| physicists Name |
During |
Nationality |
Known for Invention of |
| William Gilbert |
1544-1603 |
England |
hypothesized that the Earth is a giant magnet |
| Galileo Galilei |
1564-1642 |
Italy |
discovered mountains and craters on the moon |
| Willebrod Snell |
1580-1626 |
Dutch |
discovered law of refraction (Snell's law) |
| Blaise Pascal |
1623-1662 |
French |
Pascal's principle |
| Christiaan Huygens |
1629-1695 |
Dutch |
Huygen's principle |
| Robert Hooke |
1635-1703 |
England |
discovered Hooke's law of elasticity |
| Sir Isaac Newton |
1643-1727 |
England |
developed theories of gravitation and mechanics |
| Daniel Bernoulli |
1700-1782 |
Swiss |
Bernoulli's principle |
| Benjamin Franklin |
1706-1790 |
United States |
the first American physicist; characterized two kinds of electric charge, which he named ``positive'' and ``negative'' |
| Leonard Euler |
1707-1783 |
Swiss |
made fundamental contributions to fluid dynamics, lunar orbit theory |
| Henry Cavendish |
1731-1810 |
British |
discovered and studied hydrogen; first to measure Newton's gravitational constant; calculated mass and mean density of Earth |
| Charles Augustin de Coulomb |
1736-1806 |
French |
experiments on elasticity, electricity, and magnetism; established experimentally nature of the force between two charges |
| Joseph-Louis Lagrange |
1736-1813 |
French |
developed new methods of analytical mechanics |
| James Watt |
1736-1819 |
Scottish |
invented the modern condensing steam engine and a centrifugal governor |
| Count Alessandro Volta |
1745-1827 |
Italian |
pioneer in study of electricity; invented the first electric battery |
