Physicists and astronomers

Per Bak

Per Bak (1947–2002) was a Danish theoretical physicist who proposed self-organized criticality with Chao Tang and Kurt Wiesenfeld at Brookhaven in 1987, later professor at the Niels Bohr Institute.

Percy W. Bridgman

Percy Williams Bridgman (1882–1961) was an American experimental physicist at Harvard who won the 1946 Nobel Prize in Physics for high-pressure research, and wrote The Logic of Modern Physics.

Persis Drell

Persis Drell is a particle astrophysicist and Stanford professor who directed SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory from 2007 to 2012 and served as Stanford's 13th provost from 2017 to 2023.

Peter Abbamonte

Peter Abbamonte is a condensed matter physicist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who developed M-EELS and observed the plasmon known as a demon in 2023.

Peter Baum

Peter Baum is a professor of experimental physics at the University of Konstanz who pioneered attosecond electron microscopy, earning ERC grants and the 2022 Falling Walls prize.

Peter D. Johnson

Peter D. Johnson is a British-trained condensed matter physicist at Brookhaven National Laboratory who led its Electron Spectroscopy Group from 1995 to 2021 and won the 2011 Buckley Prize.

Peter F. Moulton is an American laser physicist and engineer at MIT Lincoln Laboratory who invented the Ti:sapphire tunable solid-state laser in 1982 and belongs to the National Academy of Engineering.

Peter Fitzroy Green

Peter Fitzroy Green is an American polymer physicist and materials scientist at the National Laboratory of the Rockies in Golden, Colorado, elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2023.

Peter G. Roll

Peter G. Roll (1933–2020) was an American physicist at Princeton University who co-built the radiometer confirming the cosmic microwave background and co-authored its 1965 interpretation.

Peter Goddard (mathematical physicist)

Peter Goddard (born 1945) is a British mathematical physicist who proved the string theory no-ghost theorem and directed the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton from 2004 to 2012.

Peter Goldreich

Peter Goldreich, born 1939 in New York City, is an American theoretical astrophysicist and planetary scientist, emeritus at Caltech, known for work on planetary rings and pulsars.

Peter Grünberg

Peter Grünberg was a German physicist who shared the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics with Albert Fert for discovering giant magnetoresistance, which enabled hard disk read heads.

Peter Günter

Peter Günter is a Swiss physicist in nonlinear optics who led ETH Zurich's Nonlinear Optics Laboratory until his 2010 retirement and is best known for the organic electro-optic crystal DAST.

Peter Guthrie Tait

Peter Guthrie Tait (1831–1901) was a Scottish mathematical physicist who held the Edinburgh chair of natural philosophy from 1860, founded knot theory, and championed quaternions.

Peter Hamm

Peter Hamm is a German and Swiss physical chemist known for two-dimensional infrared spectroscopy, a laser method reading molecular motion on femtosecond timescales, and a professor at the University of Zurich since 2007.

Peter Hänggi

Peter Hänggi, born 1950 in Switzerland, is a theoretical physicist who held the Theoretical Physics chair at the University of Augsburg and won the 2023 Lars Onsager Prize.

Peter Harrowell

Peter Harrowell (Peter R. Harrowell) is an Australian materials chemist and professor at the University of Sydney known for work on crystal growth, glass-forming liquids, and ultrafast metal crystallization.

Peter Higgs

Peter Ware Higgs (1929–2024) was a British theoretical physicist who proposed the Higgs mechanism, shared the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics, and gave the Higgs boson its name.

Peter Hommelhoff

Peter Hommelhoff is a German laser physicist at LMU Munich, known for attosecond control of electron emission from metal nanotips and acceleration on photonic chips.

Peter Høyer

Peter Høyer is a theoretical computer scientist and associate professor at the University of Calgary, known for foundational work on quantum algorithms, query complexity, and quantum walks.

Péter István Mészáros

Péter István Mészáros is a Hungarian-born theoretical astrophysicist at Penn State known for the gamma-ray burst fireball model, developed with Martin Rees, and the Mészáros effect.

Peter L. Knight

Sir Peter L. Knight is a British theoretical physicist at Imperial College London whose quantum optics research laid foundations for quantum technology and drove the UK's National Quantum Technologies Programme.

Peter L. Wizinowich

Peter L. Wizinowich is an optical scientist at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii who led its adaptive optics systems, earning the 2022 Joseph Weber Award.

Peter Liljeroth

Peter Liljeroth (born 1975) is a Finnish-based physicist and Professor of Atomic Scale Physics at Aalto University, known for switching a single molecule with current in 2007.

Peter Lodahl

Peter Lodahl is a Danish physicist and professor of quantum physics and technology at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, known for quantum-dot photonics and for founding Sparrow Quantum.

Peter M. Banks

Peter M. Banks is an American space physicist at Stanford and UC San Diego known for radar studies of the aurora and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

Peter M. Rentzepis

Peter M. Rentzepis is a Greek-born physical chemist who originated picosecond ultrafast spectroscopy, pioneered 3D optical storage, and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1978.

Peter Meyer (cosmic-ray physicist)

Peter Meyer (1920–2002) was a German-born cosmic-ray physicist at the University of Chicago, known for measurements of cosmic-ray acceleration and for instruments flown on balloons, satellites, and the Space Shuttle.

Peter Mueller

Peter Mueller is a Principal Physicist at Argonne National Laboratory who applies krypton-81 radiodating to deep groundwater and received the 2011 Presidential Early Career Award.