Scientists
DraftA reference page for the scientists whose results are used elsewhere on this site. The organising principle is what each contribution established, not biography, so that a page citing a result can point here for its origin.
Gravitation and orbital mechanics
| Figure | Contribution | Where it is used |
|---|---|---|
| Johannes Kepler | Three empirical laws of planetary motion, 1609 and 1619 | Kepler’s laws |
| Isaac Newton | Universal gravitation; derived Kepler’s laws from an inverse-square force, 1687 | Gravitation |
| Joseph-Louis Lagrange | Equilibrium solutions of the three-body problem, 1772 | Lagrange points |
| Leonhard Euler | Collinear libration points; rotational dynamics | Lagrange points |
| Johann Heinrich Lambert | The problem of determining an orbit from two positions and a time | Trajectory optimization |
| Henri Poincaré | Demonstrated that the three-body problem has no general closed-form solution; foundations of dynamical systems | Lagrange points |
| Dirk Brouwer | Analytical satellite theory including oblateness, 1959 | Orbital perturbations |
Poincaré’s result deserves emphasis because it is a negative one that shaped everything after it. Showing that no general analytic solution exists redirected celestial mechanics toward perturbation theory, numerical integration and the qualitative study of dynamical systems, which is where the subject still is.
Relativity
| Figure | Contribution | Where it is used |
|---|---|---|
| Albert Einstein | Special relativity 1905; general relativity 1915 | Relativity for space systems |
| Karl Schwarzschild | First exact solution of the field equations, 1916 | Black holes |
| Roy Kerr | Rotating black hole solution, 1963 | Black holes |
| Irwin Shapiro | Predicted the fourth test of general relativity, signal delay in curved spacetime, 1964 | Relativity for space systems |
| Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar | Maximum mass of a white dwarf, 1931 | Stars |
Schwarzschild derived his solution while serving at the front in 1916, within months of the field equations being published, and died later that year. The solution describes the geometry outside a spherical mass and contains the horizon that later became the defining feature of a black hole.
Astronomy and cosmology
| Figure | Contribution | Where it is used |
|---|---|---|
| Henrietta Swan Leavitt | Cepheid period-luminosity relation, 1912 | Observational methods |
| Edwin Hubble | Galaxies are external to the Milky Way; the velocity-distance relation | Cosmology |
| Fritz Zwicky | Missing mass in the Coma cluster, 1933; predicted gravitational lensing | Dark matter |
| Vera Rubin and Kent Ford | Flat galaxy rotation curves across many spirals, 1970s | Galaxies |
| Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson | Discovery of the cosmic microwave background, 1965 | Cosmology |
| Jocelyn Bell Burnell | Discovery of pulsars, 1967 | Stars |
| Saul Perlmutter, Brian Schmidt, Adam Riess | Accelerating expansion from Type Ia supernovae, 1998 | Dark matter and dark energy |
Leavitt’s relation is the foundation of the extragalactic distance ladder and therefore of everything measured beyond the Milky Way. Hubble’s distance measurements depended on it directly, and the modern ladder described in Observational methods still rests on Cepheids at rung three.
Planetary and space environment
| Figure | Contribution | Where it is used |
|---|---|---|
| James Van Allen | Discovery of Earth’s trapped radiation belts, 1958 | Space radiation |
| Eugene Parker | Predicted the solar wind, 1958 | The space environment |
| Donald Kessler | Collision cascading in the debris population, 1978 | Space debris |
| Gerard Kuiper | Predicted the trans-Neptunian population | Asteroids and comets |
| Carl Sagan | Planetary science and the case for planetary protection | Mission design |
Van Allen’s discovery came from the first successful US satellite, Explorer 1, and is the clearest case of a space mission finding something nobody expected. The belts are now a primary design constraint for every orbit selection.
Propulsion theory
| Figure | Contribution | Where it is used |
|---|---|---|
| Konstantin Tsiolkovsky | The rocket equation, 1903; staging | The rocket equation |
| Robert Goddard | First liquid-fuelled rocket flight, 1926 | Chemical propulsion |
| Hermann Oberth | The periapsis burn argument, 1929 | Escape velocity |
| Walter Hohmann | Minimum-energy two-impulse transfer, 1925 | Hohmann transfers |
| Theodore Edelbaum | Low-thrust transfer with plane change, 1961 | Electric propulsion |
Tsiolkovsky, Goddard and Oberth worked independently and reached similar conclusions about the requirements of spaceflight in the first three decades of the twentieth century, decades before any of it was attempted.
Note on this page
This is a reference index rather than a history. It is biased toward figures whose results appear elsewhere on this site, which means it under-represents whole fields and reflects the coverage of the site rather than the structure of the discipline. It also reflects the well-documented tendency of such lists to under-credit contributors who were not credited at the time, of which Leavitt and Bell Burnell are two conspicuous examples.
References
- Individual results are cited on the pages that use them.
- Gillispie, C. C. (ed.) Dictionary of Scientific Biography, for biographical detail.
- Original papers are cited in the reference sections of the relevant pages.