Notable Chemists & Physicists Posters & Prints “Co...-Cu...-”
for science classrooms, laboratories, home schoolers.

Arthur Holly Compton
b. 9-10-1892; Wooster, OH
d. 3-15-1962; Berkeley, CA

Physicist Arthur Holly Compton was awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize in Physics for his observation that light cannot be explained purely as a wave phenomenon, called the “Compton shift”.

Compton was in charge of the Office of Scientific Research Department (OSRD) investigating the properties and manufacture of uranium. In 1942, he appointed Robert Oppenheimer as the Committee's top theorist for the renamed work: the Manhattan Project.

He was also a professor of physics at Washington University in St. Louis and served as University Chancellor from 1945-1953 - where the campus speed bumps are known for their creator as Holly bumps.

FYI - a crater on the Moon was named Compton to honor Arthur and his physicist brother Karl. NASA also named one of its four Great Observatories (satellites) the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (the Chandra X-ray Observatory, Hubble Telescope, and the Spitzer Space Telescope).

James Bryant Conant
b. 3-26-1893; Dorchester, MA
d. 2-11-1978; Hanover, NH

Chemist and professor James Bryant Conant is better known as a President of Harvard University, which he reformed as a research institution.

James Bryant Conant quotes ~
• “Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out.”
• “Every vital organization owes its birth and life to an exciting and daring idea.”
• “Each honest calling, each walk of life, has its own elite, its own aristocracy based on excellence of performance.”

Marie Alfred Cornu
b. 3-6-1841; Orleans, France
d. 4-12-1902; Paris

Marie Alfred Cornu was a physicist and professor of experimental physics. A graphical device for the computation of light intensities, called the Cornu spiral, is named for him.

• The optical study of the elasticity of solid bodies

Francis Crick
b. 6-8-1916; Weston Favell, Northamptonshire, England
d. 7-28-2004; San Diego, CA

Physicist, neuroscientist, and molecular biologist Francis Crick is ne of two co-discoverers of the structure of the DNA molecule in 1953, together with James D. Watson.

Crick, Watson and Maurice Wilkins were jointly awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine “for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material”.

Pierre & Marie Curie
b. 11-7-1867; Warsaw, Poland
d. 7-4-1934; Paris, France

Marie Curie, physicist and chemist, is best known as the discoverer of the radioactive elements polonium and radium. With her husband Pierre, they shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with Becquerel; she was also awarded the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The Curie's daughter Irene was awarded the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with her husband Frederic Joliot, her daughter Eve's husband H. R. Labouisse was the Director of United Nations' Children's Fund (UNICEF) when it was awarded the 1965 Nobel Prize for Peace.

• more Marie Curie posters
• more Women of Science posters