Curated playlist
British fellows of the Royal Society
- James Clerk MaxwellEinstein once corrected a host who said he stood on Newton's shoulders. He said he stood on the shoulders of Maxwell.
- J. J. ThomsonSeven of J. J. Thomson's students went on to win Nobel Prizes. His son George Paget Thomson won one too.
- James ChadwickJames Chadwick signed up for physics by mistake. He meant to study mathematics, then found the neutron.
- Charles DarwinCharles Darwin likened confessing his theory to confessing a murder. He told botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker in 1844.
- Winston ChurchillWinston Churchill escaped a prisoner-of-war camp in Pretoria by hiding on freight trains. It made him famous.
- Lord ByronWestminster Abbey refused Lord Byron's body for questionable morality. It finally gave him a memorial in 1969.
- Charles II of EnglandCharles II was received in London on the 29th of May 1660, which happened to be his 30th birthday. The crowds met the returning king with public acclaim. He would go on to rule England, Scotland and Ireland until 1685. Contemporaries found…
- John RoebuckJohn Roebuck agreed to pay James Watt's debts for a two-thirds share in an engine that still fell short.
- Margaret ThatcherMargaret Thatcher kept a portrait of her chemistry tutor on the wall at 10 Downing Street.
- James CookCaptain James Cook tried to kidnap a Hawaiian king to get a stolen boat back.
- James Prescott JouleJames Joule used a falling weight to spin a paddle wheel in water. The rising temperature showed work turning into heat.
- Francis CrickFrancis Crick was editing a manuscript on his death bed. He co-deciphered the DNA double helix in 1953.
- Ernest RutherfordErnest Rutherford scoffed at atomic power in 1933. Leó Szilárd later said that speech inspired his chain reaction idea.
- Prince Philip, Duke of EdinburghPrince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, was born on a dining room table. The date was the 10th of June 1921, and the place was Mon Repos, a villa on the Greek island of Corfu. Before he turned two, he was carried out of Greece in a fruit box. He…
- George VNear the end of his life in January 1936, King George V of the United Kingdom asked his secretary a question. Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin later described the scene. Each time the dying king regained consciousness, he had some kind…
- John LockeJohn Locke's phrase "long train of abuses" appears word for word in the Declaration of Independence.
- Benjamin DisraeliBenjamin Disraeli bought a controlling stake in the Suez Canal within days in 1875.
- Joseph PriestleyJoseph Priestley isolated oxygen but never accepted what it meant.
- Isaac NewtonIsaac Newton was born so small, he said, that he could have fit inside a quart mug.
- Clement AttleeClement Attlee told the King, "I've won the election," and the King replied that he already knew.
- James WattJames Watt did not invent the steam engine. Thomas Newcomen built one in 1712, yet the watt bears Watt's name.
- Marc Isambard BrunelWithin 15 weeks of its opening, one million people had walked through the Thames Tunnel, the first tunnel ever built under a river. Its builder was Sir Marc Isambard Brunel, a French-British engineer best known for the work he did in…
- Alexander FlemingAlexander Fleming, a Scottish physician and microbiologist, walked back into his London laboratory on the 3rd of September 1928 after a family holiday in Suffolk. Before leaving, he had spread staphylococci across culture plates and left…
- Matthew BoultonBy 1786, two-thirds of the coins in Britain were counterfeit. Matthew Boulton's steam-powered mint helped fix it.
- Robert StephensonRobert Stephenson twice turned down a knighthood. The railway engineer was offered it by Queen Victoria in 1849.
- Paul DiracPaul Dirac's 1928 equation predicted antimatter, and the positron appeared in 1932.
- Robert HookeRobert Hooke built the air pump that made Boyle's Law possible. He also designed London's Monument to the Great Fire.
- Charles BabbageCharles Babbage died on the 18th of October 1871 at 1 Dorset Street in Marylebone, London, where he had lived and worked for over forty years. He was 79. Among his papers were designs for engines of brass and iron that could calculate,…
- Alan TuringAlan Turing once chained his tea mug to a radiator pipe at Bletchley Park so it could not be stolen.
- Stephen HawkingDoctors gave Stephen Hawking two years to live at age 21, but he died at 76.
- Demis HassabisDemis Hassabis changed one letter to turn a Greek word for butcher into his surname. He later won a Nobel Prize.
- Josiah WedgwoodJosiah Wedgwood lost his right leg in 1768, then opened his Etruria pottery works the next year.
- Humphry DavyIn 1799, chemist Humphry Davy breathed sixteen quarts of laughing gas for nearly seven minutes.
- James ThornhillJames Thornhill became the first native-born English artist to be knighted. The painter received the honor in May 1720.
- Joseph LockeJoseph Locke built railways without tunnels when rivals thought tunnels were unavoidable.
- Max BornMax Born won his 1954 Nobel Prize for work he finished nearly three decades earlier.
- Christopher WrenDays after the Great Fire of 1666, Christopher Wren drew a plan to rebuild all of London.
- David AttenboroughAt 11, David Attenborough sold newts to a university for three pence each.
- Michael FaradayMichael Faraday turned down a knighthood to stay plain Mr Faraday. He also twice declined to lead the Royal Society.
- Edward GibbonEdward Gibbon said commanding militia grenadiers helped him understand the Roman legion.
- Arthur EvansArthur Evans dug into a Cretan hill in March 1900 and found a palace with over a thousand rooms.
- Henry BessemerA sixteen-year-old confronted Henry Bessemer in London over her father's unpaid work.
- Edmund CartwrightA mill meant for 500 power looms burned down with only 30 installed. Weavers working by hand were the likely arsonists.
- John Harris (writer)A priest was the first person on record to describe a bdelloid rotifer. John Harris did it under a microscope in 1696.
- Bertrand RussellAt 89, philosopher Bertrand Russell went to jail for an anti-nuclear protest. Asked to behave, he said, "No, I won't."
- Arthur EddingtonArthur Eddington photographed stars during a 1919 eclipse to test Einstein's theory.
- John Stewart BellJohn Bell died in 1990 without knowing he had reportedly been nominated for a Nobel Prize.
- Edmond HalleyEdmond Halley never saw the comet that carries his name. He predicted its 1758 return, sixteen years after he died.
- David LivingstoneDavid Livingstone, a Scottish doctor and missionary, once explained his obsession with Africa to a friend in a single blunt sentence. The sources of the Nile, he said, were "valuable only as a means of opening my mouth with power among…
- Brian Cox (physicist)Brian Cox, the English physicist and musician, once admitted to a chat show host that he did badly in A-level maths. "I got a D... I was really not very good... I found out you need to practise." That grade belongs to a man who now holds…