Isaac Newton: Laws of motion and gravity (1600s)
Albert Einstein: Theory of relativity (1900s)
Galileo Galilei: Used a telescope to study the Moon and Jupiter's moons (1600s)
Marie Curie: Studied radioactivity; won two Nobel Prizes
Charles Darwin: Theory of evolution by natural selection (1859)
Louis Pasteur: Germ theory, pasteurization and vaccines
Nikola Tesla: Alternating current electricity and many inventions
Thomas Edison: Light bulb, phonograph, and many patents
Alexander Graham Bell: Telephone
Leonardo da Vinci: Painter and inventor who sketched flying machines (1400s-1500s)
Copernicus: Said the planets orbit the Sun (1500s)
Johannes Kepler: Laws of planetary motion (1600s)
Archimedes: Ancient Greek who found the principle of buoyancy
Aristotle: Greek thinker who studied many sciences
Ptolemy: Ancient astronomer who mapped the stars
Gregor Mendel: Founder of genetics using pea plants
Rosalind Franklin: Her X-ray work helped reveal DNA's structure
Ada Lovelace: Wrote the first computer program idea
Alan Turing: Founder of modern computing ideas (1900s)
Michael Faraday: Electricity and magnetism experiments
James Clerk Maxwell: Equations of light and electricity
Dmitri Mendeleev: Created the periodic table (1869)
Antoine Lavoisier: Father of modern chemistry
Robert Hooke: Looked at cork and named 'cells'
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek: Saw tiny microbes with early microscopes
Edward Jenner: Developed the smallpox vaccine
Florence Nightingale: Founder of modern nursing
Joseph Lister: Used clean methods in surgery
Alexander Fleming: Discovered penicillin
Jonas Salk: Created a polio vaccine
Wilhelm Roentgen: Discovered X-rays (1895)
Ernest Rutherford: Showed that atoms have a nucleus
Niels Bohr: Model of the atom
Max Planck: Started quantum theory
Stephen Hawking: Studied black holes (1942-2018)
Carl Linnaeus: Created the system for naming living things
Alfred Wegener: Proposed continental drift
Edwin Hubble: Showed other galaxies exist and the universe expands
Henrietta Leavitt: Found a way to measure distances to stars
Annie Jump Cannon: Sorted stars into classes
Mary Anning: Fossil hunter who found early marine reptile skeletons
George Washington Carver: Taught farmers about crop rotation and peanut uses
Rachel Carson: Wrote Silent Spring about nature and pesticides
Hypatia: Ancient mathematician and teacher in Alexandria
Pythagoras: Greek thinker linked to the triangle rule
Euclid: Wrote the Elements, a famous geometry book
Blaise Pascal: Mathematician who studied pressure and probability
Evangelista Torricelli: Invented the barometer
Robert Boyle: Studied gases and pressure
Benjamin Franklin: Studied lightning and invented the lightning rod
Lise Meitner: Helped explain nuclear fission
Katherine Johnson: NASA mathematician who calculated spaceflight paths
Wright brothers: Built and flew the first successful airplane
Samuel Morse: Telegraph and Morse code
Guglielmo Marconi: Wireless radio
Henry Ford: Assembly line cars
James Watt: Improved the steam engine
Johannes Gutenberg: Printing press in Europe

Free flashcards from Peabody at peabody.kids/flashcards/fun-famous-scientists