Public Figures & Cultural Luminaries

Sciences & Discovery

2,144

🕯️ 39

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

2,144 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

4

🕯️ 0

Andrew Huxley

Sir Andrew Fielding Huxley

United Kingdom

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

4 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

4,661

🕯️ 108

Arthur C. Clarke

Sir Arthur Charles Clarke

United Kingdom

1917 – 2008 (90 years old)

British science and aerospace visionary who conceptualized geostationary satellite communications and co-created 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Borella, Colombo, Sri Lanka

4,661 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

3

🕯️ 0

Ernst Mayr

Ernst Walter Mayr

German Empire

1904 – 2005 (100 years old)

German-American evolutionary biologist hailed as the 'Darwin of the 20th Century', who formulated the Biological Species Concept in 1942, proved allopatric speciation through geographic isolation, and authored 'Systematics and the Origin of Species'.

Cambridge (Massachusetts), United States

3 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

3

🕯️ 0

Bernard Katz

Sir Bernard Katz

German Empire

1911 – 2003 (92 years old)

German-born British biophysicist who was awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovering that neurotransmitters are released at synapses in discrete packets or 'quanta' via calcium-mediated synaptic vesicles.

London, United Kingdom

3 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

1

🕯️ 0

Cesar Milstein

César Milstein

Argentina

1927 – 2002 (74 years old)

Argentine biochemist who developed hybridoma technology to produce monoclonal antibodies, a revolutionary medical breakthrough awarded the 1984 Nobel Prize in Medicine.

Cambridge, United Kingdom

1 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

1,211

🕯️ 160

Christiaan Barnard

Christiaan Neethling Barnard

Union of South Africa

1922 – 2001 (78 years old)

South African cardiac surgeon who performed the world's first successful human-to-human heart transplant in 1967.

Beaufort West, Western Cape, South Africa

1,211 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

2,109

🕯️ 167

Fred Hoyle

Sir Fred Hoyle

United Kingdom

1915 – 2001 (86 years old)

Visionary English astrophysicist who explained stellar nucleosynthesis of chemical elements and coined the term 'Big Bang'.

Leicester, United Kingdom

2,109 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

1

🕯️ 0

Nikolay Basov

Николай Геннадиевич Басов

Soviet Union

1922 – 2001 (78 years old)

Soviet physicist who co-invented the maser and laser principles through quantum electronics, awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics alongside Aleksandr Prokhorov and Charles Townes.

Moscow, Russia

1 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

16

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Claude Shannon

Claude Elwood Shannon

United States

30 April 1916 – 24 February 2001 (84 years old)

American mathematician and engineer who unified Boolean algebra with electrical circuits to create digital circuit design, and single-handedly founded mathematical Information Theory and the 'bit'.

Medford (Massachusetts), United States

16 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

2,958

🕯️ 174

Glenn T. Seaborg

Glenn Theodore Seaborg

United States

1912 – 1999 (86 years old)

American nuclear chemist who co-discovered plutonium and nine other transuranic elements, winning the 1951 Nobel Prize.

El Cerrito, California, United States

2,958 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

2

🕯️ 0

Alan Hodgkin

Sir Alan Lloyd Hodgkin

United Kingdom

1914 – 1998 (84 years old)

English biophysicist who won the 1963 Nobel Prize in Medicine alongside Andrew Huxley for discovering the ionic mechanisms involved in excitation and inhibition in the peripheral and central parts of the nerve cell membrane.

Cambridge, United Kingdom

2 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

2

🕯️ 0

John Eccles

Sir John Carew Eccles

Australia

1903 – 1997 (94 years old)

Australian neurophysiologist who won the 1963 Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovering the ionic mechanisms of synaptic inhibition, proving that hyperpolarizing chloride ion influx generates inhibitory postsynaptic potentials (IPSPs).

Contra (Tenero-Contra, Ticino), Switzerland

2 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

3,981

🕯️ 51

Chien-Shiung Wu

吴健雄

Republic of China

1912 – 1997 (84 years old)

Trailblazing experimental physicist known as the 'First Lady of Physics' who disproved the conservation of parity.

Liuhe, Taicang, China

3,981 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

2,664

🕯️ 119

Clyde Tombaugh

Clyde William Tombaugh

United States

1906 – 1997 (90 years old)

American astronomer who discovered Pluto in 1930 and hundreds of asteroids and variable stars.

Kuiper Belt (Space), United States

2,664 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

2,758

🕯️ 56

Carl Sagan

Carl Edward Sagan

United States

1934 – 1996 (62 years old)

American astronomer, astrobiologist, and science communicator who created Cosmos and championed the search for extraterrestrial life.

Ithaca, New York, United States

2,758 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

3,826

🕯️ 94

Victor Ambartsumian

Վիկտոր Համբարձումյան

Russian Empire (Georgia)

1908 – 1996 (87 years old)

Soviet-Armenian astronomer and father of theoretical astrophysics in the USSR who discovered stellar associations.

Byurakan, Aragatsotn, Armenia

3,826 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

3,464

🕯️ 45

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar

சுப்பிரமணியன் சந்திரசேகர்

British India (Pakistan)

1910 – 1995 (84 years old)

Indian-American astrophysicist who discovered the Chandrasekhar limit for white dwarf stars, earning the 1983 Nobel Prize.

Chicago, Illinois, United States

3,464 Full Record →