The Most Famous

PHYSICISTS from Ireland

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This page contains a list of the greatest Irish Physicists. The pantheon dataset contains 851 Physicists, 7 of which were born in Ireland. This makes Ireland the birth place of the 19th most number of Physicists behind Denmark, and China.

Top 7

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Irish Physicists of all time. This list of famous Irish Physicists is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography's online popularity.

Photo of William Rowan Hamilton

1. William Rowan Hamilton (1805 - 1865)

With an HPI of 74.78, William Rowan Hamilton is the most famous Irish Physicist.  His biography has been translated into 76 different languages on wikipedia.

Sir William Rowan Hamilton (4 August 1805 – 2 September 1865) was an Irish astronomer, mathematician, and physicist who made numerous major contributions to abstract algebra, classical mechanics, and optics. His theoretical works and mathematical equations are considered fundamental to modern theoretical physics, particularly his reformulation of Lagrangian mechanics. His career included the analysis of geometrical optics, Fourier analysis, and quaternions, the last of which made him one of the founders of modern linear algebra. Hamilton was Andrews Professor of Astronomy at Trinity College Dublin. He was also the third director of Dunsink Observatory from 1827 to 1865. The Hamilton Institute at Maynooth University is named after him. He received the Cunningham Medal twice, in 1834 and 1848, and the Royal Medal in 1835.

Photo of George Francis FitzGerald

2. George Francis FitzGerald (1851 - 1901)

With an HPI of 71.97, George Francis FitzGerald is the 2nd most famous Irish Physicist.  His biography has been translated into 40 different languages.

George Francis FitzGerald (3 August 1851 – 21 February 1901) was an Irish physicist known for hypothesising length contraction, which became an integral part of Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity.

Photo of Ernest Walton

3. Ernest Walton (1903 - 1995)

With an HPI of 68.17, Ernest Walton is the 3rd most famous Irish Physicist.  His biography has been translated into 78 different languages.

Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton (6 October 1903 – 25 June 1995) was an Irish nuclear physicist who was among the first to achieve a fully artificial nuclear reaction and nuclear transmutation. He shared the 1951 Nobel Prize in Physics with John Cockcroft "for their pioneer work on the transmutation of atomic nuclei by artificially accelerated atomic particles". According to their Nobel Prize citation: "Thus, for the first time, a nuclear transmutation was produced by means entirely under human control". He was also the Erasmus Smith's Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy at Trinity College Dublin from 1946 to 1974. For his contributions to physics, Walton was made a member of the Royal Irish Academy (RIA) in 1935 and received the Hughes Medal in 1938.

Photo of John Tyndall

4. John Tyndall (1820 - 1893)

With an HPI of 66.93, John Tyndall is the 4th most famous Irish Physicist.  Her biography has been translated into 44 different languages.

John Tyndall (; 2 August 1820 – 4 December 1893) was an Irish physicist. His scientific fame arose in the 1850s from his study of diamagnetism. Later he made discoveries in the realms of infrared radiation and the physical properties of air, proving the connection between atmospheric CO2 and what is now known as the greenhouse effect in 1859. Tyndall also published more than a dozen science books which brought state-of-the-art 19th century experimental physics to a wide audience. From 1853 to 1887 he was professor of physics at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in London. He was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society in 1868.

Photo of George Johnstone Stoney

5. George Johnstone Stoney (1826 - 1911)

With an HPI of 64.13, George Johnstone Stoney is the 5th most famous Irish Physicist.  His biography has been translated into 32 different languages.

George Johnstone Stoney (15 February 1826 – 5 July 1911) was an Irish physicist known for introducing the term electron as the "fundamental unit quantity of electricity". He initially named it electrolion in 1881, and later named it electron in 1891. He published around 75 scientific papers during his lifetime.

Photo of John Sealy Townsend

6. John Sealy Townsend (1868 - 1957)

With an HPI of 56.17, John Sealy Townsend is the 6th most famous Irish Physicist.  His biography has been translated into 19 different languages.

Sir John Sealy Edward Townsend (; 7 June 1868 – 16 February 1957) was an Irish physicist who conducted various studies concerning the electrical conduction of gases (concerning the kinetics of electrons and ions) and directly measured the electric charge. He was a Wykeham Professor of Physics at Oxford University. The phenomenon of the electron avalanche was discovered by him, and is known as the Townsend discharge.

Photo of John Joly

7. John Joly (1857 - 1933)

With an HPI of 55.05, John Joly is the 7th most famous Irish Physicist.  His biography has been translated into 18 different languages.

John Joly (; 1 November 1857 – 8 December 1933) was an Irish geologist and physicist known for his development of radiotherapy in the treatment of cancer. In 1914, he worked with Walter Stevenson to establish the Irish Radium Institute, where they jointly developed the "Dublin method" for deep radiotherapy using hollow needles. He is also known for developing techniques to more accurately estimate the age of a geological period, based on radioactive elements present in minerals, the uranium–thorium dating.

People

Pantheon has 7 people classified as Irish physicists born between 1805 and 1903. Of these 7, none of them are still alive today. The most famous deceased Irish physicists include William Rowan Hamilton, George Francis FitzGerald, and Ernest Walton. As of April 2024, 7 new Irish physicists have been added to Pantheon including William Rowan Hamilton, George Francis FitzGerald, and Ernest Walton.

Deceased Irish Physicists

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Newly Added Irish Physicists (2024)

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Overlapping Lives

Which Physicists were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 7 most globally memorable Physicists since 1700.