumBiophysics
Launch Presentation
25

Werner Heisenberg

Uncertainty principle, matrix mechanics, quantum foundations

QuantumNuclear
Launch Presentation
26

Wolfgang Pauli

Exclusion principle, neutrino prediction, spin-statistics theorem

QuantumParticle
Launch Presentation
27

Paul Dirac

Dirac equation, antimatter prediction, quantum field theory

QuantumParticle
Launch Presentation
28

J. Robert Oppenheimer

Manhattan Project, Born-Oppenheimer approximation, gravitational collapse

NuclearAstrophysics
Launch Presentation
29

Enrico Fermi

Nuclear reactor, Fermi-Dirac statistics, beta decay theory

NuclearParticle
Launch Presentation
Modern Physics
30

John Bardeen

Transistor, BCS superconductivity, two Nobel Prizes in Physics

ElectronicsCondensed Matter
Launch Presentation
31

Richard Feynman

Feynman diagrams, QED, path integrals, science communication

QEDParticle
Launch Presentation
32

Murray Gell-Mann

Quark model, Eightfold Way, quantum chromodynamics

ParticleQCD
Launch Presentation
33

John Stewart Bell

Bell's theorem, quantum non-locality, hidden variables

QuantumFoundations
Launch Presentation
34

Roger Penrose

Singularity theorems, twistor theory, Penrose tilings

GravityGeometry
Launch Presentation
35

Peter Higgs

Higgs mechanism, spontaneous symmetry breaking, the boson at 125 GeV

ParticleStandard Model
Launch Presentation
36

David Deutsch

Quantum computation, constructor theory, many-worlds, The Fabric of Reality

Quantum ComputingFoundations
Launch Presentation
37

Stephen Hawking

Hawking radiation, singularity theorems, black hole thermodynamics

CosmologyGravity
Launch Presentation

Influence Map

Intellectual connections across four centuries of physics

SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION 19TH CENTURY TURN OF CENTURY QUANTUM & MODERN Galileo 1564-1642 Kepler 1571-1630 Huygens 1629-1695 Newton 1642-1727 Faraday 1791-1867 Maxwell 1831-1879 Boltzmann 1844-1906 Curie 1867-1934 Planck 1858-1947 Rutherford 1871-1937 Einstein 1879-1955 Bohr 1885-1962 Schrödinger 1887-1961 Heisenberg 1901-1976 Dirac 1902-1984 Fermi 1901-1954 Feynman 1918-1988 Hawking 1942-2018