Curated playlist
Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
- James Clerk MaxwellEinstein once corrected a host who said he stood on Newton's shoulders. He said he stood on the shoulders of Maxwell.
- Walter ScottWalter Scott owed £130,000 and refused any help. The novelist wrote his way out of ruin instead.
- Edward VIIEdward VII was barely a month old on the 8th of December 1841 when he was created Prince of Wales. He would carry that title until the 22nd of January 1901, a span of 59 years and 45 days. No heir in British history had waited so long, and…
- Adam SmithAdam Smith once walked straight into a tanning pit while talking about free trade.
- Hendrik LorentzWhen Hendrik Lorentz was buried in 1928, the Dutch phone network fell silent. It stayed quiet for three minutes.
- 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…
- Angus DeatonIn 2024, Nobel economist Angus Deaton said he had changed his mind on much of mainstream economics.
- Matthew BoultonBy 1786, two-thirds of the coins in Britain were counterfeit. Matthew Boulton's steam-powered mint helped fix it.
- 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,…
- Max BornMax Born won his 1954 Nobel Prize for work he finished nearly three decades earlier.
- Thomas TelfordThomas Telford sealed the iron joints of his Pontcysyllte Aqueduct with boiling sugar and lead.
- Linus PaulingLinus Pauling left high school without a diploma. He later won two unshared Nobel Prizes, a first in history.