Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who is widely held as one of the most influential scientists. Best known for developing the theory of relativity, Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc2, which arises from special relativity, has been called "the world's most famous equation". He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Kurt Friedrich Gödel was a logician, mathematician, and philosopher. Considered along with Aristotle and Gottlob Frege to be one of the most significant logicians in history, Gödel profoundly influenced scientific and philosophical thinking in the 20th century, building on earlier work by Frege, Richard Dedekind, and Georg Cantor.
Sir Roger Penrose is a British mathematician, mathematical physicist, philosopher of science and Nobel Laureate in Physics. He is Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics in the University of Oxford, an emeritus fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, and an honorary fellow of St John's College, Cambridge, and University College London.
Leo Szilard was a Hungarian-born physicist, biologist and inventor who made numerous important discoveries in nuclear physics and the biological sciences. He conceived the nuclear chain reaction in 1933, and patented the idea in 1936. In late 1939 he wrote the letter for Albert Einstein's signature that resulted in the Manhattan Project that built the atomic bomb, and then in 1944 wrote the Szilard petition asking President Truman to demonstrate the bomb without dropping it on civilians. According to György Marx, he was one of the Hungarian scientists known as The Martians.
The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry located in Princeton, New Jersey. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholars, including Albert Einstein, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Hermann Weyl, John von Neumann, Michael Walzer, Clifford Geertz and Kurt Gödel, many of whom had emigrated from Europe to the United States.
The Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists (ECAS) was founded by Albert Einstein and Leó Szilárd in May, 1946, primarily as a fundraising and policy-making agency. Its aims were to warn the public of the dangers associated with the development of nuclear weapons, promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy, and ultimately work towards world peace, which was seen as the only way that nuclear weapons would not be used again.
Juan Martín Maldacena is an Argentine theoretical physicist and the Carl P. Feinberg Professor in the School of Natural Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. He has made significant contributions to the foundations of string theory and quantum gravity. His most famous discovery is the AdS/CFT correspondence, a realization of the holographic principle in string theory.
Gerald James Holton is a German-born American physicist, historian of science, and educator, whose professional interests also include philosophy of science and the fostering of careers of young men and women. He is Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and professor of the history of science, emeritus, at Harvard University. His contributions range from physical science and its history to their professional and public understanding, from studies on gender problems and ethics in science careers to those on the role of immigrants. These have been acknowledged by an unusually wide spectrum of appointments and honors, from physics to initiatives in education and other national, societal issues, to contributions for which he was selected, as the first scientist, to give the tenth annual Jefferson Lecture that the National Endowment for the Humanities describes as, “the highest honor the federal government confers for distinguished achievement in the humanities”.
VictorFrederick "Viki" Weisskopf was an Austrian-born American theoretical physicist. He did postdoctoral work with Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger, Wolfgang Pauli, and Niels Bohr. During World War II he was Deputy Division Leader of the Theoretical Division of the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, and he later campaigned against the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Hans Albert Einstein was a Swiss-American engineer and educator of German and Serbian origin, the second child and first son of physicists Albert Einstein and Mileva Marić. He was a long-time professor of hydraulic engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.
Wolfgang Kurt Hermann "Pief" Panofsky, was a German-American physicist who won many awards including the National Medal of Science.
I.Q. is a 1994 American romantic comedy film directed by Fred Schepisi and starring Tim Robbins, Meg Ryan and Walter Matthau. The original music score is composed by Jerry Goldsmith. The film, set in the mid-1950s, centers on a mechanic and a Princeton University doctoral candidate who fall in love thanks to the candidate's uncle, Albert Einstein.
The German Physical Society is the oldest organisation of physicists. As of 2022, the DPG's worldwide membership is cited as 52,220, making it one of the largest national physics societies in the world. The DPG's membership peaked in 2014 when it reached 63,000, but it has been decreasing since then. It holds an annual conference and multiple spring conferences, which are held at various locations and along topical subjects of given sections of the DPG. The DPG serves the fields of pure and applied physics and aims to foster connections among German physicists, as well as the exchange of ideas between its members and foreign colleagues. The bylaws of the DPG commit the organization and its members to maintain scientific integrity and ethics, including freedom, tolerance, truthfulness, and dignity in scientific work, as well as promoting gender equality in the fields of physics and related sciences.
The Einstein–Szilard letter was a letter written by Leo Szilard and signed by Albert Einstein on August 2, 1939, that was sent to President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt. Written by Szilard in consultation with fellow Hungarian physicists Edward Teller and Eugene Wigner, the letter warned that Germany might develop atomic bombs and suggested that the United States should start its own nuclear program. It prompted action by Roosevelt, which eventually resulted in the Manhattan Project, the development of the first atomic bombs, and the use of these bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The Albert Einstein Medal is an award presented by the Albert Einstein Society in Bern. First given in 1979, the award is presented to people for "scientific findings, works, or publications related to Albert Einstein" each year.
Kurt Gottfried was an Austrian-born American physicist who was professor emeritus of physics at Cornell University. He was known for his work in the areas of quantum mechanics and particle physics and was also a co-founder with Henry Way Kendall of the Union of Concerned Scientists. He wrote extensively in the areas of physics and arms control.
Jeremy Bernstein is an American theoretical physicist and popular science writer.
Graham Paul Farmelo is a biographer and science writer, a Fellow at Churchill College, University of Cambridge, U.K., and an adjunct professor of Physics at Northeastern University, Boston, U.S.A. He is best known for his work on science communication and as the author of The Strangest Man, a prize-winning biography of the theoretical physicist Paul Dirac. He lives in London.
