Public Figures & Cultural Luminaries

Sciences & Discovery

15

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E. Donnall Thomas

Edward Donnall Thomas

United States

1920 – 2012 (92 years old)

American physician who developed bone marrow transplantation as a lifesaving treatment for leukemia and other fatal blood cancers, awarded the 1990 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Seattle, United States

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Sciences & Discovery

9

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Stanford R. Ovshinsky

Stanford R. Ovshinsky

United States

1922 – 2012 (89 years old)

Prolific, self-taught American inventor described as the Thomas Edison of modern clean energy, who created the nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) battery that powered the first hybrid cars, rewriteable CDs, and thin-film solar panels.

Bloomfield Hills, United States

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Sciences & Discovery

2,168

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Neil Armstrong

Neil Alden Armstrong

United States

1930 – 2012 (82 years old)

American naval aviator, test pilot, and Apollo 11 commander who became the first human being to step onto the Moon.

Atlantic Ocean, United States

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Sciences & Discovery

10

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William Thurston

William Paul Thurston

United States

1946 – 2012 (65 years old)

Brilliant American mathematician who revolutionized low-dimensional topology and differential geometry, formulating the geometrization conjecture for 3-manifolds and winning the 1982 Fields Medal.

Rochester, United States

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Sciences & Discovery

10

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Sally Ride

Sally Kristen Ride

United States

1951 – 2012 (61 years old)

Pioneering American physicist and NASA astronaut who made history in 1983 as the first American woman in space aboard Space Shuttle Challenger, later founding Sally Ride Science to inspire young girls in STEM.

Santa Monica, United States

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Sciences & Discovery

9

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Elinor Ostrom

Elinor Claire Awan

United States

1933 – 2012 (78 years old)

American political economist who became the first woman to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2009) for demonstrating how local communities successfully govern common-pool resources without state intervention or privatization.

Bloomington, United States

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Sciences & Discovery

27

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Andrew Huxley

Sir Andrew Fielding Huxley

Great Britain

1917 – 2012 (94 years old)

English biophysicist who won the 1963 Nobel Prize in Medicine for the ionic mechanism of nerve impulses and co-discovered the sliding filament theory of muscle contraction, serving as Master of Trinity College and President of the Royal Society.

Cambridge, United Kingdom

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Sciences & Discovery

8

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Eugene Polley

Eugene Joseph Polley

United States

1915 – 2012 (96 years old)

American engineer at Zenith Radio Corporation who invented the Flash-Matic in 1955, the world's first wireless television remote control, changing the way humanity consumes media.

Hillside, United States

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Sciences & Discovery

9

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Jim Marshall

James Charles Marshall

Great Britain

1923 – 2012 (88 years old)

English pioneer of guitar amplification known as 'The Father of Loud' whose iconic Marshall amplifiers and 'Marshall stacks' created the signature roaring overdrive tone of rock and roll for Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, and Led Zeppelin.

Milton Keynes, United Kingdom

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Sciences & Discovery

10

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Leila Denmark

Leila Alice Daughtry

United States

1898 – 2012 (114 years old)

Pioneering American pediatrician and supercentenarian who co-developed the whooping cough (pertussis) vaccine and treated children for over seven decades until retiring at age 103.

Portal, United States

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Sciences & Discovery

8

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F. Sherwood Rowland

Frank Sherwood Rowland

United States

1927 – 2012 (84 years old)

American chemist who shared the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) destroy the Earth's protective ozone layer, leading to the Montreal Protocol.

Corona del Mar, United States

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Sciences & Discovery

11

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Lynn Margulis

Lynn Petra Alexander

United States

1938 – 2011 (73 years old)

Iconoclastic American evolutionary biologist whose serial endosymbiotic theory revolutionized the understanding of cellular evolution, showing that mitochondria and chloroplasts originated as symbiotic bacteria.

Amherst, United States

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Sciences & Discovery

12

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Har Gobind Khorana

हर गोबिन्द खोराना

India

1922 – 2011 (89 years old)

Indian-American biochemist who shared the 1968 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for deciphering the genetic code and later synthesized the world's first artificial gene.

Concord, United States

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Sciences & Discovery

10

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Norman Foster Ramsey Jr.

Norman Foster Ramsey Jr.

United States

1915 – 2011 (96 years old)

American physicist who received the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physics for inventing the separated oscillatory fields method, which enabled modern cesium atomic clocks and GPS navigation.

Wayland, United States

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Sciences & Discovery

11

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John McCarthy

John McCarthy

United States

1927 – 2011 (84 years old)

Visionary American computer scientist who coined the term 'Artificial Intelligence' (AI), developed the Lisp programming language, and pioneered time-sharing computing systems.

Stanford, United States

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Sciences & Discovery

9

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Dennis Ritchie

Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie

United States

1941 – 2011 (70 years old)

Foundational American computer scientist at Bell Labs who created the C programming language and co-developed the Unix operating system, establishing the architectural bedrock of modern digital technology.

Berkeley Heights, United States

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Sciences & Discovery

10

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Steve Jobs

Steven Paul Jobs

United States

1955 – 2011 (56 years old)

Visionary American entrepreneur, industrial designer, and co-founder of Apple Inc. who revolutionized personal computing, animated films at Pixar, digital music with the iPod, and smartphones with the iPhone.

Palo Alto, United States

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Sciences & Discovery

11

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Ralph M. Steinman

Ralph Marvin Steinman

Canada

1943 – 2011 (68 years old)

Canadian immunologist at Rockefeller University who discovered dendritic cells, revolutionizing immunology and receiving the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine posthumously.

Hawthorne, United States

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