Tracking Nobel Scientists

Physics Today has tracked out the lifetime movements of every Nobel Prize winning physicist. Nobel Physicists on the Move allows you to watch an animated track showing the significant movements of any of the 206 Nobel physics laureate on an interactive map of the world. Select a Nobel physics laureate from the map's drop-down menu and you can view an animated map which shows where they were born, where they were educated, the places they lived & worked, and, ultimately, where they died.

The map only shows the movements of the selected physicist so it won't show you their entire career. For example if a physicist studied and then worked in the same city the map will only show when they moved to and from the city, not when they moved between institutions within the city. The only exception to this rule is that the map does mark Nobel-related milestones and the scientist's death, if they happen in the same city.

Below the map Physics Today notes that the locations that appear to have been most visited during the lives of all 206 Nobel Prize winning physicists are Cambridge, Massachusetts; New York City; Princeton, New Jersey; Cambridge, UK; and Berkeley, California.


If you want to know where every scientist ever nominated for a physics laureate was working when they were nominated then you might also like Physics Today's map The International Aspirations of the Nobel Prize. This map depicts the place of work of every nominated scientist at the time that they were nominated for the physics Nobel.

Select a year on the map and a map marker shows you where every scientist nominated for the physics Nobel Prize that year was working at the time. If you hover over a year in the timeline you can view how many scientists were nominated for the prize in that year.