15 Famous Physicists Who Believed In God

This is the third post from a series of three articles in which religious views of well-known scientists are listed. If you are interested, the other two posts celebrate atheists and agnostics in the field of physics. In this post, 15 believers who excelled at physics.

First, a brief note on history: the word theism was first used in the 1600s by English theologian Ralph Cudworth who said, "we are strictly and properly called theists, who affirm, that a perfectly conscious understanding being, or mind, existing of itself from eternity, was the cause of all other things."

Robert Millikan

He was an American experimental physicist who was honored with the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1923 for his measurement of the elementary electric charge. He wrote about the reunion of science and religion in books like Evolution in Science and Religion.

He was the son of Reverend Silas Franklin Millikan. As an active Christian, Millikan found religious significance in his studies of the cosmic rays, as he did in his other research, concluding that the “creator is still on the job." He remained theist all his adult life.

Johannes Kepler

He was a German astronomer and mathematician who laid out the three laws of planetary motion with the help of his and Tycho Brahe's observations of the night sky. Kepler's belief that God created the cosmos in orderly fashion caused him to attempt to determine and comprehend the laws that govern the natural world.

He said, "Those laws of nature are within the grasp of the human mind; God wanted us to recognize them by creating us after his own image so that we could share in his own thoughts." Kepler was an outstanding mathematician especially in the studies of geometry, he once claimed, "geometry is one and eternal shining in the mind of God."

Isaac Newton

He was the most prominent scientist during the scientific revolution. By the age of 26 he had discovered the universal law of gravitation, laws of motion and invented a new branch of mathematics, calculus. Newton was a practicing Christian.

He said, "We account the scriptures of God to be the most sublime philosophy. I find more sure remarks of authenticity in the Bible than in any profane history whatever." Then when asked why he studied sciences, Newton replied, "He is the God of order and not of confusion."

Abdus Salam

He was a Pakistani theoretical physicist who shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in physics for his contribution to the electroweak unification theory. Abdus Salam was an Ahmadi Muslim who saw his religion as a fundamental part of his scientific work.

He once wrote that "the Holy Quran enjoins us to reflect on the verities of Allah's created laws of nature; however, that our generation has been privileged to glimpse a part of His design is a bounty and a grace for which I render thanks with a humble heart."

Philip Lenard

Lenard was a Hungarian-German experimental physicist and the winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1905. His pioneering research on cathode rays and their properties led to the development of the early television.

Lenard was born and raised with Christian practices and values because his parents Phillip and Antonie were deeply religious. But he was swept along in a wave of Nazism that accompanied the World War I, became anti-semetic and hostile towards what he claimed was "Jewish Physics."

Max Born

He was a German physicist and mathematician who was influential in the development of quantum mechanics. He also made contributions to solid-state physics and optics, winner of the 1954 Nobel Prize in physics. In 1933, the Nazis came to power in Germany, and Born, who was Jewish, was suspended from his professorship.

Max was born to a family of Jewish descent. He had famously said, "The dance of atoms, electrons and nuclei, which in all its fury is subject to God's eternal laws." Born was baptised as a Lutheran in 1914 by the same pastor who had performed his wedding ceremony. His decision to be baptised was made due to his desire to assimilate into German society.

Galileo Galilei

He was an Italian physicist who is most noted for his many astronomical findings such as the rings on Saturn, sunspots and Jupiter's four moons with the help of a telescope he had invented. Galileo was a deeply religious man who was ordered life imprisonment for his groundbreaking discoveries.

Galileo was an outspoken supporter of the Copernican sun-centered model of the universe. He said, "The intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how heaven goes, and I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."

He added, "Copernicus did not ignore the Bible, but he knew very well that if his doctrine were proved, then it could not contradict the Scriptures when they were rightly understood." Apart from his astronomical observations, Galileo also discovered the law of inertia with experiment, which is why he is often called the "father of the scientific method."

Michael Faraday

He was an English physicist who contributed to the study of electricity and magnetism and ultimately their unification. Faraday discovered the laws of electromagnetic induction and electrolysis and is often called the father of electricity.

When asked about his speculations on life after death, Faraday replied, "Speculations? I have none. I am resting on certainties. I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day." He remained a devout Christian until his death.

Georges Lemaitre

He was a Jesuit trained Belgian Catholic priest and professor of physics at the Catholic University of Louvain. Lemaitre was the first to identify that the recession of nearby galaxies can be explained by a theory of an expanding universe. Then he proposed the Big Bang Theory.

In a 1933 interview for the New York Times, he said, "There is no conflict between science and religion. I was interested in truth from the point of view of salvation just as much as in truth from the point of view of scientific certainty. It appeared to me that there were two paths to truth, and I decided to follow both of them."

Werner Heisenberg

He was a German theoretical physicist and one of the key pioneers of quantum mechanics. Heisenberg was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for 1932 for the creation of matrix mechanics. He was raised and lived as a Lutheran Christian.

Most of his quotations about god and religion are misattributed such as this one, "the first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you," these repeated time after time do not really represent his original views and are completely biased.

However Heisenberg did say, "of course.. we all know that our own reality depends on the structure of our consciousness; we can objectify no more than a small part of our world. But even when we try to probe into the subjective realm, we cannot ignore the central order. In the final analysis, the central order with which we commune in the language of religion, must win out." This was his own unique and intellectual way of putting out his beliefs.

Arthur Compton

He was an American physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his 1923 discovery of the Compton effect, an increase in wavelength of X-rays or gamma rays that occurs when they are scattered, which demonstrated the particle nature of electromagnetic radiation.

For some time, Compton was a deacon at a Baptist church, a member who was generally associated with service of some kind. "Science can have no quarrel", he said, "..with a religion which postulates a God to whom men are as His children." Compton remained religious all his life.

Hideki Yukawa

He was a Japanese theoretical physicist who was the first Japanese citizen to win Nobel Prize in physics for his accurate prediction of the pi meson. As a child Yukawa used to read the Confucian Doctrine of the Mean, and later Lao-Tzu and Chuang-Tzu.

Yukawa Hideki was a devout Buddhist and believed that a Buddhist philosophical outlook influenced his research in physics. In his view, natural forces could reasonably be viewed as a somewhat random product of chance or pure contingency in mathematical terms, similar to Hindu and Buddhist notions of karma.


Victor Francis Hess

He was an Austrian-American theoretical physicist who won the 1936 Nobel Prize in physics for his discovery of the cosmic rays, highly energetic atomic nuclei which travel through space at a speed approaching that of light.

Hess was a practicing Roman Catholic and in 1946 wrote on the relationship between science and religion in his famous article "My Faith", in which he explained why he believed in God.

Arthur Eddington

He was a prominent English astronomer and physicist who is known for his groundbreaking research in astrophysics. Eddington was the first person to investigate the internal structure and evolution of stars. He correctly speculated that the source of starlight was fusion of hydrogen into helium.

He was born to Quaker parents and the members of the various Quaker movements are all generally united by their belief in the ability of each human being to experientially access the light within, or that of God in every one. In 1930, Arthur wrote a 64 page book titled, "Why I Believe in God: Science and Religion, as a Scientist Sees It."


James Clerk Maxwell

To him we owe the most significant discovery of our age, the theory of electromagnetism. Maxwell was a Scottish theoretical physicist who built upon Faraday's results to unify the once separate fields of electricity, magnetism and optics.

Maxwell said, "I have committed myself to God as the instrument of His will, not doubtfully, but in the certain hope that that Will will be plain enough at the proper time." Maxwell's intellectual understanding of his Christian faith and of science grew rapidly during his Cambridge years. His knowledge of the Bible was remarkable as his Cambridge colleagues remember.


Summing up

Agnostics	Atheists	Theists
John Bardeen	Richard Feynman	Robert Millikan
Jagadish Chandra Bose	Niels Bohr	Johannes Kepler
Marie Curie	S. Chandrasekhar	Isaac Newton
Edwin Hubble	Louis de Broglie	Abdus Salam
Freeman Dyson	Pierre Simon Laplace	Philip Lenard
Albert Einstein	Stephen Hawking	Max Born
C.V. Raman	Francis Crick	Galileo Galilei
Rosalind Franklin	Erwin Schrodinger	Michael Faraday
Enrico Fermi	Meghnad Saha	Georges Lemaitre
Eugene Wigner	Steven Weinberg	Werner Heisenberg
Carl Sagan	Hans Bethe	Arthur Compton
Lisa Randall	Kip Thorne	Hideki Yukawa
Paul Dirac	James Franck	Victor Francis Hess
Murray Gell Mann	John Bell	Arthur Eddington
Henri Poincare	Herbert Kroemer	James Clerk Maxwell

 

15 Famous Physicists Who Were Atheists

This is the second post from a series of three articles in which religious views of well-known scientists will be listed. The other two pages will outline important believers and agnostics in the field of physics.

Before moving on, a brief note on history: The ideas that are recognized today as atheistic were first documented in ancient India during the Vedic period. The practices of life without religion were codified by various Hindu and Buddhist philosophers.

Richard Feynman

He was a Nobel Prize winning American physicist who's known for his contributions to quantum electrodynamics, as well as computing and nanotechnology. By his early youth, Feynman described himself as an "avowed atheist".

He was once asked in an interview whether he was agnostic or atheist. "I call myself an atheist," Feynman replied, "agnostic for me would be trying to weasel out and sound a little nicer than I am about this."

Feynman went on to say, "It doesn't seem to me that this fantastically marvelous universe, this tremendous range of time and space and different kinds of animals, and all the different planets, and all these atoms with all their motions, and so on, all this complicated thing can merely be a stage so that God can watch human beings struggle for good and evil, which is the view that religion has. The stage is too big for the drama."

Niels Bohr

Prominent Danish physicist best known for his explanation of the emission spectrum of Hydrogen atom. He's also remembered for his contributions to the development of quantum mechanics for which he was awarded Nobel Prize in physics.

Born in Copenhagen in 1885 to well-educated parents, Bohr became interested in physics at a young age. The Bohr family was not at all devout, and he became an atheist who regarded religious thought as harmful and misguided.

Bohr's atheism was more related to traditional eastern philosophy, "I go into the Upanishads to ask questions," he had once said. Bohr ended with a dislike of all religions that claimed to base their teachings on revelations, "..the idea of a personal God is foreign to me."

S. Chandrasekhar

At the age of 19 in India, he proved mathematically that a white dwarf more massive than 1.4 solar masses would collapse under its own gravity. This is called the Chandrasekhar Limit for which he was recognized with Nobel Prize in 1983.

In 1991, Chandrasekhar was interviewed by his biographer about his religious beliefs, "I am not religious in any sense; in fact, I consider myself an atheist," he very candidly replied. Despite being brought up in orthodox Hindu Brahmin family he openly admitted to being an atheist.

Louis de Broglie

Nobel Prize winning French physicist best known for his research on quantum theory and for predicting the wave nature of electrons. When Louis was asked to join Catholic Academy of France, he humbly declined because, he said, he had ceased the religious practices of his youth.

He said in 1953, "The history of science shows that the progress of science has constantly been hampered by the tyrannical influence of certain conceptions that finally came to be considered as dogma." Louis de Broglie remained an outspoken atheist until his death in 1987.

Stephen Hawking

He was an English astrophysicist, probably the most renowned genius of the modern age, who contributed to the understanding of the Big Bang and Black Holes. Hawking also provided a theoretical argument for Hawking Radiation in 1974.

He said in 2011, "We are each free to believe what we want and it is my view that the simplest explanation is there is no God. No one created the universe and no one directs our fate. This leads me to a profound realization. There is probably no heaven, and no afterlife either. We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe, and for that, I am extremely grateful."

Francis Crick

He was an English biophysicist who is most notable for being one of the discoverers of the structure of DNA in 1953. He was awarded Nobel Prize in 1962. Crick once joked, "Christianity may be OK between consenting adults in private but should not be taught to young children."

When asked if our genes reveal the hand of God, he replied, "The god hypothesis is rather discredited." He was the first to predict the existence of substances such as dopamine that are released by the brain under certain conditions, for example when one prays, he said, and produce rewarding sensations.

Crick said, "Once the detailed workings of the brain are eventually revealed, erroneous Christian concepts about the nature of humans and the world would no longer be required."

Pierre Simon Laplace

French physicist and mathematician whose work was pivotal to the development of modern physics and astronomy. Laplace is referred to as the Newton of France and has been described as possessing a phenomenal natural mathematical faculty superior to that of any of his contemporaries.

Napoleon said to Laplace, "You have written this huge book on the system of the world without once mentioning the author of the universe [God]." Laplace replied: "Sire, I had no need of that hypothesis."

Laplace was the first astronomer to theorize that the solar system could have originated from a cloud of gas. To the end of his life, he remained a skeptic and his last words were, "Man follows only phantoms."

Erwin Schrödinger

Austrian theoretical physicist, pioneer of wave quantum mechanics and winner of the 1933 Nobel Prize in physics. Erwin lost a marriage proposal to his love (Felicie Krauss) because of his atheistic worldview.

He rejected traditional religious beliefs (Jewish, Christian, and Islamic) not on the basis of any reasoned argument, nor even with an expression of hostility (for he loved to use religious expressions and metaphors), but simply by saying that they are "naive".

"I am born into an environment, I know not whence I came nor whither I go nor who I am. This is my situation as yours, every single one of you. The fact that everyone always was in this same situation, and always will be, tells me nothing," Erwin said in 1951, "our burning question as to the whence and whither, all we can ourselves observe about it is the present environment. That is why we are eager to find out about it as much as we can. That is science, learning, knowledge; it is the true source of every spiritual endeavor of man.


Meghnad Saha

Bengali Indian astrophysicist, who was the first to relate the temperature of stars to their spectrum. He was repeatedly and unsuccessfully nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physics because work done in astronomy was not eligible for Nobel Prize at the time.

Saha was well-versed in all the religious texts, Hindu or Islamic, though his interest in them was purely academic and he declared himself an atheist very early on (Meghnad Saha, scientist with a vision, National Book Trust, India).

Steven Weinberg

He was an American theoretical physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1979 for the unification of electromagnetism and the weak force into the electroweak force. In the 2006 book "The God Delusion", Richard Dawkins identified Steven Weinberg as an atheist.

Then in 2008, Weinberg was asked whether he really was atheistic. "Yes, I don't believe in God," he replied, "..but I don't make a religion out of not believing in God. I don't organize my life around that." He had also earlier said, "With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil, that, takes religion."


Hans Bethe

German theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate in physics for his work on the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis, which is the creation of chemical elements by nuclear fusion reactions within stars, hence the phrase, "we are made of star stuff."

Despite having a religious background (Protestantism), he was not religious even in his early life. For the 2001 book, "The Voice Of Genius: Conversations With Nobel Scientists And Other Luminaries", Denis Brian asked Bethe, about his religious views. Bethe immediately replied, "I am an atheist."

Kip Thorne

American theoretical physicist and winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize in physics, known for his contributions in gravitational physics, astrophysics and for his role in the making of the international blockbuster, "Interstellar."

Thorne's academic parents were members of The Mormon Church and he was raised in the Latter-Day Saints faith. He lost his beliefs as he grew older and has described himself atheist since in a 2014 interview. Thorne also said, "Even though I do not believe in God, there are large numbers of my finest colleagues who are quite devout."


James Franck

He was a Nobel Prize winning German physicist who helped the dismissed Jewish scientists find work overseas when the Nazis came to power in 1933. Franck also resigned his post in protest. His work included the famous Franck–Hertz experiment, which was an important confirmation of the Bohr model of the atom.

His father was a devout and religious man, while his mother came from a family of rabbis. Franck, although proud of his Jewish heritage, commented that "science was his God", and "nature his religion". He did not require his daughters to attend religious instruction classes at school, and even let them have a decorated tree at Christmas.


John Bell

It was John Bell who investigated quantum theory in the greatest depth and established what the theory can tell us about the fundamental nature of the physical world. His work led to the possibility of exploring philosophical questions, such as the nature of reality, directly through physical experiments.

Bell's parents were protestants but he was not forced to accept religion on faith. In fact, he had declared he'd become a scientist when he was only 11 years old. And as he grew older, John certainly became less interested in Protestantism and his wife, Mary (who was a physicist like Bell), later reported that her husband was an atheist all his adult life.


Herbert Kroemer

He is a German American theoretical physicist who has contributed to the development of semiconductor devices, especially semiconductor heterostructures, which are used in high-speed electronics. He was awarded Nobel Prize in physics (2000).

In a video interview, Kroemer is asked, "So you have no belief in afterlife?", because of his atheistic worldview. He replied, "That is correct." Interviewer: "Don't you see the evidence of a designer?" Kroemer responded again with a brief, "No I do not.."remark. Interviewer, now a little frustrated, said, "Could you please say more about it?" Kroemer: "I think life after death is just wishful thinking."