List of Jewish scientists and philosophers

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This is a list of Jewish scientists and philosophers by country. For more detailed lists, see the links provided. This list includes people of Jewish faith or Jewish ancestry.

Contents 1 Austria 2 France 3 Germany 4 Great Britain 5 Hungary 6 Israel 7 Poland 8 Russia/Ukraine 9 Scandinavia/Benelux 10 Australia/Canada 11 United States 12 See also 13 References 14 External links

[edit] Austria

See Austrian Jewish Scientists

• Martin Buber, philosopher
• Erwin Chargaff, chemist, DNA pioneer
• Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalysis (Atheist by practice)
• Nachman Krochmal, philosopher
• Robert von Lieben, physicist (Jewish father)
• Lise Meitner, physicist: nuclear fission
• Ludwig von Mises, economist
• Wolfgang Pauli, physicist, Nobel Prize (1945) (one non-Jewish grandparent)
• Karl Popper, leading twentieth century philosopher of science (converted to Lutheranism)
• Otto Weininger, philosopher
• Ludwig Wittgenstein, philosopher (one non-Jewish grandparent; parents converted to Christianity)

[edit] France

See French Jewish Scientists

• Henri Bergson, philosopher, Nobel Prize (1927)
• Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, physicist, Nobel Prize (1997)
• Émile Durkheim, sociologist
• Francois Jacob, molecular biologist, Nobel Prize (1965)
• Claude Lévi-Strauss, anthropologist
• Benoît Mandelbrot, mathematician, fractal geometry
• Henri Moissan, chemist, Nobel Prize (1906) (Jewish mother)
• Laurent Schwartz, mathematician, Fields Medal (1950)
• André Weil, mathematician, Wolf Prize (1979), Steele Prize (1980)
• Jacques Derrida, Philosopher & Literary Critic
• Emmanuel Levinas, Philosopher

[edit] Germany

See German Jewish Scientists

• Hannah Arendt, philosopher
• Walter Benjamin, philosopher
• Hans Bethe, nuclear physics, Nobel Prize (1967) (Jewish mother)
• Max Born, quantum mechanics pioneer, Nobel Prize (1954)
• Georg Cantor, set theory (father Jewish by birth, mother Catholic by birth; both Lutheran by practice; see refs in article)
• Albert Einstein, theoretical physics, Nobel Prize (1921)
• Paul Ehrlich, developed magic bullet concept, Nobel Prize (1908)
• Erich Fromm, psychologist and humanistic philosopher
• Alexander Grothendieck, algebraic geometry, Fields Medal (1966) (Jewish father; mother also Jewish according to some sources [1])
• Heinrich Hertz, electromagnetic radiation pioneer (Jewish father)
• Max Horkheimer, philosopher
• Edmund Husserl, philosopher, founder of phenomenology
• Edmund (Yehezkel) Landau, number theory.
• Karl Marx, philosopher, economist (parents converted to Lutheranism)
• Albert Michelson, measured speed of light, Nobel Prize (1907)
• Hermann Minkowski, geometrical theory of numbers
• Erich Neumann, psychologist
• Franz Rosenzweig, philosopher
• Karl Schwarzschild, physicist and astronomer
• Otto Selz, cognitive psychologist

[edit] Great Britain

See List of British Jewish scientists

• Sir Alfred Ayer, philosopher, major figure in logical positivism, (Jewish mother)
• Lord Peter Bauer, international development economist (Catholic by religion)
• Sir Isaiah Berlin, political philosopher, historian of ideas
• Sir Hermann Bondi, cosmologist, co-developer of steady-state theory
• Sydney Brenner, molecular biologist, Nobel Prize (2002)
• Selig Brodetsky, mathematician and Jewish communal leader
• Sir Ernst Chain, biochemist, penicillin co-developer, Nobel Prize (1945)
• Sir Michael Epstein, biologist
• Ernest Gellner, philosopher, social-scientist
• Rosalind Franklin, molecular biologist, DNA pioneer
• H. L. A. Hart, philosopher of law
• Brian David Josephson, Nobel Prize
• Lord Richard Kahn, economist, multiplier theory
• Lord Nicholas Kaldor, economist
• Sir Hans Adolf Krebs, biochemist, Krebs cycle, Nobel Prize (1953)
• Harold Kroto, biologist Nobel Prize (Jewish father)
• Max Newman, mathematician and computer pioneer, Colossus (Jewish father)
• Leslie Orgel, chemist
• Sir Rudolf Peierls, physicist, theory of hole carriers in semiconductors, Enrico Fermi Award (1980)^[1]
• Sir Max Perutz, chemist and molecular biologist, Nobel Prize (1962)
• Sir Karl Popper, leading twentieth century philosopher of science
• David Ricardo, greatest classical economist after Adam Smith (converted to Unitarianism)
• James Joseph Sylvester, mathematician, major contributor to matrix theory

[edit] Hungary

See Hungarian Jewish Scientists

• Paul Erdős, mathematician
• Theodore von Kármán, aeronautical engineer
• Georg Lukács, Marxist philosopher
• John von Neumann, computer scientist, mathematician (converted to Catholicism)
• Michael Polanyi, polymath
• Leó Szilárd, physicist
• Edward Teller, physicist, father of hydrogen bomb
• Eugene Wigner, physicist; Nobel Prize (1963) (parents converted to Lutheranism)

[edit] Israel

See Israeli Scientists

• Israel Aharoni, zoologist
• Dorit Aharonov, computer scientist, quantum computing
• Yakir Aharonov, physicist, quantum physics
• Noga Alon, mathematician
• Ruth Arnon, biochemist; Wolf prize (1998)
• Robert Aumann, mathematician, game theory; Nobel prize (2005)
• Jacob Bekenstein, physicist, gravity
• Eli Biham, computer scientist, cryptography
• Aaron Ciechanover, biologists; Nobel Prize (2004)
• Irun Cohen, immunologist
• Shlomi Dolev, computer scientist, distributed computing
• Shimon Even, computer scientist
• Oded Goldreich, computer scientist, cryptography
• Avram Hershko, biologist; Nobel Prize (2004)
• Ephraim Katzir, biophysicist, 4th president of Israel
• Abraham Lempel, computer scientist, data compression
• Yuval Ne'eman, physicist, particle physics
• Amos Ori, physicist, gravity
• Asher Peres, physicist, foundations of quantum mechanics
• Amir Pnueli, computer scientist; Turing award (1996)
• Eliyahu Rips, mathematician and Torah Codes researcher
• Nathan Rosen, physicist, Founder of the Technion - Israel institute of technology
• Leo Sachs, molecular biologist, immunology
• Adi Shamir, computer scientist, cryptography; coinventor of RSA
• Ehud Shapiro, computer scientist,
• Yair Sprinzak, chemist, organic chemistry, Israeli politician
• Reshef Tenne, chemist, material research and nanotechnology
• Lev Vaidman, physicist, quantum physics
• Chaim Weizmann, chemist, 1st president of Israel
• Jacob Ziv, computer scientist, data compression

[edit] Poland

See Polish Jewish Scientists

• Solomon Asch, Gestalt psychologist
• Benoît Mandelbrot, mathematician: fractals
• Albert Sabin, inventor of the oral Polio vaccine
• Alfred Tarski, logician and mathematician (atheistic Catholic convert)
• Stanislaw Ulam, mathematician, Manhattan Project

[edit] Russia/Ukraine

See Russian Jewish Scientists

• Vladimir Drinfeld, mathematician, Fields Medal (1990)
• Israel Gelfand, mathematician, Wolf Prize (1978), Kyoto Prize (1989), Steele Prize (2005)
• Vitaly Ginzburg, physicist, Nobel Prize (2003)
• Waldemar Haffkine, biologist, vaccines against cholera and plague
• Lev Landau, physicist, many contributions to theoretical physics, Nobel Prize (1962)
• Phoebus Levene, nucleic acid pioneer
• Wassily Leontief, economist, Nobel Prize (1973) (Jewish mother)
• Grigori Perelman, mathematician, Fields Medal (2006) (declined award)
• Ilya Prigogine, mathematician, Nobel Prize (1979) in chemistry
• Selman Waksman, biochemist, discoverer of streptomycin, Nobel Prize (1952)
• Yakov Zeldovich, cosmologist
• Efim Zelmanov, mathematician, Fields Medal (1994)

[edit] Scandinavia/Benelux

See Dutch Jewish Academics

• Niels Bohr, physicist (Jewish mother)
• Baruch Spinoza, philosopher (excommunicated)

[edit] Australia/Canada

See Canadian Jewish Academics

See Australian Jewish Academics

• Gustav Nossal, immunologist (Jewish father)
• Steven Pinker, pioneer of evolutionary psychology
• John Polanyi, chemist, Nobel Prize (1986) (Jewish father)
• Peter Singer, philosopher
• Robert Erez, philosopher & physicist.

[edit] United States

See Jewish American Academics

See Jewish American Scientists

• Isaac Asimov, biochemist, but better known for his science fiction than his actual science
• M. A. Benjaminson, microbiologist, biotechnologist, pioneer in field of in vitro meat technology
• Emile Berliner, inventor of gramophone
• Franz Boas, founder of American Anthropology
• David Bohm, quantum physics pioneer and theoretical physicist, philosopher of science
• Noam Chomsky, linguist and political activist
• Jesse Douglas, mathematician, Fields Medal (1936) [2]
• Richard Epstein, classical liberal economist from the University of Chicago
• Richard Feynman, quantum physicist, co-founder of quantum electrodynamics Nobel Prize (1965)
• Milton Friedman, monetarist economist, Clark Medal (1951), Nobel Prize (1976)
• Murray Gell-Mann, discoverer of quarks, Nobel Prize
• John Kemeny, computer scientist, co-founder of BASIC
• Saul Kripke, Philosopher
• Edwin Land, inventor of polaroid
• John McCarthy, artificial intelligence pioneer (Jewish mother)
• Theodore Maiman, inventor of first laser
• Daniel Nathans, discoverer of restriction enzymes
• Robert Nozick, philosopher of libertarianism and Pellegrino University Professor at Harvard University
• Robert Oppenheimer, nuclear physicist, nuclear bomb, Manhattan Project
• Gregory Pincus, inventor of the Pill
• Ayn Rand, originator of Objectivism (atheist)
• Murray Rothbard, anarcho-capitialist economist
• Carl Sagan, astronomer and science popularizer, Cosmos: A Personal Voyage
• Jonas Salk, polio vaccine
• Leo Strauss, political philosopher
• Norbert Wiener, founder of cybernetics
• Edward Witten, M-theory, Fields Medal (1990)

[edit] See also

• List of Jews
• Jewish Scientists
• List of Jewish Nobel Prize winners
• List of Jewish Fellows of the Royal Society (mostly British)
• List of Members of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities

[edit] References

1. ^ Jewish Year Book 1995 p193; "Who's Who in World Jewry" (1955 and 1965 editions).

[edit] External links

• JInfo.org, a comprehensive set of lists of Jewish contributions to world civilization. Fuller (copyrighted) lists can be found there.