Famous Figures
Space
Sci-Fi
Technology
Careers in Physics
100

This physicist developed the three laws of motion (including F=ma)

Who is Sir Isaac Newton?

100

This gas giant in our solar system is famous for its Great Red Spot

What is Jupiter?

100

This 1977 sci-fi film features a farm boy named Luke Skywalker who joins a Jedi Master to save Princess Leia and blow up the Death Star.

What is Star Wars?

100

This IBM supercomputer famously won a historic game of Jeopardy! against human champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter in 2011.

What is Watson?

100

These physicists use radiation and imaging equipment to help diagnose and treat diseases like cancer.

What is a medical physicist?

200

This physicist developed theories of special and general relativity

Who is Albert Einstein?

200

This glowing cloud of dust and gas in space is where new stars are born

What is a nebula?

200

On "Star Trek: The Original Series," this planet serves as the home world of Mr. Spock

What is Vulcan?

200

This branch of AI allows machines to learn and improve from experience without being explicitly programmed for every scenario.

What is Machine Learning?

200

This type of physicist studies celestial bodies, cosmic phenomena, and the structure of the universe.

What is an astrophysicist?

300

This physicist formulated wave mechanics but is more commonly known in relation to an animal

Who is Erwin Schrodinger?

300

This massive type of neutron star beams electromagnetic radiation out of its magnetic poles

What is a pulsar?

300

In Stanley Kubrick’s "2001: A Space Odyssey," this sentient computer is aboard the spaceship "Discovery One"

What is HAL 9000?

300

This orbiting laboratory has hosted continuous human presence in low Earth orbit since the year 2000.

What is the International Space Station?

300

This type of physicist often studies the Earth's physical properties, seismic activity, or magnetic fields.

What is a geophysicist?

400

John Glenn famously asked this physicist to verify the orbital calculations by hand before launching

Who is Katherine Johnson?

400

This term describes a galaxy with an active, supermassive black hole at its core that outshines all the stars in the galaxy combined

What is a quasar?

400

This sci-fi book asserts that the Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything is 42, but no one realizes that they don't actually know what the Ultimate Question is

What is the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?

400

Unlike classical bits that are strictly 0 or 1, these processing units use superposition and entanglement to solve complex calculations at staggering speeds.

What are qubits?

400

This type of physicist analyzes data from CERN and Fermilab to learn more about the subatomic structure of the universe.

What is a particle or high-energy physicist?

500

This physicist became the second woman to win the Nobel Prize in Physics for explaining why certain atomic nuclei are stable

Who is Maria Goeppert Mayer?

500

This large neighboring spiral galaxy is on a collision course with the Milky Way, expected to merge in about 4 billion years

What is the Andromeda Galaxy?

500

This sci-fi author famously stated, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"

Who is Arthur C. Clarke?

500

Launched in 2021 as the successor to Hubble, this space telescope observes the universe in infrared.

What is the James Webb Space Telescope?

500

This type of physicist examines interactions between matter and light at the scale of single atoms and molecules.

What are Atomic, Molecular, and Optical (AMO) physicists?