This is a list of famous Jewish American physicists.
For other famous Jewish Americans, see List
of Jewish Americans.
Alexei Abrikosov, condensed matter physics,
Nobel Prize (2003) (Jewish mother; naturalized
citizen)
Ralph Alpher, background radiation, nucleosynthesis
John N. Bahcall, astrophysicist
Hans Bethe, nuclear physicist, Nobel Prize
(1967) (Jewish mother)
Felix Bloch, nuclear physicist, Nobel Prize
(1952) (naturalized citizen)
David Bohm, quantum physicist, philosopher
of science
Niels Bohr, physicist
Gregory Breit, physicist
Samuel T. Cohen, physicist
Mildred Dresselhaus, physicist, National Medal
Of Science, Kavli Prize, Presidential Medal
of Freedom (Jewish)
Albert Einstein (German), theoretical physicist,
Nobel Prize (1921) (naturalized citizen)
Jeremy England, biophysicist
Paul Sophus Epstein, theoretical physicist,
quantum mechanics
Herman Feshbach, nuclear physicist
Richard P. Feynman, physicist, Nobel Prize
(1965) (though he always refused to appear
in lists such as this one and other lists
or books that classified people by race )
David Finkelstein, physicist
James Franck, physicist, Nobel Prize (1925)
Edward Fredkin, digital physicist
Jerome Friedman, physicist, Nobel Prize (1990)
Murray Gell-Mann, quarks, Nobel Prize (1969)
Donald A. Glaser, bubble chamber, Nobel Prize
(1960)
Sheldon Glashow, physicist, Nobel Prize (1979)
Roy Glauber, physicist, Nobel Prize (2005)
Herbert Goldstein, Columbia physicist, author
of standard textbook on classical mechanics
Samuel Goudsmit, electron spin
Brian Greene, string theorist
David Gross, string theorist, Nobel Prize
(2004)
Alan Guth, cosmic inflation
Eugene Guth, polymer physics, nuclear physics,
solid state physics
Robert Herman, cosmology, background radiation,
operations research
Robert Hofstadter, physicist, Nobel Prize
(1961)
Robert Jastrow, physicist, astronomer, cosmologist
Herman Kahn, nuclear physicist
Theodore von Kármán, aeronautical engineer
Joseph B. Keller, mathematical physics, wave
propagation, National Medal Of Science, Wolf
Prize
Daniel Kleppner, atomic research
Walter Kohn, physicist, Nobel Prize (1998)
Rudolf Kompfner, engineer and physicist
Lawrence Krauss, theoretical physicist and
cosmologist
Cornelius Lanczos, mathematical physicist
Rolf Landauer, physicist, information theory
Leon M. Lederman, physicist, Nobel Prize (1988)
David Morris Lee, superfluidity, Nobel Prize
(1996)
Fritz London, quantum chemistry
Theodore Maiman, first operable laser
Albert A. Michelson, speed of light, Nobel
Prize (1907)
Alexander Migdal, theoretical high energy
physics (naturalized citizen)
Ben Roy Mottelson, physicist, Nobel Prize
(1975)
Frank Oppenheimer, nuclear physicist (brother
of Robert)
Robert Oppenheimer, nuclear physicist (brother
of Frank)
Douglas D. Osheroff, superfluidity, Nobel
Prize (1996)
Jeremiah P. Ostriker, astrophysicist
Abraham Pais, historian of science
Wolfgang Pauli, nuclear physicist, Nobel Prize
(1945) (Jewish father, half-Jewish mother;
naturalized citizen)
Arno Allan Penzias, background radiation,
Nobel Prize (1978)
Martin Lewis Perl, physicist, Nobel Prize
(1995)
H. David Politzer, physicist, Nobel Prize
(2004)
Alexander Polyakov, theoretical high energy
physics (naturalized citizen)
Martin Pope, physical chemist, Davy Medal
(2006)
Isidor Isaac Rabi, physicist, Nobel Prize
(1944) (naturalized citizen)
Simon Ramo, physicist, engineer
Mark G. Raizen, physicist, quantum physics
Sidney Redner, statistical physics
L. Rafael Reif, Venezuelan-born American electrical
engineer, president of MIT
Frederick Reines, neutrino experiment, Nobel
Prize (1995)
Burton Richter, physicist, Nobel Prize (1976)
Carl Sagan, astronomer and science popularizer
Arthur Schawlow, laser spectroscopy, Nobel
Prize (1981) (Jewish father)
Melvin Schwartz, physicist, Nobel Prize (1988)
John Schwarz, string theorist
Julian Schwinger, quantum physicist, Nobel
Prize (1965)
Emilio G. Segrè, anti-proton, Nobel Prize
(1959) (naturalized citizen)
Mikhail Shifman, theoretical particle physics
(naturalized citizen)
Michael F. Shlesinger
Lee Smolin, loop quantum gravity
Alan Sokal, Sokal affair
H. Eugene Stanley, econophysics, phase transitions,
critical phenomena
Jack Steinberger, physicist, Nobel Prize (1988)
Otto Stern, physicist, Nobel Prize (1943)
Andrew Strominger, string theory
Leonard Susskind, string theory (Jewish father)
Leó Szilárd, nuclear physicist (naturalized
citizen)
Edward Teller, nuclear physicist
Arkady Vainshtein, theoretical high energy
physics (naturalized citizen)
Alexander Vilenkin, cosmology (naturalized
citizen)
Steven Weinberg, electroweak force, Nobel
Prize (1979)
Victor Frederick Weisskopf (1908–2002),
physicist; during World War II, he worked
at Los Alamos on the Manhattan Project to
develop the atomic bomb, and later campaigned
against the proliferation of nuclear weapons
Eugene Wigner, quantum physicist, Nobel Prize
(1963)
Edward Witten, mathematical physicist, Fields
Medal (1990), founder of M-Theory, only physicist
to win Fields Medal, and currently the driving
force behind theoretical/mathematical physics
George Zweig, quarks
== See also ==
List of members of the National Academy of
Sciences
List of National Medal of Science winners
