Twenty-seven scientists and inventors, from Archimedes to Stephen Hawking, with the surprising habits, failures and discoveries behind their fame.
Some of the greatest ideas in history came from people with very ordinary habits and very strange ones. This collection gathers twenty-seven scientists and inventors, from Archimedes in ancient Greece to Stephen Hawking, and shows the human side of discoveries that changed the world.
Their paths rarely ran straight. Darwin dropped out of medical school because he could not stand blood, Edison had only three months of formal schooling, and Faraday started out as a bookbinder's apprentice. Fleming joined his hospital for the water polo, and Mendel failed his teaching exams twice before his pea plants made him the founder of genetics.
Quirks follow the genius. Newton worked as an undercover detective chasing counterfeiters, Turing chained his teacup to a radiator, Tesla was obsessed with the number three, and Einstein refused to wear socks. Others were far ahead of their time: Ada Lovelace published the first computer algorithm, and Grace Hopper created the first compiler.
Several of them mapped the heavens with surprisingly little equipment. Copernicus researched the cosmos without a telescope, Kepler worked out his laws of planetary motion without one, and Galileo, who did not invent the telescope, used one to show that the Moon is rough and cratered and that Jupiter has moons of its own.
Many also saw their work ignored, doubted or punished. Mendel's discoveries went unnoticed for 35 years, Galileo spent his final years under house arrest, and Marie Curie remains the only person to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences. Explore the articles below to meet them.
Every item on this page, with the one fact most people get wrong about it.
| Name | Where you'll meet it | The fact worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Isaac Newton | Physics & Mathematics, 1643-1727 | He worked as an undercover detective catching counterfeiters. |
| Charles Darwin | Biology, 1809-1882 | He belonged to a college club dedicated to eating rare exotic animals. |
| Marie Curie | Physics & Chemistry, 1867-1934 | She is the only person to win Nobel Prizes in two different scientific fields. |
| Albert Einstein | Physics, 1879-1955 | The FBI amassed a 1,400-page file on him. |
| Nikola Tesla | Electrical Engineering, 1856-1943 | He fell in love with a pigeon. |
| Thomas Edison | Invention, 1847-1931 | His formal schooling lasted only three months. |
| Alexander Fleming | Medicine & Microbiology, 1881-1955 | His messiness saved the world: a neglected dish led to penicillin. |
| Galileo Galilei | Astronomy & Physics, 1564-1642 | His middle finger is preserved on display in Florence. |
| Nicolaus Copernicus | Astronomy, 1473-1543 | He researched the cosmos entirely without a telescope. |
| Leonhard Euler | Mathematics, 1707-1783 | Total blindness only increased his output. |
| Carl Friedrich Gauss | Mathematics & Physics, 1777-1855 | At age three he reportedly corrected his father's payroll calculations. |
| Archimedes | Mathematics & Engineering, c. 287-212 BC | He invented a monstrous iron claw said to flip Roman warships. |
| Stephen Hawking | Physics & Cosmology, 1942-2018 | He hosted a party for time travelers and sent the invitations only after it was over. |
| Ada Lovelace | Mathematics & Computing, 1815-1852 | She wrote the world's first published computer algorithm. |
| Michael Faraday | Physics & Chemistry, 1791-1867 | He discovered electromagnetic induction without using any math. |
| Alexander Graham Bell | Communication, 1847-1922 | He filed his telephone patent just hours before a rival. |
| Grace Hopper | Computer Science, 1906-1992 | She helped popularize the term computer "debugging." |
| Alan Turing | Mathematics & Computing, 1912-1954 | He chained his teacup to a radiator to stop it being stolen. |
| James Clerk Maxwell | Physics, 1831-1879 | He produced the world's first permanent color photograph. |
| Gregor Mendel | Genetics, 1822-1884 | He grew more than 28,000 pea plants, and his work was ignored for 35 years. |
| Max Planck | Physics, 1858-1947 | A reluctant revolutionary, he started quantum theory almost against his will. |
| Louis Pasteur | Chemistry & Microbiology, 1822-1895 | He invented pasteurization for wine and beer, not milk. |
| Johannes Kepler | Astronomy, 1571-1630 | He wrote what is considered the first science fiction novel. |
| Benjamin Franklin | American polymath and inventor | He never stood in a field waiting for lightning to strike his key. |
| Johannes Gutenberg | German printing pioneer | His family name, Gensfleisch, means "goose flesh". |
| Srinivasa Ramanujan | Self-taught Indian mathematician | He instantly saw why 1729, the number of a taxi, was remarkable. |
| War of the Currents | Edison vs Tesla and Westinghouse | Tesla tore up his royalty contract to save Westinghouse from ruin. |
Longest Ignored Discovery
35 years
Mendel's pea plant experiments went unnoticed for 35 years before being rediscovered in 1900. Gregor Mendel
Most Pea Plants Grown
28,000+ plants
Mendel cultivated more than 28,000 pea plants while tracking seven specific traits. Gregor Mendel
Most Alchemy Writing
1,000,000+ words
Newton wrote over a million words on secret alchemy. Isaac Newton
Physics & Mathematics, 1643-1727
Isaac Newton was born prematurely and tiny, and the falling apple story is a myth that never hit his head. He lived and worked inside the Tower of London and accidentally established Great Britain's gold standard. He wrote over a million words on secret alchemy, fought a decades-long war over calculus, and lost decades of research in a devastating fire.
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Biology, 1809-1882
Charles Darwin dropped out of medical school because of a horror of blood, and the captain of the HMS Beagle nearly rejected him over the shape of his nose. The voyage stretched from two years into five. He then sat on his theory of evolution for more than two decades, spent eight years dissecting barnacles and even tested earthworm hearing by playing the piano for them. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.
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Physics & Chemistry, 1867-1934
Marie Curie named polonium after her homeland as an act of political resistance and refused to patent the process for isolating radium. She worked in a leaky wooden shed, ran mobile radiology units on the front lines of World War I and was rejected by the French Academy of Sciences. Her personal belongings are still radioactive, and she rests in the Panthéon in a lead-lined coffin.
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Physics, 1879-1955
The myth that Albert Einstein failed math is completely false. His revolution in physics started in a patent office, and 1905 became his miracle year. His Nobel Prize was not awarded for relativity, and he famously refused to wear socks. He played the violin to help him think, was offered the presidency of Israel, and was an avid sailor who never learned to swim.
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Electrical Engineering, 1856-1943
Nikola Tesla had a severe obsession with the number three, an extreme phobia of pearls and a true photographic memory. He worked digging ditches for Edison, pioneered early X-rays and was an early champion of renewable energy. He even predicted the modern smartphone. The failure of the Wardenclyffe Tower ended his big plans, and he died penniless and alone.
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Invention, 1847-1931
Thomas Edison ran a mobile chemistry lab on a moving train and saw his severe hearing loss as a secret advantage. He nicknamed his first two children Dot and Dash and proposed to his second wife using Morse code. He built the world's first movie studio, waged the War of Currents and co-founded General Electric. His talking dolls, meanwhile, terrified children.
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Medicine & Microbiology, 1881-1955
Alexander Fleming joined St. Mary's hospital just to play water polo and was recruited for his sharpshooting skills. A sneeze led to his first breakthrough, and he painted art with live germs. He did not purify penicillin himself, but he predicted antibiotic resistance in 1945. He was intensely modest and was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral.
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Astronomy & Physics, 1564-1642
Galileo Galilei originally enrolled in college to study medicine, and he did not invent the telescope. He used one to prove the Moon was rough and cratered, to discover the moons of Jupiter, and he thought Saturn had ears. The Inquisition sentenced him to house arrest for life, and he went blind in his final years. The Vatican did not formally clear his name until 1992.
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Astronomy, 1473-1543
Nicolaus Copernicus practiced medicine without a medical doctorate and led a castle's defense against knights. He formulated Gresham's Law before Gresham, and he openly credited ancient Greek thinkers for the core idea of his model. An unauthorized preface tricked readers for centuries, and the Catholic Church did not ban his masterpiece for over 70 years. Scientists confirmed his resting place using DNA from his hair.
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Mathematics, 1707-1783
Leonhard Euler is the most prolific mathematician in history. Solving the Seven Bridges of Konigsberg created graph theory, and he solved the Basel problem at age twenty-eight. He helped standardize the language of modern math, defined the constant e and invented Latin squares, the precursor to Sudoku. Frederick the Great ridiculed him as the Mathematical Cyclops, and he was still calculating planetary orbits on his final day.
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Mathematics & Physics, 1777-1855
Carl Friedrich Gauss outsmarted his schoolmaster with a mathematical shortcut and solved a 2,000-year-old geometry problem as a teenager. He proved the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra at twenty-one and rescued the lost dwarf planet Ceres using statistics. He built an operational telegraph line before Samuel Morse, taught himself Russian at sixty-two, and died wealthy. A fundamental unit of magnetism is named after him.
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Mathematics & Engineering, c. 287-212 BC
The famous bathhouse moment of Archimedes may be a legendary exaggeration. He rigged a compound pulley that dragged a loaded battleship, and he calculated pi using 96-sided polygons. His water screw is still used in modern engineering, and he invented a number system to count the grains of sand in the cosmos. His favorite mathematical achievement was carved on his tombstone.
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Physics & Cosmology, 1942-2018
Stephen Hawking defied medical prognoses for over five decades. As a student he was nicknamed Einstein despite being average, and he steered Oxford's rowing team as coxswain. He floated in zero gravity at age sixty-five, lost a famous bet on black holes, and was sampled by Pink Floyd on their 1994 album. He never won a Nobel Prize, and his final equation is carved near the graves of Newton and Darwin.
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Mathematics & Computing, 1815-1852
Ada Lovelace was the only legitimate child of Lord Byron and coined the term poetical science to bridge imagination and logic. At twelve she researched flying machines, and she began working with Charles Babbage after seeing his Difference Engine. She compared computing to the weaving patterns of the Jacquard loom and published her notes under the initials A.A.L. A programming language named Ada honors her.
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Physics & Chemistry, 1791-1867
Michael Faraday was entirely self-taught as a bookbinder's apprentice and invented the world's first electric motor. He also invented the Faraday cage and coined scientific terms we still use every day. He refused to build chemical weapons for the military and turned down both a knighthood and the presidency of the Royal Society. Einstein kept his portrait on the office wall.
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Communication, 1847-1922
Alexander Graham Bell built his first machine at twelve, and his lifework was motivated by deafness in his family. He considered his greatest invention to be the photophone and refused to keep a telephone in his own study. He built an early metal detector to try to save a U.S. president, built giant tetrahedral kites to pursue human flight and set a world water speed record at age 72. Millions of telephones went silent during his funeral.
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Computer Science, 1906-1992
Grace Hopper earned a doctorate from Yale and had to overcome Navy standards to enlist. She wrote the manual for the Harvard Mark I, created the world's first compiler and helped pioneer COBOL for business. She used a physical piece of wire to show people how long a nanosecond is, and she believed in asking forgiveness rather than permission. She retired as a Rear Admiral and has a guided-missile destroyer named in her honor.
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Mathematics & Computing, 1912-1954
Alan Turing was an Olympic-level marathon runner who once rode his bike wearing a gas mask to beat hay fever. He devised the Turing Test, wrote the first computer chess program before the hardware existed and founded mathematical biology. His wartime codebreaking saved millions of lives. He received a royal pardon decades after his death and now appears on the British fifty-pound note.
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Physics, 1831-1879
James Clerk Maxwell published his first Royal Society paper at fourteen and was nicknamed Dafty at school. He solved the mystery of Saturn's rings and unified electricity, magnetism and light in equations later streamlined by Oliver Heaviside. He predicted radio waves long before they were discovered and designed the Cavendish Laboratory. Einstein kept his portrait on the study wall, and he died young of the same disease as his mother.
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Genetics, 1822-1884
Gregor Mendel was born Johann and failed his teaching exams twice. He carefully tracked seven specific traits across more than 28,000 pea plants, yet Darwin never read his paper and his breakthrough was ignored for 35 years. Three scientists rediscovered his work in 1900. Mendel never used the word gene, and he was also a passionate beekeeper.
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Physics, 1858-1947
Max Planck could have been a professional musician, and a professor advised him against studying physics. He became an early champion of Albert Einstein and won the 1918 Nobel Prize in Physics. He directly confronted Adolf Hitler, and his son was executed for plotting against Hitler. His home and research were destroyed in World War II, and he was rescued by American troops at age 87.
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Chemistry & Microbiology, 1822-1895
Louis Pasteur was a trained chemist and never a medical doctor. His swan-neck flasks permanently disproved spontaneous generation, and he rescued the French silk industry from biological collapse. His rabies vaccine was crafted from the spinal cords of infected rabbits, and the first human patient later guarded his crypt. He suffered a stroke at age 45 and is entombed in a mausoleum beneath his own institute.
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Astronomy, 1571-1630
Johannes Kepler originally trained to be a Lutheran minister and discovered the laws of planetary motion without ever using a telescope. He shattered two thousand years of perfect circles and inherited Tycho Brahe's data after a bitter feud. He saved his mother from being burned as a witch and earned a living as an imperial astrologer. His third law still guides NASA spacecraft, but he died in poverty.
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American polymath and inventor
Franklin coined the words "battery" and "conductor", charted the Gulf Stream and invented bifocals and the glass armonica, yet patented none of them. He wrote as "Silence Dogood" at 16 and is in the International Swimming Hall of Fame. He also wrote an essay called "Fart Proudly".
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German printing pioneer
Gutenberg did not invent movable type, but the former goldsmith created a new metal alloy, oil-based ink and a press adapted from wine presses. He printed indulgences for cash and lost his business just before his Bible was finished. Only 49 Gutenberg Bibles survive, and no one knows what he looked like.
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Self-taught Indian mathematician
Ramanujan taught himself from a single synopsis of results and mailed over 120 theorems to G. H. Hardy at Cambridge. He compiled nearly 4,000 formulas, many proved only later, and was elected to the Royal Society in 1918. His lost notebook turned up in 1976, and his work now helps physicists study black holes.
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Edison vs Tesla and Westinghouse
Edison ran a campaign against alternating current, electrocuting animals and helping build the first electric chair. Tesla shocked himself on stage to prove AC was safe, Westinghouse lit the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, and Niagara Falls settled the battle. Edison later admitted sticking to DC was a mistake.
Read the full article →7 questions, every answer is somewhere above.
1. Which scientist is the only person to win Nobel Prizes in two different scientific fields?
2. What plants did Gregor Mendel grow to study heredity?
3. Who is credited with writing the first published computer algorithm?
4. Which pioneer created the world's first compiler?
5. Isaac Newton wrote over a million words on which secret pursuit?
6. Einstein's Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded for his work on what?
7. Whose telephone patent was filed just hours before a rival's?
Marie Curie. She is the only laureate honored in two distinct scientific fields, physics and chemistry.
No. The falling apple story is a myth, and the apple never hit his head.
Ada Lovelace wrote the first published computer algorithm, in notes about Charles Babbage's machine that she published under the initials A.A.L.
No. He did not invent it, but he used one to show that the Moon is rough and cratered and to discover the moons of Jupiter.
Nicolaus Copernicus researched the cosmos entirely without a telescope, and Johannes Kepler discovered his laws of planetary motion without ever using one.
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