The Most Famous
PHYSICISTS from South Africa
This page contains a list of the greatest South African Physicists. The pantheon dataset contains 851 Physicists, 4 of which were born in South Africa. This makes South Africa the birth place of the 27th most number of Physicists behind Australia, and Pakistan.
Top 4
The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary South African Physicists of all time. This list of famous South African Physicists is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.
1. Allan MacLeod Cormack (1924 - 1998)
With an HPI of 67.44, Allan MacLeod Cormack is the most famous South African Physicist. His biography has been translated into 55 different languages on wikipedia.
Allan MacLeod Cormack (February 23, 1924 – May 7, 1998) was a South African American physicist and Professor of Physics at Tufts University who won the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (along with Godfrey Hounsfield) for his work on X-ray computed tomography (CT), a significant and unusual achievement since Cormack did not hold a doctoral degree in any scientific field.
2. Stanley Mandelstam (1928 - 2016)
With an HPI of 53.52, Stanley Mandelstam is the 2nd most famous South African Physicist. His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.
Stanley Mandelstam (; 12 December 1928 – 23 June 2016) was a South African theoretical physicist. He introduced the relativistically invariant Mandelstam variables into particle physics in 1958 as a convenient coordinate system for formulating his double dispersion relations. The double dispersion relations were a central tool in the bootstrap program which sought to formulate a consistent theory of infinitely many particle types of increasing spin.
3. George F. R. Ellis (b. 1939)
With an HPI of 52.30, George F. R. Ellis is the 3rd most famous South African Physicist. His biography has been translated into 19 different languages.
George Francis Rayner Ellis, FRS, Hon. FRSSAf (born 11 August 1939), is the emeritus distinguished professor of complex systems in the Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. He co-authored The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time with University of Cambridge physicist Stephen Hawking, published in 1973, and is considered one of the world's leading theorists in cosmology. From 1989 to 1992 he served as president of the International Society on General Relativity and Gravitation. He is a past president of the International Society for Science and Religion. He is an A-rated researcher with the NRF. Ellis, an active Quaker, was a vocal opponent of apartheid during the National Party reign in the 1970s and 1980s, and it is during this period that Ellis's research focused on the more philosophical aspects of cosmology, for which he won the Templeton Prize in 2004. He was also awarded the Order of the Star of South Africa by Nelson Mandela in 1999. On 18 May 2007, he was elected a fellow of the British Royal Society.
4. Neil Turok (b. 1958)
With an HPI of 43.57, Neil Turok is the 4th most famous South African Physicist. His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.
Neil Geoffrey Turok (born 16 November 1958) is a South African physicist. He has held the Higgs Chair of Theoretical Physics at the University of Edinburgh since 2020, and has been director emeritus of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics since 2019. He specializes in mathematical physics and early-universe physics, including the cosmological constant and a cyclic model for the universe.
People
Pantheon has 4 people classified as South African physicists born between 1924 and 1958. Of these 4, 2 (50.00%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living South African physicists include George F. R. Ellis, and Neil Turok. The most famous deceased South African physicists include Allan MacLeod Cormack, and Stanley Mandelstam. As of April 2024, 1 new South African physicists have been added to Pantheon including Neil Turok.
