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Filter by category and discipline, then by continent, country and century of birth. Countries not yet represented can be drafted at the research desk.

14 figures

Jan Baptist van Helmont

1580 – 1644

Coined 'gas' and ran the first quantitative plant-growth experiment.

Belgium·Chemistry · Biology

Antoine Lavoisier

1743 – 1794

Named oxygen, killed phlogiston, founded modern chemistry; guillotined at 50.

France·Chemistry

Alessandro Volta

1745 – 1827

Built the first battery; the volt is his.

Italy·Physics · Chemistry

Michael Faraday

1791 – 1867

A bookbinder's apprentice who gave humanity electricity on demand.

United Kingdom·Physics · ChemistryFull profile

Louis Pasteur

1822 – 1895

Proved that invisible organisms cause disease — and that we can beat them.

France·Chemistry · Medicine · BiologyFull profile

Alfred Nobel

1833 – 1896

Invented dynamite, then endowed the prizes to redeem the legacy.

Sweden·Chemistry · Engineering

Dmitri Mendeleev

1834 – 1907

Arranged the elements so precisely that he could describe ones nobody had found.

Russia·ChemistryFull profile

Marie Skłodowska-Curie

1867 – 1934

The only person to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences.

Poland·Physics · Chemistry · MedicineNobelFull profile

Fritz Haber

1868 – 1934

Ammonia synthesis feeds around half of humanity; also weaponised chlorine gas.

Poland·ChemistryNobel

Lise Meitner

1878 – 1968

Explained nuclear fission; passed over by the Nobel committee. Element 109 is meitnerium.

Austria·Physics · Chemistry

Dorothy Hodgkin

1910 – 1994

Solved the structures of penicillin, vitamin B12 and insulin by X-ray.

United Kingdom·ChemistryNobel

Primo Levi

1919 – 1987

Chemist whose Auschwitz testimony is the standard of moral witness.

Italy·Literature · Chemistry

Rosalind Franklin

1920 – 1958

Photographed the shape of the molecule that makes us.

United Kingdom·Chemistry · BiologyFull profile

Katalin Karikó

b. 1955

Demoted, defunded, and right: her mRNA work produced the COVID vaccines.

Hungary·Medicine · Biology · ChemistryNobelFull profile