Nobel Beginnings

Photos of the Month —January 2016

An extraordinary group of scientists were born in January. Our selection of photos this month include Nobel Prize winners, authors, three Capricorns, and two Aquariuses. This group of scientists discovered or were awarded for their work in particle statistics, thermodynamics, and the universal law of gravitation. Their awards include two Copley Medals and three Nobel Prizes. Here are some notable January birthdays:

Born in 1894 in Calcutta on January 1st, Satyendra Nath Bose is known for his work on particle statistics. He is commemorated by the Bose-Einstein condensate, a phase of matter in which quantum effects are apparent at a macroscopic scale.

January 2nd belongs to the birthday of Rudolf Clausius, born in 1822. He is considered to be one of the central founders of thermodynamics.

Theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking was born January 8th in 1942.

One half of the 1978 Nobel Prize winners includes Robert Woodrow Wilson, born January 10th in 1936. Wilson is an American astronomer who discovered the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) with Arno Allan Penzias in 1964.

1962 Nobel Prize winner Lev Landau was born in Baku, Azerbaijan in 1908 on January 22nd. His Nobel Prize was awarded for his development of a mathematical theory of superfluidity.

The first Japanese Nobel laureate, Hideki Yukawa, was born in 1907 on January 23rd. He predicted the existence of the pion in particle physics.

Please enjoy these and more birthdays from The Emilio Segrè Visual Archives. To see more images like the ones we’ve selected, type the name of the scientist in the search engine .