PHYSICISTS from Switzerland

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Swiss Physicists of all time. This list of famous Swiss 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 Swiss Physicists.

1. Charles Édouard Guillaume (1861 - 1938)

With an HPI of 72.08, Charles Édouard Guillaume is the most famous Swiss Physicist.  His biography has been translated into 80 different languages on wikipedia.

Charles Édouard Guillaume (French: [ʃaʁl edwaʁ gijom]; 15 February 1861 – 13 May 1938) was a Swiss physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1920 "for the service he had rendered to precision measurements in physics by his discovery of anomalies in nickel steel alloys". In 1919, he gave the fifth Guthrie Lecture at the Institute of Physics in London with the title "The Anomaly of the Nickel-Steels".

2. Heinrich Rohrer (1933 - 2013)

With an HPI of 68.24, Heinrich Rohrer is the 2nd most famous Swiss Physicist.  His biography has been translated into 67 different languages.

Heinrich Rohrer (6 June 1933 – 16 May 2013) was a Swiss physicist who shared half of the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physics with Gerd Binnig for the design of the scanning tunneling microscope (STM). The other half of the Prize was awarded to Ernst Ruska. The Heinrich Rohrer Medal is presented triennially by the Surface Science Society of Japan with IBM Research – Zurich, Swiss Embassy in Japan, and Ms. Rohrer in his memory. The medal is not to be confused with the Heinrich Rohrer Award presented at the Nano Seoul 2020 conference.

3. K. Alex Müller (1927 - 2023)

With an HPI of 67.76, K. Alex Müller is the 3rd most famous Swiss Physicist.  His biography has been translated into 65 different languages.

Karl Alexander Müller (20 April 1927 – 9 January 2023) was a Swiss physicist and Nobel laureate. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1987 with Georg Bednorz for their work in superconductivity in ceramic materials.

4. Felix Bloch (1905 - 1983)

With an HPI of 67.21, Felix Bloch is the 4th most famous Swiss Physicist.  His biography has been translated into 76 different languages.

Felix Bloch (; German: [blɔx]; 23 October 1905 – 10 September 1983) was a Swiss-American physicist and Nobel physics laureate who worked mainly in the U.S. He and Edward Mills Purcell were awarded the 1952 Nobel Prize for Physics for "their development of new ways and methods for nuclear magnetic precision measurements." In 1954–1955, he served for one year as the first director-general of CERN. Felix Bloch made fundamental theoretical contributions to the understanding of ferromagnetism and electron behavior in crystal lattices. He is also considered one of the developers of nuclear magnetic resonance.

5. Auguste Piccard (1884 - 1962)

With an HPI of 66.77, Auguste Piccard is the 5th most famous Swiss Physicist.  His biography has been translated into 43 different languages.

Auguste Antoine Piccard (28 January 1884 – 24 March 1962) was a Swiss physicist, inventor and explorer known for his record-breaking hydrogen balloon flights, with which he studied the Earth's upper atmosphere and became the first person to enter the Stratosphere. Piccard was also known for his invention of the first bathyscaphe, FNRS-2, with which he made a number of unmanned dives in 1948 to explore the ocean's depths. Piccard's twin brother Jean Felix Piccard is also a notable figure in the annals of science and exploration, as are a number of their relatives, including Jacques Piccard, Bertrand Piccard, Jeannette Piccard and Don Piccard.

6. Johann Jakob Balmer (1825 - 1898)

With an HPI of 66.24, Johann Jakob Balmer is the 6th most famous Swiss Physicist.  His biography has been translated into 49 different languages.

Johann Jakob Balmer (1 May 1825 – 12 March 1898) was a Swiss mathematician best known for his work in physics, the Balmer series of hydrogen atom.

7. Ami Argand (1750 - 1803)

With an HPI of 58.82, Ami Argand is the 7th most famous Swiss Physicist.  His biography has been translated into 18 different languages.

François-Pierre-Amédée Argand, known as Ami Argand (5 July 1750 – 14 or 24 October 1803) was a Genevan physicist and chemist. He invented the Argand lamp, a great improvement on the traditional oil lamp.

8. Walter H. Schottky (1886 - 1976)

With an HPI of 57.75, Walter H. Schottky is the 8th most famous Swiss Physicist.  His biography has been translated into 31 different languages.

Walter Hans Schottky (23 July 1886 – 4 March 1976) was a German physicist who played a major early role in developing the theory of electron and ion emission phenomena, invented the screen-grid vacuum tube in 1915 while working at Siemens, co-invented the ribbon microphone and ribbon loudspeaker along with Dr. Erwin Gerlach in 1924 and later made many significant contributions in the areas of semiconductor devices, technical physics and technology. The Schottky effect (a thermionic emission, important for vacuum tube technology), the Schottky diode (where the depletion layer occurring in it is called the Schottky barrier), the Schottky vacancies (or Schottky defects), the Schottky anomaly (a peak value of the heat capacity) and the Mott-Schottky equation (also Langmuir-Schottky space charge law) were named after him. He conducted research on electrical noise mechanisms (shot noise), space charge, especially in electron tubes, and the barrier layer in semiconductors, which were important for the development of copper oxide rectifiers and transistors.

9. Raoul Pictet (1846 - 1929)

With an HPI of 52.80, Raoul Pictet is the 9th most famous Swiss Physicist.  His biography has been translated into 21 different languages.

Raoul-Pierre Pictet (4 April 1846 – 27 July 1929) was a Swiss physicist. Pictet is co-credited with French scientist Louis-Paul Cailletet as the first to produce liquid oxygen in 1877.

10. Walther Ritz (1878 - 1909)

With an HPI of 52.67, Walther Ritz is the 10th most famous Swiss Physicist.  His biography has been translated into 20 different languages.

Walther Heinrich Wilhelm Ritz (22 February 1878 – 7 July 1909) was a Swiss theoretical physicist. He is most famous for his work with Johannes Rydberg on the Rydberg–Ritz combination principle. Ritz is also known for the variational method named after him, the Ritz method.