Curated playlist
Royal Medal winners
- J. J. ThomsonSeven of J. J. Thomson's students went on to win Nobel Prizes. His son George Paget Thomson won one too.
- Charles DarwinCharles Darwin likened confessing his theory to confessing a murder. He told botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker in 1844.
- James Prescott JouleJames Joule used a falling weight to spin a paddle wheel in water. The rising temperature showed work turning into heat.
- Francis CrickFrancis Crick was editing a manuscript on his death bed. He co-deciphered the DNA double helix in 1953.
- Paul DiracPaul Dirac's 1928 equation predicted antimatter, and the positron appeared in 1932.
- Humphry DavyIn 1799, chemist Humphry Davy breathed sixteen quarts of laughing gas for nearly seven minutes.
- Michael FaradayMichael Faraday turned down a knighthood to stay plain Mr Faraday. He also twice declined to lead the Royal Society.
- Arthur EddingtonArthur Eddington photographed stars during a 1919 eclipse to test Einstein's theory.
- John TyndallJohn Tyndall boiled meat broth, then kept it in dust-free air, and it stayed sweet for months.
- Roger PenroseRoger Penrose received half of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics for showing that the formation of black holes is a robust prediction of Einstein's general theory of relativity. The citation sounds like the summit of a single, tidy career.…
- Subrahmanyan ChandrasekharSubrahmanyan Chandrasekhar sailed from India to England in 1930, and on that first sea voyage he worked out a number that would outlive him. The number was 1.44. It is the greatest mass, counted in suns, that a white dwarf star can have. A…