The greatest scientists of all time
The top 3 according to 200 votes from people: Isaac Newton · Albert Einstein · Marie Curie. (Updated Jun 26, 2025.)
The scientists who appear most often in 'greatest scientists ever' rankings (one compilation of over 30 such lists puts Einstein, Newton, Curie and Darwin at the top), with the discovery each is remembered for.
Top 20
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1
Isaac Newton
English physicist and mathematician (1643-1727): laws of motion, universal gravitation, calculus and optics.
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2
Albert Einstein
German-born physicist (1879-1955): special and general relativity; Nobel Prize in Physics 1921 for the photoelectric effect.
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3
Marie Curie
Polish-French physicist and chemist (1867-1934): radioactivity, polonium and radium; the first person to win two Nobel Prizes.
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4
Richard Feynman
American physicist (1918-1988): quantum electrodynamics and Feynman diagrams; Nobel Prize 1965.
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5
Galileo Galilei
Italian astronomer (1564-1642): telescope observations of Jupiter's moons and the father of the scientific method.
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6
Charles Darwin
English naturalist (1809-1882): evolution by natural selection, published in On the Origin of Species (1859).
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7
Aristotle
Greek philosopher (384-322 BC) who founded biology, logic and much of Western science.
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8
Dmitri Mendeleev
Russian chemist (1834-1907) who created the periodic table of the elements.
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9
Rosalind Franklin
English chemist (1920-1958) whose X-ray images revealed the double helix of DNA.
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10
James Clerk Maxwell
Scottish physicist (1831-1879): the equations that unified electricity, magnetism and light.
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11
Max Planck
German physicist (1858-1947), originator of quantum theory; Nobel Prize 1918.
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12
Nikola Tesla
Serbian-American inventor (1856-1943): alternating-current systems and the induction motor.
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13
Alan Turing
English mathematician (1912-1954): founder of computer science and codebreaker of Enigma.
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14
Michael Faraday
English scientist (1791-1867): electromagnetic induction, the electric motor and the dynamo.
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15
Archimedes
Greek mathematician and engineer from Syracuse (c. 287-212 BC): the principle of buoyancy and the lever.
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16
Gregor Mendel
Austrian monk (1822-1884) whose pea experiments founded genetics.
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17
Niels Bohr
Danish physicist (1885-1962): the quantum model of the atom; Nobel Prize 1922.
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18
Stephen Hawking
English physicist (1942-2018): black-hole radiation and author of A Brief History of Time.
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19
Johannes Kepler
German astronomer (1571-1630): the three laws of planetary motion.
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20
Nicolaus Copernicus
Polish astronomer (1473-1543) who put the Sun at the centre of the solar system.
Candidates
They don't make it into the top 20… yet. Vote for them to move them up.
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21
Antoine Lavoisier
French chemist (1743-1794), father of modern chemistry; executed in the French Revolution.
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22
Louis Pasteur
French chemist and microbiologist (1822-1895): germ theory, pasteurisation and the rabies vaccine.
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23
Ibn al-Haytham
Arab polymath (c. 965–1040) whose Book of Optics laid the foundations of modern optics and experimental method.
How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.
Is something missing?
Comments (4)
Rosalind Franklin at #21 still feels low. Without her X-ray work, no double helix.
Still think Faraday should be top 5. Self-taught and changed the world.
Missing Ibn al-Haytham, father of the scientific method and modern optics.
Newton at #1 is the classic pick. Einstein fans will be mad though 😄