Public Figures & Cultural Luminaries

Sciences & Discovery

2,758

🕯️ 143

Hannes Alfvén

Hannes Olof Gösta Alfvén

Sweden

1908 – 1995 (86 years old)

Swedish plasma physicist who founded magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) and won the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Danderyd, Stockholm, Sweden

2,758 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

0

🕯️ 0

Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin

Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin

Egypt (British parents)

1910 – 1994 (84 years old)

British chemist and X-ray crystallographer who deciphered the atomic structures of penicillin, vitamin B12, and insulin, winning the 1964 Nobel Prize in Chemistry as a giant of structural biology.

Ilmington (Warwickshire), United Kingdom

0 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

1,793

🕯️ 142

Dorothy Hodgkin

Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin

Khedivate of Egypt (British Administration)

1910 – 1994 (84 years old)

British pioneer of X-ray crystallography who determined the atomic structures of penicillin, vitamin B12, and insulin.

Ilmington, Warwickshire, United Kingdom

1,793 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

0

🕯️ 0

Severo Ochoa

Severo Ochoa de Albornoz

Spain

1905 – 1993 (88 years old)

Spanish-American biochemist who discovered polynucleotide phosphorylase, synthesizing RNA in vitro and deciphering key components of the universal genetic code, winning the 1959 Nobel Prize in Medicine.

Luarca (Asturias), Spain

0 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

3,947

🕯️ 78

Jan Oort

Jan Hendrik Oort

Netherlands

1900 – 1992 (92 years old)

Visionary Dutch astronomer who proved the Milky Way rotates, located its center, and predicted the Oort cloud of comets.

Leiden, South Holland, Netherlands

3,947 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

10

🕯️ 960

Barbara McClintock

Barbara McClintock

United States

16 June 1902 – 2 September 1992 (90 years old)

American cytogeneticist whose discovery of mobile genetic elements (transposons or 'jumping genes') proved that genomes are dynamic, mutable systems, winning an unshared Nobel Prize in 1983.

Huntington (New York), United States

10 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

4,338

🕯️ 161

Grace Hopper

Grace Brewster Murray Hopper

United States

1906 – 1992 (85 years old)

U.S. Navy Rear Admiral and computer pioneer who invented the first compiler and popularized machine-independent languages (COBOL).

Arlington, Virginia, United States

4,338 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

4,511

🕯️ 92

John Bardeen

John Bardeen

United States

1908 – 1991 (82 years old)

Only person to win two Nobel Prizes in Physics, co-inventing the transistor and explaining superconductivity (BCS theory).

Madison, Wisconsin, United States

4,511 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

0

🕯️ 0

Pavel Cherenkov

Павел Алексеевич Черенков

Russian Empire

1904 – 1990 (85 years old)

Soviet experimental physicist who discovered Cherenkov radiation—the eerie blue light emitted when charged particles travel through a dielectric medium faster than the phase velocity of light.

Moscow, Russia

0 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

3

🕯️ 0

Hassan Fathy

حسن فتحي

Egypt

1900 – 1989 (89 years old)

Visionary Egyptian architect and pioneer of sustainable vernacular architecture who rejected Western concrete boxes in favor of indigenous mud-brick (adobe), Nubian vaults, and passive solar cooling, author of 'Architecture for the Poor'.

Cairo, Egypt

3 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

0

🕯️ 0

Sewall Wright

Sewall Green Wright

United States

1889 – 1988 (98 years old)

American geneticist who co-founded theoretical population genetics alongside Fisher and Haldane, discovered genetic drift (the Sewall Wright Effect), invented the inbreeding coefficient, and developed the Shifting Balance Theory of evolution.

Madison (Wisconsin), United States

0 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

1,304

🕯️ 53

Richard Feynman

Richard Phillips Feynman

United States

1918 – 1988 (69 years old)

Iconic American theoretical physicist who pioneered quantum electrodynamics, Feynman diagrams, and nanotechnology.

Altadena, California, United States

1,304 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

0

🕯️ 0

Luis Federico Leloir

Luis Federico Leloir

France (Argentine parents)

1906 – 1987 (81 years old)

Argentine biochemist who discovered sugar nucleotides and their role in the biosynthesis of carbohydrates, earning the 1970 Nobel Prize in Chemistry as Latin America's first chemistry laureate.

Buenos Aires, Argentina

0 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

0

🕯️ 0

Andrey Kolmogorov

Андрей Николаевич Колмогоров

Russian Empire

1903 – 1987 (84 years old)

Soviet mathematician who established the axiomatic foundations of modern probability theory and made monumental breakthroughs in turbulence, topology, algorithmic complexity, and celestial mechanics.

Moscow, Russia

0 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

2,930

🕯️ 176

Louis de Broglie

Louis Victor Pierre Raymond, 7th Duc de Broglie

France

1892 – 1987 (94 years old)

French aristocratic physicist who discovered the wave nature of matter, founding wave mechanics.

Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France

2,930 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

9

🕯️ 955

Paul Dirac

Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac

United Kingdom

8 August 1902 – 20 October 1984 (82 years old)

Legendary British physicist who formulated the relativistic Dirac equation, unified quantum mechanics with special relativity, and theoretically predicted the existence of antimatter (the positron).

Tallahassee (Florida), United States

9 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

0

🕯️ 0

George Gaylord Simpson

George Gaylord Simpson

United States

1902 – 1984 (82 years old)

Foremost paleontologist of the 20th century who integrated the fossil record into the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis in his 1944 masterpiece 'Tempo and Mode in Evolution', deciphering the evolutionary radiation of mammals and the Great American Biotic Interchange.

Albuquerque (New Mexico), United States

0 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

0

🕯️ 0

Stanislaw Ulam

Stanisław Marcin Ulam

Austria

1909 – 1984 (75 years old)

Polish-American mathematician who co-invented the Monte Carlo method of statistical simulation and co-designed the Teller-Ulam staged radiation implosion architecture for thermonuclear weapons.

Paris, France

0 Full Record →