Curated playlist
Recipients of Franklin Medal
- Albert EinsteinAlbert Einstein once spent his days examining patents for gravel sorters.
- 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.
- Enrico FermiEnrico Fermi won a Nobel Prize partly for new elements that were really fission products.
- John Archibald WheelerJohn Archibald Wheeler spent decades calling a dying star a "gravitationally completely collapsed object."
- Ernest RutherfordErnest Rutherford scoffed at atomic power in 1933. Leó Szilárd later said that speech inspired his chain reaction idea.
- Thomas EdisonThomas Edison clamped his teeth into a piano to hear it. He was deaf in one ear and barely heard from the other.
- Hendrik LorentzWhen Hendrik Lorentz was buried in 1928, the Dutch phone network fell silent. It stayed quiet for three minutes.
- Max PlanckMax Planck called his quantum idea "an act of despair." The cautious physicist launched quantum physics reluctantly.
- Wright brothersThe Wright brothers' 1903 patent did not claim an airplane. It claimed a system for controlling one.
- Eugene WignerPhysicist Eugene Wigner found that neutron radiation could make the graphite in a reactor swell.
- Stephen HawkingDoctors gave Stephen Hawking two years to live at age 21, but he died at 76.
- Svante ArrheniusSvante Arrhenius nearly failed his doctorate, then won a Nobel Prize for it.
- Edwin HubbleEdwin Hubble studied law at Oxford because of a promise to his dying father. He still became an astronomer.
- 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.
- C. V. RamanC. V. Raman, the Indian physicist, bought two steamship tickets to Stockholm in July 1930. One was for himself and one was for his wife. The Nobel Prize announcements were not due until November. Raman knew that the voyage to Sweden by sea…
- Peter DebyeA unit of measurement, a lunar crater and a minor planet all carry Peter Debye's name.
- Walther NernstChemist Walther Nernst also invented an electric piano. He built it in 1930 with Bechstein and Siemens.
- Theodosius DobzhanskyTheodosius Dobzhansky went from collecting butterflies in Kiev to writing a landmark book on evolution.