Scientists

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His poem was nearly lost until a copy turned up in 1417.LucretiusAt nine she gave a speech defending the education of women.Maria Gaetana AgnesiHis Canon of Medicine was still taught in Europe in 1650.AvicennaEvery boson, from photons to the Higgs, is named after him.Satyendra Nath BoseLegend says he wandered fifteen miles in his nightclothes.Adam SmithHe also wrote a whole book on how stars shape human lives.PtolemyHe taught himself Latin as a boy from his father's library.Gottfried Wilhelm LeibnizThe boy he saved grew up to be caretaker of his institute.Louis PasteurSchoolmates called him "Dafty" for his odd homemade clothes.James Clerk MaxwellShe was paid a tenth of what her husband earned in the lab.Gerty CoriShe modelled eclipses with a lamp, mirror and round table.Wang ZhenyiAt eighteen he built a calculator for his father's tax work.Blaise PascalSmallpox left him with poor eyesight as a small child.Johannes KeplerHe also wrote on money and why bad coins drive out good.Nicolaus CopernicusSources disagree on whether she was Pythagoras's wife.TheanoDoctors still swear his oath, which he likely never wrote.HippocratesHis poem was nearly lost until a copy turned up in 1417.LucretiusAt nine she gave a speech defending the education of women.Maria Gaetana AgnesiHis Canon of Medicine was still taught in Europe in 1650.AvicennaEvery boson, from photons to the Higgs, is named after him.Satyendra Nath BoseLegend says he wandered fifteen miles in his nightclothes.Adam SmithHe also wrote a whole book on how stars shape human lives.PtolemyHe taught himself Latin as a boy from his father's library.Gottfried Wilhelm LeibnizThe boy he saved grew up to be caretaker of his institute.Louis PasteurSchoolmates called him "Dafty" for his odd homemade clothes.James Clerk MaxwellShe was paid a tenth of what her husband earned in the lab.Gerty CoriShe modelled eclipses with a lamp, mirror and round table.Wang ZhenyiAt eighteen he built a calculator for his father's tax work.Blaise PascalSmallpox left him with poor eyesight as a small child.Johannes KeplerHe also wrote on money and why bad coins drive out good.Nicolaus CopernicusSources disagree on whether she was Pythagoras's wife.TheanoDoctors still swear his oath, which he likely never wrote.Hippocrates

Her notebooks are still radioactive, kept in lead boxes.Marie CurieShe is still the only British woman with a Nobel in science.Dorothy HodgkinAlmost nothing is known of his life, not even his birthplace.EuclidLegend says a boiling kettle sparked his steam engine ideas.James WattHe collapsed while discussing the orbit of newfound Uranus.Leonhard EulerHe worked on dying stars on a ship to England at nineteen.Subrahmanyan ChandrasekharOffered government posts as a young man, he turned them down.Zhang HengAbout fifteen journals rejected her paper on cell origins.Lynn MargulisHis last theorem took mathematicians 358 years to prove.Pierre de FermatHe refused to patent his inventions, sharing them freely.Benjamin FranklinHis father chose medicine for him after a dream of Asclepius.GalenHe was once sold into slavery on the island of Aegina.PlatoShe and her husband fused their surnames when they married.Irene Joliot-CurieBorn out of wedlock to a notary and a peasant woman.Leonardo da VinciHe wrote his famous essays in disgrace after a lost battle.Shen KuoHe measured the Earth from shadows in two Egyptian cities.EratosthenesHer notebooks are still radioactive, kept in lead boxes.Marie CurieShe is still the only British woman with a Nobel in science.Dorothy HodgkinAlmost nothing is known of his life, not even his birthplace.EuclidLegend says a boiling kettle sparked his steam engine ideas.James WattHe collapsed while discussing the orbit of newfound Uranus.Leonhard EulerHe worked on dying stars on a ship to England at nineteen.Subrahmanyan ChandrasekharOffered government posts as a young man, he turned them down.Zhang HengAbout fifteen journals rejected her paper on cell origins.Lynn MargulisHis last theorem took mathematicians 358 years to prove.Pierre de FermatHe refused to patent his inventions, sharing them freely.Benjamin FranklinHis father chose medicine for him after a dream of Asclepius.GalenHe was once sold into slavery on the island of Aegina.PlatoShe and her husband fused their surnames when they married.Irene Joliot-CurieBorn out of wedlock to a notary and a peasant woman.Leonardo da VinciHe wrote his famous essays in disgrace after a lost battle.Shen KuoHe measured the Earth from shadows in two Egyptian cities.Eratosthenes

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Wheel and axle3500 BCLibrary of Alexandria290 BCAl-Jabr (algebra)Al-Khwarizmi · 820Movable-type printing pressJohannes Gutenberg · 1440Refracting telescopeGalileo Galilei · 1608Royal SocietyRobert Boyle · 1660Universal gravitationIsaac Newton · 1687Separate condenser steam engineJames Watt · 1769PhotosynthesisJoseph Priestley · 1779Atomic theoryJohn Dalton · 1803Evolution by natural selectionCharles Darwin · 1859Mendel's laws of inheritanceGregor Mendel · 1866X-raysWilhelm Röntgen · 1895Wright FlyerOrville Wright · 1903General relativityAlbert Einstein · 1915Quantum mechanicsWolfgang Pauli · 1925PlutoClyde Tombaugh · 1930Nuclear fissionLise Meitner · 1938TransistorJohn Bardeen · 1947Double helixRosalind Franklin · 1953Contraceptive pill1960Magnetic resonance imagingPaul Lauterbur · 1973Global Positioning SystemGladys West · 1978Fermat's Last TheoremPierre de Fermat · 1995