Famous Swiss Physicists

Leonhard Euler was a Swiss physicist, mathematician, logician, geographer, astronomer, and engineer. He is credited with making influential and important mathematical discoveries, such as graph theory and infinitesimal calculus. Widely regarded as one of the greatest and most prolific mathematicians of all time, Leonhard Euler also made pioneering contributions to analytic number theory and topology.

Swiss-American physicist and engineer Bernhard Caesar Einstein was better known as the only grandchild of Albert Einstein to have survived beyond childhood. While two of his biological brothers died in infancy, his parents adopted a girl child, too. He grew up to work on night vision and laser technology.

Daniel Bernoulli was a Swiss physicist and mathematician. Born into the popular Bernoulli family of mathematicians, Daniel Bernoulli is renowned for his applications of mathematical equations to mechanics. He is also remembered for his pioneering work in statistics and probability. In 2002, he was inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame.

Felix Bloch was a Swiss-American physicist who served as the first Director-General of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) from 1954 to 1955. Before joining CERN, Bloch worked on the Manhattan Project during the Second World War after which he started focusing on investigations into nuclear magnetic induction, for which he received the 1952 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Johann Heinrich Lambert was a Swiss polymath whose contributions to the fields of physics, mathematics, map projections, astronomy, and philosophy are considered important by many scholars. He is credited with introducing hyperbolic functions into trigonometry. He is also credited with inventing a hygrometer, which is used to measure the quantity of water vapor in soil and air.

Swiss physicist Alfred Kleiner is best remembered for his studies on statistical physics. A physics professor at the University of Zurich, he was later also associated with ETH Zurich. He also became the doctoral thesis supervisor of Albert Einstein after Einstein had major differences with his previous advisor, Heinrich F. Weber.

Born to a doctor, Gabriel Cramer showed an interest in math since childhood. He received his doctoral degree at 18 and was named the co-chair of the University of Geneva at 20. Known for his research on algebraic curves, he is also remembered for devising Cramer’s rule and Cramer’s paradox.

Nobel Prize-winning Swiss mathematician Heinrich Rohrer is best remembered for co-designing the scanning tunneling microscope along with fellow Nobel winner Ernst Ruska. He was also associated with the IBM Research laboratory and even conducted research on thermal conductivity at Rutgers University in New Jersey while on his honeymoon in the US.

Marcel Benoist Prize-winning Swiss physicist Paul Scherrer is remembered for coming up with the Debye-Scherrer method of X-ray diffraction analysis along with Dutch-American physicist Peter Debye. He also served ETH Zurich as its HOD of physics and the Swiss Atomic Energy Commission as its president.

Born in Switzerland, Charles Édouard Guillaume grew up to win the Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of the nickel-steel alloys invar and elinva. He also served the International Bureau of Weights and Measures as its director, while his research covered horology and space radiation, too.

A professor of ecological economics and industrial ecology, Julia Steinberger had been associated with the universities of Leeds and Zurich before joining the University of Lausanne. The daughter of Nobel-winning physicist Jack Steinberger, Julia has also led the award-winning research project Living Well Within Limits and supports Greta Thunberg’s climate activism.

Nobel Prize-winning physicist K. Alex Müller was the son of a budding musician and was sent to an Evangelical college after his mother’s death. He later joined ETH Zurich and then continued his research at the IBM Research laboratory. He is best known for his joint discovery of superconductivity in ceramic material.

Apart from being a geologist and physicist, Horace Bénédict de Saussure was also a skilled mountaineer and Alpine explorer. Initially a professor of philosophy and physics, he later became one of the earliest user of the word geology. Of his many inventions, the most prominent was his version of the hygrometer.

Born to a prominent Swiss physician and physicist, Auguste Arthur de la Rive initially served as the chair of natural philosophy at the University of Geneva, where his father had worked. He later came to be known for his research on the electrochemical reaction in batteries.