Flashcards › Science › Science History

Famous Scientists

Who discovered what.

67 cardsGrades 3–5, Grades 6–8, Grades 9–12#scientists#discoveries

0 of 67 known
67 cards
  • Isaac NewtonScientist
    Laws of motion and universal gravitation
  • Albert EinsteinScientist
    Theory of relativity and E = mc squared
  • Marie CurieScientist
    Discovered polonium and radium; studied radioactivity; won two Nobel Prizes
  • Charles DarwinScientist
    Theory of evolution by natural selection
  • Galileo GalileiScientist
    Used the telescope to find Jupiter's moons and supported a Sun-centered system
  • Nicolaus CopernicusScientist
    Proposed that the Earth orbits the Sun
  • Johannes KeplerScientist
    Laws of planetary motion
  • Louis PasteurScientist
    Germ theory, pasteurization and vaccines
  • Alexander FlemingScientist
    Discovered penicillin in 1928
  • Edward JennerScientist
    Created the first smallpox vaccine
  • Gregor MendelScientist
    Father of genetics, through pea plant experiments
  • Rosalind FranklinScientist
    X-ray images that helped reveal DNA's structure
  • James Watson and Francis CrickScientist
    Proposed the double helix structure of DNA in 1953
  • Dmitri MendeleevScientist
    Created the first widely used periodic table
  • Antoine LavoisierScientist
    Father of modern chemistry; named oxygen and hydrogen
  • John DaltonScientist
    Atomic theory of matter
  • J. J. ThomsonScientist
    Discovered the electron
  • Ernest RutherfordScientist
    Discovered the atomic nucleus
  • Niels BohrScientist
    Model of the atom with electron shells
  • James ChadwickScientist
    Discovered the neutron
  • Robert HookeScientist
    Named cells after looking at cork
  • Antonie van LeeuwenhoekScientist
    First to see bacteria and single-celled life with a microscope
  • Robert BoyleScientist
    Boyle's law about gases
  • Michael FaradayScientist
    Electromagnetic induction
  • James Clerk MaxwellScientist
    Equations of electromagnetism
  • Benjamin FranklinScientist
    Studied electricity and lightning
  • Alessandro VoltaScientist
    Invented the battery
  • Nikola TeslaScientist
    Alternating current systems
  • Thomas EdisonScientist
    Practical light bulb and phonograph
  • Alexander Graham BellScientist
    Patented the telephone in 1876
  • Stephen HawkingScientist
    Studied black holes and the universe
  • Edwin HubbleScientist
    Showed the universe is expanding
  • Carl SaganScientist
    Astronomer who made science popular on television
  • Jane GoodallScientist
    Studied wild chimpanzees in Tanzania
  • Dian FosseyScientist
    Studied mountain gorillas in Rwanda
  • Rachel CarsonScientist
    Wrote Silent Spring, about pesticides and nature
  • Jacques CousteauScientist
    Ocean explorer who co-invented the aqualung
  • Sylvia EarleScientist
    Oceanographer and deep-sea explorer
  • Mae JemisonScientist
    Doctor and first African American woman in space
  • Katherine JohnsonScientist
    NASA mathematician who calculated orbits for early space flights
  • Ada LovelaceScientist
    Wrote an early computer program in the 1840s
  • Charles BabbageScientist
    Designed an early mechanical computer
  • Alan TuringScientist
    Pioneer of computer science and codebreaker
  • Grace HopperScientist
    Computer pioneer who helped create early programming languages
  • George Washington CarverScientist
    Agricultural scientist who promoted peanuts and crop rotation
  • ArchimedesScientist
    Ancient Greek who studied levers and buoyancy
  • AristotleScientist
    Greek thinker who classified living things
  • HippocratesScientist
    Ancient Greek physician called the Father of Medicine
  • EuclidScientist
    Ancient Greek mathematician known for geometry
  • EratosthenesScientist
    Ancient Greek who measured the Earth's size
  • PtolemyScientist
    Ancient astronomer who put Earth at the center
  • Carl LinnaeusScientist
    Created the two-part naming system for species
  • Alfred WegenerScientist
    Proposed continental drift
  • Wilhelm RoentgenScientist
    Discovered X-rays in 1895
  • Enrico FermiScientist
    Built the first nuclear reactor in 1942
  • Max PlanckScientist
    Founder of quantum theory
  • Richard FeynmanScientist
    Physicist known for quantum electrodynamics and teaching
  • Lise MeitnerScientist
    Helped explain nuclear fission
  • Chien-Shiung WuScientist
    Physicist whose experiment changed ideas about particle physics
  • Percy JulianScientist
    Chemist who made medicines from plants
  • Elizabeth BlackwellScientist
    First woman to earn a medical degree in the United States
  • Florence NightingaleScientist
    Nurse who improved hospitals and used statistics
  • Clara BartonScientist
    Founded the American Red Cross
  • Jonas SalkScientist
    Developed the first successful polio vaccine
  • Barbara McClintockScientist
    Discovered jumping genes in corn
  • Tu YouyouScientist
    Discovered a malaria treatment, won a Nobel Prize in 2015
  • Jennifer DoudnaScientist
    Co-developed the CRISPR gene-editing method

Download this deck

Want paper cards? Paste the plain-text download into the flashcard maker.