swap_horiz James Prescott Joule Alternatives

1

Nicolas Leonard Sadi Carnot

Nicolas Leonard Sadi Carnot was a French physicist whose 1824 analysis of ideal heat engines founded thermodynamics and...

Classical French Theory Thermodynamics

9.3 Excellent

2

William Thomson, Lord Kelvin

William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, was a British physicist who formulated the absolute temperature scale in 1848 and helped f...

Classical Theory Victorian Thermodynamics

9.3 Excellent

3

William Fowler

William Fowler was an American nuclear astrophysicist who shared the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics for explaining element...

American Experimental Astrophysics Nuclear

8.9 Great

4

Charles-Augustin de Coulomb

Charles-Augustin de Coulomb was a French physicist whose 1785 torsion-balance experiments established the inverse-square...

Classical French Experimental Force

8.8 Great

5

Gustav Kirchhoff

Gustav Kirchhoff was a German physicist who formulated circuit laws in 1845 and, with Robert Bunsen, founded spectroscop...

German Classical Theory Spectroscopy

8.8 Great

6

Charles H. Townes

Charles H. Townes was an American physicist who built the first maser in 1953 and shared the 1964 Nobel Prize for maser...

American Experimental Laser Nobel

8.7 Great

7

Rainer Weiss

Rainer Weiss is an American physicist who proposed the laser interferometer design behind LIGO and shared the 2017 Nobel...

American Experimental Gravity Waves

8.7 Great

8

Nevill Francis Mott

Nevill Francis Mott was a British physicist whose work on electronic structures of magnetic and disordered systems earne...

Theory British Semiconductors Nobel

8.6 Great

9

Hans Christian Orsted

Hans Christian Orsted was a Danish physicist who in 1820 found that electric currents deflect compass needles, linking e...

Classical Danish Electromagnetism Experimental

8.5 Great

10

Antoine Henri Becquerel

Antoine Henri Becquerel was a French physicist who discovered natural radioactivity in uranium salts in 1896 and won the...

Modern French Radioactivity Experimental

8.5 Great

11

David Wineland

David Wineland is an American physicist who shared the 2012 Nobel Prize for controlling individual quantum systems with...

American Experimental Quantum Nobel

8.4 Great

12

Serge Haroche

Serge Haroche is a French physicist who shared the 2012 Nobel Prize for methods to measure and control individual quantu...

French Optics Experimental Quantum

8.4 Great

13

Nikolay Basov

Nikolay Basov was a Soviet physicist who co-developed maser and laser principles and shared the 1964 Nobel Prize in Phys...

Experimental Laser Quantum Soviet

8.3 Great

14

Barry Barish

Barry Barish is an American physicist who led LIGO from 1994, turning it into a major observatory, and shared the 2017 N...

American Experimental Gravity Waves

8.3 Great

15

William D. Phillips

William D. Phillips is an American physicist who shared the 1997 Nobel Prize for methods of laser cooling and trapping n...

Atomic American Experimental Laser

8.3 Great

16

Alexander Prokhorov

Alexander Prokhorov was a Soviet physicist who co-developed maser and laser principles and shared the 1964 Nobel Prize i...

Experimental Laser Quantum Soviet

8.2 Great

17

Arthur Schawlow

Arthur Schawlow was an American physicist who co-wrote the 1958 laser theory paper with Charles Townes and shared the 19...

American Experimental Laser Spectroscopy

8.2 Great

18

Anne L'Huillier

Anne L'Huillier is a French physicist based in Sweden who shared the 2023 Nobel Prize for work enabling attosecond light...

French Experimental Laser Nobel

8.2 Great

19

James Van Allen

James Van Allen was an American space physicist whose instruments on Explorer 1 revealed Earth's radiation belts in 1958...

Modern American Space Experimental

8.2 Great

20

Kristian Birkeland

Kristian Birkeland was a Norwegian physicist who linked auroras to charged particles and inspired the krone banknote por...

Classical Norwegian Space Experimental

8.0 Great