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

Lev Davidovich Landau
b. 1-22-1908; Baku, Azerbaijan, Russian Empire
d. 4-1-1968; Moscow

Lev Davidovich Landau was awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physics for “his pioneering theories for condensed matter, especially liquid helium.”

Pierre-Simon Laplace
b. 3-23-1749; Beaumont-en-Auge, Normandy, France
d. 3-5-1827; Paris

Astronomer and mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace formulated a great number of equations which appear in many branches of mathematical physics.

Laplace, often referred to as the “Newton of France”, is one of the 72 names engraved on the Eiffel Tower.

Pierre-Simon Laplace quotes ~
• “Life's most important questions are, for the most part, nothing but probability problems.”
• “What we know is not much. What we do not know is immense.” (attributed)
• “Nature laughs at the difficulties of integration.”

Antoine Lavoisier & Marie-Anne Pierette Lavoisier
b. 8-26-1743; Paris, France
d. 5-8-1794; beheaded in the French Revolution

Antoine Lavoisier, a chemist and biologist, was also involved in the financial and economic administration of pre-revolutionary France, for which he was beheaded.

As a scientist Lavoisier worked on the law of conservation of mass, recognized (and named) oxygen (1778) and hydrogen (1783), introduced the metric system, and listed the elements.

His wife Marie-Anne Lavoisier was his constant assistant and noted scientist in her own right.

• Antoine Lavoisier: Father of Chemistry
• women scientists

Ernest O. Lawrence
b. 8-8-1901; Canton, SD
d. 8-27-1958; Palo Alto, CA

Physicist and physics professor Ernest O. Lawrence was awarded the 1939 Nobel Prize in Physics for “for the invention and development of the cyclotron and for results obtained with it, especially with regard to artificial radioactive elements.” The phrase “Big Science” is closely associated with Lawrence.

Lawrence was honored by the University of California with the renaming of two of the university's nuclear research sites: Lawrence Livermore and Lawrence Berkeley.

FYI -
The radioactive synthetic element number 103 is named “Lawrencium” (Lr) in Lawrence's honor.
John Lawrence (1904-1991), the brother of Ernest, was a physician working in nuclear medicine.

• Atomic Facts

Leucippus
fl. c. 5th century BC; Greece

Leucippus or Leukippos (bright horse) (5th century BC) was the originator of atomism, the philosophical belief that everything is composed entirely of various imperishable, indivisible elements called atoms. There are no existing writings which we can attribute to Leucippus, since his writings seem to have been enfolded into the work of his famous student Democritus. (book description)

Shannon Lucid
b. 1-14-1943; Shanghai, China (grew up in Bethany, OK)

Biochemist Shannon Lucid was a member of first NASA astronaut class to include women (1978), and the only woman to be a mother at time of selection.

Dr. Lucid logged 5,354 hours (223 days) in space in five space flights: mission specialist on STS-51G (June 1985), STS-34 (October 1989), STS-43 (August 1991), STS-58 (October-November 1993), and as a Board Engineer 2 on Russia’s Space Station Mir (March 1996 aboard STS-76 and returning September 1996 aboard STS-79).

She was the first woman to hold an international record for the most flight hours in orbit (by any non-Russian), and she also held the record for the most flight hours in orbit by any woman in the world until June 2007.

Feodor Lynen
b. 4-6-1911; Munich, Germany
d. 8-6-1979; Munich

Biochemist Feodor Lynen shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology in 1964 with Konrad Bloch “for their discoveries concerning the mechanism and regulation of the cholesterol and fatty acid metabolism.”