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Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences

  • Albert EinsteinAlbert Einstein once spent his days examining patents for gravel sorters.
  • 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.
  • Wander Johannes de HaasWander Johannes de Haas started out studying to be a paralegal. He later gave his name to three physics effects.
  • Thomas JeffersonThomas Jefferson died on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
  • Joris BorghoutsAround 2000, budget cuts threatened Leiden University's Egyptology department. Its head, Joris Borghouts, pushed back.
  • Claude Louis BertholletClaude Louis Berthollet argued for decades against every other leading chemist, and was partly right.
  • Hendrik LorentzWhen Hendrik Lorentz was buried in 1928, the Dutch phone network fell silent. It stayed quiet for three minutes.
  • John von NeumannJohn von Neumann's father asked Theodore von Kármán to talk his son out of mathematics.
  • Max PlanckMax Planck called his quantum idea "an act of despair." The cautious physicist launched quantum physics reluctantly.
  • Werner HeisenbergA spy once carried a pistol to a Werner Heisenberg lecture, ready to shoot him. Moe Berg did not fire.
  • Hermann OldenbergA German scholar's 1881 book on Buddhism has never gone out of print. Hermann Oldenberg drew only on Pāli texts.
  • Jan GondaJan Gonda became a leading scholar of Asian languages without ever visiting Asia.
  • 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.
  • Bronisław MalinowskiBronisław Malinowski pitched a tent in the middle of a village and stayed.
  • Claude Lévi-StraussClaude Lévi-Strauss died in 2009, and for four days the world did not know.
  • Henri FrankfortHenri Frankfort argued Egyptian civilization arose from an African base, not an Asian one.
  • Claude ShannonClaude Shannon built a mechanical mouse that learned its way through a maze. He named the 1950 machine Theseus.
  • Henri PoincaréHenri Poincaré won a royal prize for a problem he did not solve. His entry still revealed the first chaotic system.
  • Johan HuizingaJohan Huizinga began as a scholar of Sanskrit, not medieval history. His thesis was about a jester in Indian drama.
  • Peter Brown (historian)Peter Brown argued that the late Roman world was a time of invention, not decline.
  • Michael FaradayMichael Faraday turned down a knighthood to stay plain Mr Faraday. He also twice declined to lead the Royal Society.
  • Arthur EvansArthur Evans dug into a Cretan hill in March 1900 and found a palace with over a thousand rooms.
  • Svante ArrheniusSvante Arrhenius nearly failed his doctorate, then won a Nobel Prize for it.
  • Pierre-Simon LaplaceJupiter and Saturn seemed to be drifting off course until Laplace solved it. Newton, Euler and Lagrange had all failed.
  • Pieter GeylDutch historian Pieter Geyl lectured on Napoleon in 1940 and was taken hostage within weeks.
  • Niels BohrNiels Bohr passed out in the bomb bay of a British plane over Norway. His flying helmet was too small for him to wear.
  • Arthur EddingtonArthur Eddington photographed stars during a 1919 eclipse to test Einstein's theory.
  • Ivan PavlovIvan Pavlov spent his early career studying how a dog's stomach works. His famous discovery came almost by accident.
  • Annemarie SchimmelAnnemarie Schimmel earned a doctorate at 19 in Nazi-era Germany. Examiners rated her thesis magna cum laude.
  • Theodor MommsenTheodor Mommsen insisted on checking every Latin inscription against the original stone.
  • Barthold Georg NiebuhrHistorian Barthold Georg Niebuhr found a lost Roman law text in a Verona cathedral library.
  • Victor DuruyAt twenty-four, factory worker's son Victor Duruy taught a famous historian's class.
  • Joel MokyrEconomist Joel Mokyr won half of the 2025 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. He argues ideas drive growth.
  • Erwin PanofskyIn 1934, Erwin Panofsky argued a famous Flemish painting was really a legal contract.
  • Peter DebyeA unit of measurement, a lunar crater and a minor planet all carry Peter Debye's name.
  • Paul ErdősPaul Erdős, the Hungarian mathematician born in 1913, spent most of his adult life living out of a suitcase. Time magazine called him "The Oddball's Oddball". His biographer Paul Hoffman went further and described him as "probably the most…

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