Curated playlist
French fellows of the Royal Society
- VoltaireThe line Voltaire is most quoted for was written in 1906, long after he died.
- Joseph-Louis LagrangeAt seventeen, mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange read a paper by Edmond Halley and was seized by mathematics.
- Claude Louis BertholletClaude Louis Berthollet argued for decades against every other leading chemist, and was partly right.
- Louis PasteurIn 1885, Louis Pasteur treated a boy mauled by a rabid dog despite holding no medical license.
- Antoine LavoisierAntoine Lavoisier, who named oxygen, was guillotined in Paris in 1794. He was also a tax collector.
- Henri PoincaréHenri Poincaré won a royal prize for a problem he did not solve. His entry still revealed the first chaotic system.
- Joseph FourierJoseph Fourier's heat research led to the first scientific proposal of the greenhouse effect.
- Pierre-Simon LaplaceJupiter and Saturn seemed to be drifting off course until Laplace solved it. Newton, Euler and Lagrange had all failed.
- Élie MetchnikoffÉlie Metchnikoff poked citrus thorns into starfish larvae in 1882 and watched cells swarm them.
- Louis de BroglieCould matter behave like a wave, as light can behave like a particle? Louis de Broglie asked this in 1924.