







The Most Famous
Physicists from France
This page contains a list of the greatest Frenchs Physicists. The pantheon dataset contains 851 Physicists, 72 of which were born in France. This makes France the birth place of the 4th most number of Physicists behind Germany and United Kingdom.
Top 10 Physicists
The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Frenchs Physicists of all time. This list of famous Frenchs Physicists is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography's online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Frenchs Physicists.
- #1

Pierre Curie
1859 - 1906
HPI 84.35114 langsPierre Curie is most famous for his work with his wife, Marie Curie, in discovering the elements polonium and radium.
- #2

André-Marie Ampère
1775 - 1836
HPI 84.30105 langsAndré-Marie Ampère is most famous for his work in electromagnetism. He was the first to propose that electricity and magnetism are two...Read moreShow less
André-Marie Ampère is most famous for his work in electromagnetism. He was the first to propose that electricity and magnetism are two aspects of the same phenomenon.
- #3

Henri Becquerel
1852 - 1908
HPI 84.07105 langsHenri Becquerel is most famous for discovering the phenomenon of radioactivity.
- #4

Louis de Broglie
1892 - 1987
HPI 82.0093 langsLouis de Broglie is most famous for his discovery of the wave-particle duality.
- #5

Charles-Augustin de Coulomb
1736 - 1806
HPI 80.8786 langsCharles-Augustin de Coulomb is most famous for his law of electrostatics. This law states that the magnitude of the electric force between...Read moreShow less
Charles-Augustin de Coulomb is most famous for his law of electrostatics. This law states that the magnitude of the electric force between two point charges is proportional to the product of the charges and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.
- #6

Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis
1792 - 1843
HPI 78.8757 langsGaspard-Gustave de Coriolis was a French mathematician who is most famous for his work on the Coriolis effect.
- #7

Henry Cavendish
1731 - 1810
HPI 78.3584 langsHenry Cavendish is most famous for his experiments with electricity. He was the first person to measure the density of the Earth.
- #8

Léon Foucault
1819 - 1868
HPI 77.8970 langsLéon Foucault is most famous for his pendulum experiment. He used a pendulum to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth.
- #9

Frédéric Joliot-Curie
1900 - 1958
HPI 77.5771 langsFrédéric Joliot-Curie was a French nuclear physicist who, with his wife Irène Joliot-Curie, jointly won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in...Read moreShow less
Frédéric Joliot-Curie was a French nuclear physicist who, with his wife Irène Joliot-Curie, jointly won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935. He was most famous for his work on artificial radioactivity.
- #10

Jean Baptiste Perrin
1870 - 1942
HPI 76.0281 langsJean Baptiste Perrin was a French physicist who is most famous for his work in the field of atomic physics. He is credited with the...Read moreShow less
Jean Baptiste Perrin was a French physicist who is most famous for his work in the field of atomic physics. He is credited with the discovery of the neutron, and he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1926.
People by Birth Decade
Browse notable Frenchs Physicists grouped by birth decade. Each decade shows the top 10 by HPI; expand to see everyone.
1950s(2)
1940s(2)
1880s(1)
1790s(7)
1780s(6)
1760s(1)
1690s(1)
1680s(1)
1620s(1)
Overlapping Lives
Which Physicists were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 25 most globally memorable Physicists since 1700.






























































