Nobel Prize-Winning Geniuses

Discover 88 geniuses who received the Nobel Prize for their groundbreaking contributions to Physics, Chemistry, Literature, Peace, Medicine, and Economics.

Enrico Fermi

1901–1954 · Italy

Demonstrating first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction Fermi–Dirac statistics Fermi's golden ru

IQ 190

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Linus Pauling

1901–1994 · United States

Alpha sheet • Ancestral sequence reconstruction • Backbonding • Beta sheet • Bond order

IQ 190

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Max Planck

1858–1947 · Germany

On the Second Principles of Mechanical Heat Theory (1879)

IQ 190

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Paul Dirac

1902–1984 · England

Sharing the 1933 Nobel Prize in Physics with Erwin Schrödinger "for the discovery of new productive

IQ 190

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Wilhelm Ostwald

1853–1932 · LV

Catalysis, Coining the term 'Mole' and HSL and HSV

IQ 190

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Percy Williams Bridgman

1882–1961 · United States

High-pressure physics • Operationalism • Operational definition

IQ 185

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George Bernard Shaw

1856–1950 · Ireland

Man and Superman (1902) Pygmalion (1912) The Doctor's Dilemma (1906) Saint Joan (1923) Caesar an

IQ 180

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Bertrand Russell

1872–1970 · United Kingdom

IQ 180

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Charles Scott Sherrington

1857–1952 · England

IQ 180

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Hendrik Lorentz

1853–1928 · Netherlands

Zeeman effect

IQ 180

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Ivan Pavlov

1849–1936 · Russia

Being the founder of modern behavior therapy

IQ 180

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John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh

1842–1919 · United Kingdom

Discovery of argon

IQ 180

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John Bardeen

1908–1991 · United States

Transistor BCS theory Superconductivity

IQ 180

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John Forbes Nash Jr.

1928–2015 · United States

Nash equilibrium • Nash embedding theorem • Nash functions • Nash–Moser theorem • Hilbert's nineteen

IQ 180

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Joseph John Thomson

1856–1940 · United Kingdom

Discovery of the electron

IQ 180

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Louis de Broglie

1892–1987 · France

Wave nature of electrons • De Broglie–Bohm theoryde • Broglie wavelength

IQ 180

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Marie Curie

1867–1934 · Poland

Radioactivity Polonium Radium

IQ 180

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Niels Bohr

1885–1962 · Denmark

Bohr magneton • Bohr model • Bohr radius • Bohr–Einstein debates • Bohr–Kramers–Slater theory • Bohr

IQ 180

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Werner Heisenberg

1901–1976 · Germany

The creation of quantum mechanics

IQ 180

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Frederick Sanger

1918–2013 · United Kingdom

Determining the amino acid sequence of insulin • Sanger sequencing • Sanger Centre

IQ 175

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Heike Kamerlingh Onnes

1853–1926 · Netherlands

Liquid helium • Onnes-effect • Superconductivity • Virial equation of state

IQ 175

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Robert Andrews Millikan

1868–1953 · United States

Oil drop experiment measuring the charge of the electron • Photoelectric effect • Cosmic ray physics

IQ 175

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Walther Nernst

1864–1941 · Germany

Third Law of Thermodynamics

IQ 175

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William Shockley

1910–1989 · United States

Point-contact transistor and GJT • Diffused-base transistor • Heterojunction bipolar transistor • Th

IQ 175

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Wolfgang Pauli

1900–1958 · Austria

Pauli exclusion principle

IQ 175

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Francis Crick

1916–2004 · England

DNA structure Central Dogma Consciousness Adaptor hypothesis

IQ 173

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Ernest Hemingway

1899–1961 · United States

A Farewell to Arms and The Old Man and the Sea

IQ 170

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Ilya Prigogine

1917–2003 · Russia

Dissipative structures Brusselator

IQ 170

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Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar

1910–1995 · India

Chandrasekhar limit • Chandrasekhar number • Chandrasekhar friction • Chandrasekhar–Kendall function

IQ 170

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Charles H. Townes

1915–2015 · United States

Lasers

IQ 165

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Albert Einstein

1879–1955 · Germany

Einstein’s theories of special & general relativity delivered a remarkable transformation in our und

IQ 160

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Albert Camus

1913–1960

The Stranger, The Plague, The Myth of Sisyphus, The Fall, and The Rebel.

IQ 155

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Milton Friedman

1912–2006 · United States

For explaining the role of money supply in economic and inflation fluctuations

IQ 155

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Robert Koch

1843–1910 · Germany

Bacterial culture method • Koch's postulates • Germ theory • Discovery of anthrax bacillus • Discove

IQ 155

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Woodrow Wilson

1856–1924 · United States

Used Darwinian evolution logic as a logic platform in his presidency.

IQ 155

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Martin Luther King Jr.

1929–1968 · United States

Civil rights movement, Peace movement

IQ 140

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Aage Niels Bohr

1922–2009 · Denmark

Explained the structure of the atomic nucleus, unifying the liquid-drop and shell models to produce

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Abdus Salam

1926–1996 · Pakistan

An architect of the second great unification in physics, uniting the electromagnetic force with the

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Alexander Fleming

1881–1955 · Scotland

Discovery of penicillin and Lysozyme

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Arthur Compton

1892–1962 · United States

Compton scattering • Compton wavelength • Compton–Getting effect • Compton generator

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Barbara McClintock

1902–1992 · United States

Work in genetic structure of maize

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Carl David Anderson

1905–1991 · United States

Discovery of the positron and discovery of the muon

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C. V. Raman

1888–1970 · India

Raman effect

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Charles Glover Barkla

1877–1944 · United Kingdom

X-ray scattering • X-ray spectroscopy

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Charles Nicolle

1866–1936 · France

Identifying lice as the transmitter of epidemic typhus.

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Yang Chen-Ning

b. 1922 · China

Yang–Mills theory • Gauge theory • Yang–Mills–Higgs equations

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Ernest Lawrence

1901–1958 · United States

Invention of the cyclotronManhattan Project

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Ernest Rutherford

1871–1937 · New Zealand

Discovery of alpha and beta radioactivity • Discovery of atomic nucleus (Rutherford model) • Rutherf

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Ernest Walton

1903–1995 · United Kingdom

The first disintegration of an atomic nucleus by artificially accelerated protons ("splitting the at

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Fritz Albert Lipmann

1899–1986 · Germany

Co-discoverer in 1945 of coenzyme A

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George de Hevesy

1885–1966 · Hungary

HafniumRadioactive tracer

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George Wald

1906–1997 · United States

Pigments in the retina

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Giulio Natta

1903–1979 · Italy

Ziegler–Natta catalyst, Natta projection

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Glenn T. Seaborg

1912–1999 · United States

His contributions to the synthesis, discovery, and investigation of ten transuranium elements

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Harold Urey

1893–1981 · United States

Discovery of deuterium and Miller–Urey experiment

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Hermann Staudinger

1881–1965 · Germany

Polymer chemistry

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Howard Florey

b. 1898 · Australia

Discovery of penicillin's properties

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Irène Joliot-Curie

1897–1956 · France

Co-discovered how to convert stable chemical elements into ‘designer’ radioactive elements; these ha

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John Cockcroft

1897–1967 · United Kingdom

Splitting the atom

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John Eccles (neurophysiologist)

1903–1997 · Australia

Work on the synapseInteractionism

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John Sulston

1942–2018 · United Kingdom

Genome sequencing of Caenorhabditis elegans and humans

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Karl Landsteiner

1868–1943 · Austria

Development of blood group system, discovery of Rh factor, discovery of poliovirus

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Lawrence Bragg

1890–1971 · Australia

X-ray diffractionX-ray spectroscopyX-ray microscopyBubble raftBragg's lawBragg-Gray cavity theoryBra

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Lev Landau

1908–1968 · AZ

Quantum mechanical theory of diamagnetism • Theory of superfluidity • Theory of second-order phase t

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Linda B. Buck

b. 1947 · United States

Olfactory receptors

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Luis Walter Alvarez

1911–1988 · United States

Design of a liquid hydrogen bubble chamber

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Maurice Wilkins

1916–2004 · New Zealand

X-ray diffraction, DNA

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Pyotr Kapitsa

1894–1984 · Russia

Superfluidity and Kapitza's pendulum

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Richard Feynman

1918–1988 · United States

Manhattan Project Acoustic

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Roger Wolcott Sperry

1913–1994 · United States

Split-brain research and Chemoaffinity hypothesis

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Santiago Ramón y Cajal

1852–1934 · Spain

Fathering modern neuroscience • Discovery of the neuron • Neuron doctrine • Growth cone • Dendritic

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Selman Waksman

1888–1973 · Ukraine

Discovered antibiotics made by soil-dwelling bacteria including streptomycin, the first effective tr

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Susumu Tonegawa

b. 1939 · Japan

Antibody diversity, E-boxV(D) and J recombination

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William Ramsay

1852–1916

Discovering noble gases

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Tu Youyou

b. 1930 · China

Discovering artemisinin and dihydroartemisinin

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James Chadwick

1891–1974 · United Kingdom

Discovery of the neutron • MAUD Committee Report • Manhattan Project

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Elias James Corey

b. 1928 · United States

Retrosynthetic analysis

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Tawakkol Karman

b. 1979 · YE

Winning the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize

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Amartya Sen

b. 1933 · India

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Aung San Suu Kyi

b. 1945 · Myanmar

Activism

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Shirin Ebadi

b. 1947 · Iran

Defenders of Human Rights Center

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Toni Morrison

1931–2019 · United States

The Bluest Eye (1970)Sula (1973)Song of Solomon (1977)Tar Baby (1981)Beloved (1987)

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Kazuo Ishiguro

b. 1954 · Japan

An Artist of the Floating WorldThe Remains of the DayWhen We Were OrphansNever Let Me GoKlara and th

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Alice Munro

b. 1931 · Canada

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Wangari Maathai

1940–2011 · KE

Green Belt Movement

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Octavio Paz

1914–1998 · Mexico

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There is no Nobel Prize in Mathematics. The Fields Medal serves as the equivalent honor for mathematicians. Alfred Nobel did not include mathematics in his original categories.

Nobel Prize-Winning Geniuses