Curated playlist
Honorary members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences
- VoltaireThe line Voltaire is most quoted for was written in 1906, long after he died.
- Leo TolstoyLeo Tolstoy spent his last hours on a train, preaching non-violence to strangers.
- Joseph-Louis LagrangeAt seventeen, mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange read a paper by Edmond Halley and was seized by mathematics.
- Louis PasteurIn 1885, Louis Pasteur treated a boy mauled by a rabid dog despite holding no medical license.
- Carl Friedrich GaussAt nineteen, Carl Friedrich Gauss proved a 17-sided polygon could be drawn with just a compass and straightedge.
- Alexander von HumboldtAlexander von Humboldt climbed Chimborazo in 1802, gasping and bleeding from his gums.
- Michael FaradayMichael Faraday turned down a knighthood to stay plain Mr Faraday. He also twice declined to lead the Royal Society.
- Joseph FourierJoseph Fourier's heat research led to the first scientific proposal of the greenhouse effect.
- Vasily ZhukovskyScholars cite Vasily Zhukovsky's 1802 translation of an English elegy as Russian Romanticism's starting point.
- Élie MetchnikoffÉlie Metchnikoff poked citrus thorns into starfish larvae in 1882 and watched cells swarm them.
- Barthold Georg NiebuhrHistorian Barthold Georg Niebuhr found a lost Roman law text in a Verona cathedral library.
- Ivan BuninExiled in France, Ivan Bunin became the first Russian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
- Nikolay KaramzinNikolay Karamzin spent years writing a 12-volume history of Russia. He died before finishing it.
- Vladimir Solovyov (philosopher)Philosopher Vladimir Solovyov, a famous historian's son, died homeless and poor. He sought to reunite divided faiths.