The Most Famous
Physicists from Ireland
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 Irish Physicists
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.
- #1
William Rowan Hamilton
1805 - 1865
HPI 74.7876 langsWilliam Rowan Hamilton is most famous for his work in mathematics. He is credited with inventing quaternions, a four-dimensional number...Read moreShow less
William Rowan Hamilton is most famous for his work in mathematics. He is credited with inventing quaternions, a four-dimensional number system.
- #2
George Francis FitzGerald
1851 - 1901
HPI 71.9740 langsIrish physicist (1851–1901)
- #3
Ernest Walton
1903 - 1995
HPI 68.1778 langsErnest Walton is most famous for splitting the atom and being awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1951.
- #4
John Tyndall
1820 - 1893
HPI 66.9344 langsIrish physicist (1820–1893)
- #5
George Johnstone Stoney
1826 - 1911
HPI 64.1332 langsAnglo-Irish physicist (1826-1911)
- #6
John Sealy Townsend
1868 - 1957
HPI 56.1719 langsIrish mathematical physicist (1868–1957)
- #7
John Joly
1857 - 1933
HPI 55.0518 langsIrish scientist (1857–1933)
Overlapping Lives
Which Physicists were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 7 most globally memorable Physicists since 1700.
