PHYSICISTS from Estonia

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 68.98, Emil Lenz is the most famous Estonian Physicist.  His biography has been translated into 50 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 who is most noted for formulating Lenz's law in electrodynamics in 1834.

2. Thomas Johann Seebeck (1770 - 1831)

With an HPI of 59.38, Thomas Johann Seebeck is the 2nd most famous Estonian Physicist.  His biography has been translated into 28 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, Hans Christian 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 57.88, Georg Wilhelm Richmann is the 3rd most famous Estonian Physicist.  His biography has been translated into 22 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 who 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.