The Most Famous
PHYSICISTS from Estonia
This page contains a list of the greatest Estonian Physicists. The pantheon dataset contains 717 Physicists, 3 of which were born in Estonia. This makes Estonia the birth place of the 26th most number of Physicists behind Pakistan and Israel.
Top 3
The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Estonian Physicists of all time. This list of famous Estonian Physicists is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.
1. Emil Lenz (1804 - 1865)
With an HPI of 69.76, Emil Lenz is the most famous Estonian Physicist. His biography has been translated into 49 different languages on wikipedia.
Heinrich Friedrich Emil Lenz (; German: [lɛnts]; also Emil Khristianovich Lenz, Russian: Эмилий Христианович Ленц; 12 February 1804 – 10 February 1865), usually cited as Emil Lenz or Heinrich Lenz in some countries, was a Russian physicist of Baltic German descent who is most noted for formulating Lenz's law in electrodynamics in 1834.
2. Thomas Johann Seebeck (1770 - 1831)
With an HPI of 59.51, Thomas Johann Seebeck is the 2nd most famous Estonian Physicist. His biography has been translated into 27 different languages.
Thomas Johann Seebeck (German: [ˈtoːmas ˈjoːhan ˈzeːbɛk]; 9 April 1770 – 10 December 1831) was a German physicist, who, in 1822, observed a relationship between heat and magnetism. Later, in 1823, Ørsted called this phenomenon the thermoelectric effect. Seebeck was born in Reval (today Tallinn) to a wealthy Baltic German merchant family. He received a medical degree in 1802 from the University of Göttingen, but preferred to study physics. From 1821 to 1823, Seebeck performed a series of experiments trying to understand Ørsted's findings from 1820. During his experiments, he observed that a junction of dissimilar metals produces a deflexion on a magnetic needle (compass) when exposed to a temperature gradient. Because Ørsted had discovered that an electric current produces a deflexion on a compass transversal to the wire, Seebeck's results were interpreted as a thermoelectric effect. This is now called the Peltier–Seebeck effect and is the basis of thermocouples and thermopiles.
3. Georg Wilhelm Richmann (1711 - 1753)
With an HPI of 56.07, Georg Wilhelm Richmann is the 3rd most famous Estonian Physicist. His biography has been translated into 20 different languages.
Georg Wilhelm Richmann (Russian: Георг Вильгельм Рихман; 22 July [O.S. 11 July] 1711 – 6 August [O.S. 26 July] 1753) was a Russian physicist of Baltic German origin. Richmann did pioneering work on electricity, atmospheric electricity, and calorimetry. He died by electrocution in St. Petersburg when struck by apparent ball lightning produced by an experiment attempting to ground the electrical discharge from a storm.
Pantheon has 3 people classified as physicists born between 1711 and 1804. Of these 3, none of them are still alive today. The most famous deceased physicists include Emil Lenz, Thomas Johann Seebeck, and Georg Wilhelm Richmann.
Deceased Physicists
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Emil Lenz
1804 - 1865
HPI: 69.76
Thomas Johann Seebeck
1770 - 1831
HPI: 59.51
Georg Wilhelm Richmann
1711 - 1753
HPI: 56.07
Which Physicists were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 3 most globally memorable Physicists since 1700.
