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

John Bardeen
b. 5-23-1908; Madison, WI
d. 1-30-1991; Boston

John Barden is the only person to have won the Nobel Prize in Physics twice (1956 and 1972). He shared the 1956 prize with Walter Brattain and William Shockley.

His work on the invention of the transistor made the Information Age possible.

• True Genius: The Life and Science of John Bardeen

Laura Bassi
b. 10-31-1711; Bologna, Italy
d. 2-20-1778

Laura Bassi was the first woman scientist (anatomy and physics) to teach officially at a college in Europe, the University of Bologna.

George Wells Beadle
b. 10-22-1903; Wahoo, NE
d. 6-9-1989; Chicago

Biochemist George Wells Beadle shared one half of the 1958 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology with Edward Tatum “for their discovery that genes act by regulating definite chemical events”.

• George Beadle, An Uncommon Farmer
• Genetics of Microorganisms

Antoine-Henri Becquerel
b. 12-15-1852; Paris, France
d. 8-25-1908

Physicist Antoine-Henri Becquerel was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1903 with Marie and Pierre Curie, “in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity”.

• The Becquerel Rays and the Properties of Radium

Jons Jakob Berzelius
b. 8-20-1779; Ostergotland, Sweden
d. 8-7-1848; Stockholm

J. J. Berzelius was trained as a physician, and when writing a chemistry text book for his medical students, invented modern chemical notation. Berzelius, the first person to make the distinction between organic compounds (those containing carbon), and inorganic compounds, is considered a “father of modern chemistry” together with John Dalton, Antoine Lavoisier, and Robert Boyle.

• Enlightenment Science in the Romantic Era: The Chemistry of Berzelius and its Cultural Setting

Joseph Black
b. 4-16-1728; Bordeaux, France
d. 12-6-1799; Edinburgh, Scotland

Joseph Black, who is remembered best for his discoveries of latent heat, specific heat, and carbon dioxide, was also a physician. Black was both professor of Medicine and lecturer in Chemistry at University of Glasgow. It was at the University that he met and conducted experiments on steam with the instrument maker James Watt. The chemistry buildings at both the University of Edinburgh and the University of Glasgow are named after Black.

Konrad Emil Bloch
b. 1-21-1912; Neisse (Nysa), Germany
d. 10-15-2000; Lexington, MA

Konrad Bloch was a biochemist, teaching at Columbia University, the University of Chicago and Harvard University. He shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology in 1964 with Feodor Lynen, “for their discoveries concerning the mechanism and regulation of the cholesterol and fatty acid metabolism.”

David Bohm
b. 12-20-1917; Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
d. 10-27-1992; London

Quantum physicist David Bohm made contributions in the fields of theoretical physics, philosophy and neuropsychology, and to the Manhattan Project.

Bohm is well known for his “proposal for a solution that has become known as ‘Bohm Dialogue’, in which equal status and ‘free space’ form the most important prerequisites of communication and the appreciation of differing personal beliefs.”

• Peace & Justice Education Posters

Niels Bohr
b. 10-7-1885; Copenhagen, Denmark
d. 11-18-1962; Copenhagen

Physicist Niels Bohr made fundamental contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum mechanics. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922 and was also part of the team of physicists working on the Manhattan Project.

Niels Bohr quotes ~
• “Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum mechanics cannot possibly have understood it.”

• Suspended in Language : Niels Bohr's Life, Discoveries, and the Century He Shaped

Max Born
b. 12-11-1882; Breslau, Germany (now Poland)
d. 1-5-1970; Gottingen, West Germany

Physicist, mathematican, and 1954 Nobel Physics winner Max Born was instrumental in the development of quantum mechanics and made contributions to solid-state physics and optics.

Alexander Borodin
b. 11-12-1833; St. Petersburg, Russia
d. 2-27-1887

Alexander Borodin is the only chemist to win a Tony Award. He is best known as a member of the group of Russian composers called The Five who were dedicated to creating a specific kind of art music based on their Russian heritage. He received a Tony Award posthumously for the adaptation of his melodies into the musical Kismet and the song “Stranger in Paradise”.

Satyendra Nath Bose
b. 1-1-1894; Calcutta (Kolkata), India
d. 2-4-1974; London

(book description) Satyendra Nath Bose became a legendary figure of science in the 20th century in India with his revolutionary discovery on the nature of radiation. Despite the association with Einstein, however, little is known about him outside of India. This book highlights the remarkable intellect and the extraordinary personality of Bose set against the backdrop of a rich Bengali cultural tradition and British-Indian politics.

Robert Boyle
b. 1-25-1627; County Waterford, Ireland
d. 12-30-1691; London

Robert Boyle, whose research has it's roots in the alchemical tradition, is considered one of the “Fathers of Modern Chemistry”along with J. J. Berzelius, John Dalton, and Antoine Lavoisier. Boyle is is best known for the formulation of Boyle's law (1662) - “For a fixed amount of gas kept at a fixed temperature, P and V are inversely proportional (while one increases, the other decreases.”

• The Sceptical Chymist

Walter Brattain
b. 2-10-1902; China
d. 10-13-1987; London

Physicist Walter Brattain was co-awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics with John Bardeen and William Shockley for their invention of the transistor.

Jocelyn Bell Burnell
b. 7-15-1943; Belfast, Northern Ireland

Astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell, as a postgraduate student, participated in discovered the first radio pulsars with her thesis advisor Antony Hewish.

She is very active in the Quaker Peace and Social Witness organization promoting and practicing equality, justice, peace, simplicity and truth.

Jocelyn Bell Burnell quotes ~
• “Science is a quest for understanding.”
• “Scientists should never claim that something is absolutely true. You should never claim perfect, or total, or 100% because you never ever get there.”
• “I find that quakerism and research science fit together very, very well. In quakerism you're expected to develop your own understanding of god from your experience in the world. There isn't a creed, there isn't a dogma.”
• “One of the things women bring to a research project, or indeed any project, is they come from a different place, they've got a different background. ”
• “I have this sense that we need to picture cosmology, the evolution of the universe in a whole new way. I'm probably not one that can achieve this new thinking but somebody will and I feel at the moment we're kind of waiting for it to happen. A bit like a pregnant pause. A bit like what happens when there's a snowfall, first snowfall of the year, when everything goes quiet and kind of waits. I feel we are in that kind of phase.”

• astronomy posters
• Inventions - Telescope poster