Physicists and astronomers

S

Sagan, Carl 1934-1996
American astronomer. Search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Did much to popularise Astronomy and Cosmology.

Schrödinger, Erwin 1887-1961
Austrian physicist. Proposed the Wave equation to describe energy states within an atom. Received the Nobel Prize in 1933 for his work on Wave mechanics (1925) and relativistic quantum mechanics (1927).

Seebeck 1770-1831
Seebeck effect, basis of the thermocouple.

Snell, Willebrod 1591-1626
Discovered the law that we now know as Snell's law of refraction in 1621 but did not publish it until 1703. In 1613 he succeeded his father as professor of mathematics at Leiden. One of the first to use triangulation as a way of measuring distances.

Soddy, Frederick 1877-1956
British physicist. Proposed the disintegration theory of radioactivity with Rutherford in 1903.

Sommerfeld, Arnold 1868-1951
German physicist. Proposed the existence of elliptical electron orbits in atoms and helped develop the quantum theory of atomic structure.

Stefan, Josef 1835-1893
Slovenian physicist. Proposed the Stefan-Boltzmann law for black body radiation

Stephenson, George 1781-1848
British engineer. Developed the steam locomotive


Stokes, Sir George Gabriel 1819-1903
British physicist. Stokes' law. Viscosity.

Stoney, George Johnstone 1826-1911
Introduced the term electron.