James Clerk Maxwell was a Scottish scientist in the field of
mathematical
physics.
His
most
notable
achievement
was
to
formulate the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation, bringing
together for the first time electricity, magnetism, and light as manifestations of the same phenomenon. Maxwell's equations for electromagnetism have been called the "second great unification in physics" after the first one realized by Isaac Newton. Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck was a German theoretical physicist who originated quantum theory, which won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918.
Planck made many contributions to theoretical
physics, but his fame as a physicist rests primarily on his role as an
originator of the quantum theory. Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist. Einstein's work is also known for its influence on the philosophy of science. He developed the general theory of relativity, one of the two pillars of modern physics. Einstein is best known in popular culture for his massenergy equivalence formula E = mc2 . He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for his "services to theoretical physics", in particular his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect, a pivotal step in the evolution of quantum theory. Niels
Bohr
was
Danish
physicist
who
made
fundamental
contributions to understanding the structure of atoms and to the
early
development
of
quantum
mechanics.
In
particular,
he
developed the Bohr model of the atom and the principles of
correspondence and complementarity. He is recognized as one of the most influential physicists of the 20th Century, and received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. Louis-Victor-Pierre-Raymond was a French physicist who made groundbreaking contributions to quantum theory. In his 1924 PhD
thesis he postulated the wave nature of electrons and suggested
that all matter has wave properties. This concept is known as the de Broglie hypothesis, an example of wave-particle duality, and forms a central part of the theory of quantum mechanics. Werner Heisenberg was a German theoretical physicist who made foundational contributions to quantum theory. He is best known for the development of the matrix mechanics formulation of quantum mechanics in 1925 and for asserting the uncertainty principle in 1926, although he also made important contributions to nuclear physics, quantum field theory and particle physics. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1932 for the creation of quantum mechanics. Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrodinger was a Nobel Prize-winning Austrian physicist who developed a number of fundamental results in the field of quantum theory, which formed the basis of wave mechanics: he formulated the wave equation and revealed the identity of his development of the formalism and matrix mechanics. Schrdinger proposed an original interpretation of the physical meaning of the wave function.