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Scientists' Birthdays, June 13: John Nash, James Clerk Maxwell & More

BOFFINS' BIRTHDAY: Five Great Scientists Born On June 13
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Happy birthday, John. And Grigori and Luis and James and Thomas. Those are the first names of five famous scientists, some living and some dead, born on June 13.

Want to know who they were--and the scientific feats that made them famous? Click through our slideshow below.

Boffin Birthdays - June 13
Grigori Perelman - 46(01 of05)
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Perelman, born 1966, is a Russian mathematician. He is best known among mathematicians for solving the Poincaré conjecture, a famous problem in the field of topology, nearly 100 years after it was first posed. Among the general public, he is best known for rejecting the prestigious Fields Medal in 2004, and the $1,000,000 Millennium Prize in 2010. "I'm not interested in money or fame," he is quoted to have said. "I don't want to be on display like an animal in a zoo." (credit:Wikimedia Commons)
John Forbes Nash, Jr. - 84(02 of05)
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Nash, born 1928, is an American mathematician who did pioneering work in game theory, the study of strategic decision-making. Nash struggled with schizophrenia during what might have been the prime of his career, but gradually recovered and won a Nobel Prize for economics in 1994. Of his illness, Nash has said, "I wouldn't have had good scientific ideas if I had thought more normally." The film 'A Beautiful Mind' is based on his troubled life. (Photo by Robert P. Matthews/Princeton University/Getty Images) (credit:Getty)
Luis Alvarez - 101(03 of05)
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Alvarez, 1911-1988, was an American physicist, best known for his work discovering a wide variety of subatomic particles. He won a Nobel Prize in 1968 for this work, but is best known among the general public for the Alvarez hypothesis. This hypothesis, formulated with his son, Walter, claims that the massive dinosaur extinction that occurred 65 million years ago was caused by the impact of a large asteroid. It is widely supported in the scientific community. (credit:Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory)
James Clerk Maxwell - 181(04 of05)
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Maxwell, 1831-1879, was a Scottish physicist. He is best known for formulating electromagnetic theory. This unified electricity, magnetism and light--which had been thought to be unrelated phenomena--into a single theory.Of his accomplishments, astrophysicist Carl Sagan said "Maxwell's equations have had a greater impact on human history than any ten presidents." (credit:Public Domain)
Thomas Young - 239(05 of05)
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Young, 1773-1829, was an English physicist. He is most famous for demonstrating that light behaves as a wave, and also for contributing to the translation of the Rosetta Stone. A versatile scientist, he was also an accomplished physician and coined the term "Indo-European."

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