List of people considered father or mother of a scientific field

Table columns:
Field
Person/s considered "father" or "mother"
Rationale

Table rows:
cells: Acoustics
Ernst Chladni[92]
For important research in vibrating plates
cells: Atomic bomb
Enrico Fermi J. Robert Oppenheimer Leslie Groves Edward Teller
For their role in the Manhattan Project
cells: Aerodynamics
Nikolai Zhukovsky George Cayley[93]
Zhukovsky was the first to undertake the study of airflow, was the first engineer scientist to explain mathematically the origin of aerodynamic lift. Cayley Investigated theoretical aspects of flight and experimented with flight a century before the first airplane was built
cells: Physical cosmology
Albert Einstein (founder) Henrietta Leavitt (mother)[94] Edwin Hubble (father)[94]
Leavitt discovered Cepheid variables, the "Standard Candle" by which Hubble later determined galactic distances. Einstein's general theory of relativity is usually recognized as the theoretic foundation of modern cosmology.
cells: Classical mechanics
Isaac Newton (founder)[95]
Described laws of motion and law of gravity in Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
cells: Electricity
William Gilbert[96] Michael Faraday[97]
Book: De Magnete (1600) Discovered electromagnetic induction (1831)
cells: Electrodynamics
André-Marie Ampère[98]
Book: Memoir on the Mathematical Theory of Electrodynamic Phenomena, Uniquely Deduced from Experience (1827)
cells: Energetics
Willard Gibbs[99]
Publication: On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances (1876)
cells: Experimental physics (founder)
Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen)[100][101]
For introducing experimental method into physics with his Book of Optics (1021)
cells: Modern astronomy
Nicolaus Copernicus[102]
Developed the first explicit heliocentric model in De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (1543)
cells: Nuclear physics
Ernest Rutherford[103]
Developed the Rutherford atom model (1909)
cells: Nuclear science
Marie Curie Pierre Curie[104]
cells: Optics
Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen)[105]
Correctly explained vision and carried out the first experiments on light and optics in the Book of Optics (1021).
cells: Physics (early)
Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen)[106] Francis Bacon[107]
Alhazen developed rigorous experimental methods of controlled scientific testing to verify theoretical hypotheses and substantiate inductive conjectures. Developed Baconian method in his Novum Organum (1620).
cells: Physics (modern)
Galileo Galilei[108]
His development and extensive use of experimental physics, e.g. the telescope
cells: Plasma physics
Irving Langmuir Hannes Alfvén[109]
Langmuir first described ionised gas as plasma and observed fundamental plasma vibrations, Langmuir waves. Alfvén pioneered the theoretical description of plasma by developing magnetohydrodynamics.
cells: Quantum mechanics
Max Planck (founder)[110] Werner Heisenberg
Stated that electromagnetic energy could be emitted only in quantized form
cells: Relativity
Albert Einstein (founder)[111]
Pioneered special relativity (1905) and general relativity (1915)
cells: Spaceflight (rocketry)
Robert Hutchings Goddard Konstantin Tsiolkovsky Hermann Oberth
Goddard launched the first liquid-fueled rocket. Tsiolkovsky created the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation.
cells: Thermodynamics
Sadi Carnot (founder)[112]
Publication: On the Motive Power of Fire and Machines Fitted to Develop that Power (1824)

Questions about this table:
originalText: who is known as father of modern physics
answer: answerTexts: Galileo Galilei