List of Scottish scientists

This article is part of the List of Scots series

List of Scottish engineers and scientists is a list of Scottish scientists.

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• Thomas Addison (1881–1949), physician, pioneer in nephrology
• William Aiton (1731–1793), botanist
• Alexander Anderson (mathematician) (c. 1582 – c. 1620) mathematician
• William Arthur (1894 – 1979)
• John Logie Baird (1888-1946), engineer, inventor of the television
• Ken Bairden (1943–2007), Parasitologist, epidemiologist, veterinarian
• John Hutton Balfour (1808–1884), botanist
• Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922), engineer and scientist, inventor of the telephone
• Eric Temple Bell (1883–1960), mathematician
• James W. Black (1924-2010), doctor, Nobel Prize for Medicine, 1988
• Joseph Black (1728–1799), discoverer of carbon dioxide
• David Brewster (1781–1868), founder of the Royal Scottish Society of Arts
• Thomas Brisbane (1773–1860), astronomer
• Robert Brown (1773–1858), discoverer of Brownian Motion and botanist
• David Bruce (1855–1931), pathologist and microbiologist
• Phillip Clancey (1917–2001), pioneering ornithologist
• John Craig (1663–1731), mathematician and friend of Newton
• Alexander Crum Brown (1838–1922), Organic chemist
• William Cullen (1710–1790), physician and chemist
• James Dewar (1842–1923), low temperature physicist, invented the vacuum flask
• David Drysdale (1877–1946), mathematician
• James Alfred Ewing (1855–1935), physicist and engineer
• Hugh Falconer (1808–1865), paleontologist
• James Ferguson (1710–1776), Scottish astronomer and instrument maker
• Alexander Fleming (1881–1955), microbiologist, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1945
• Williamina Fleming (1857–1911), astronomer, contributed to the cataloguing of stars
• James David Forbes (1809–1868), physicist and geologist
• Professor George Forbes (1849–1936), electrical engineering, hydro-electric power generation
• Robert Fortune (1813–1880), botanist
• Patrick Geddes (1854–1932), biologist and urban theorist
• Sir David Gill (1843–1914), pioneer in astrophotography
• Thomas Graham (1805–1869), chemist, discovered dialysis
• James Gregory (1638–1675), first described the Gregorian reflecting telescope eventually built by Robert Hooke
• James Hall (geologist) (1761–1832), geologist
• M R Henderson (1899-1982), botanist
• Thomas Henderson (1798–1844), astronomer, first person to measure the distance to Alpha Centauri
• James Hutton (1726–1797), put geology on a scientific basis
• Robert T. A. Innes (1861–1933), astronomer, discovered Proxima Centauri
• James Ivory (mathematician) (1765–1842), mathematician
• William Jardine (naturalist) (1800–1874), naturalist
• Norman Boyd Kinnear (1882–1957), zoologist
• Johann von Lamont (1805–1879), astronomer, calculated the orbits of the moons of Uranus and Saturn
• John Leslie (physicist) (1766–1832), mathematician and physicist best remembered for his research into heat
• Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister, OM, FRS (1827 – 1912) introduced antiseptic surgery and eponymous Listerine
• Sir Charles Lyell, 1st Baronet, Kt FRS (1797–1875) was a British lawyer and the foremost geologist of his day.
• John Macadam (1827–1865), Scottish-born Australian botanist
• William MacGillivray (1796–1852), naturalist
• Sheila Scott Macintyre (1910–1960), mathematician
• Colin Maclaurin (1698–1746), mathematician, developed maclaurin series
• John James Rickard Macleod (1876–1935), biochemist and physiologist, 1923 Nobel prize laureate
• William Maclure (1760–1843), geologist
• Francis Masson (1741 – c. 1805), botanist
• James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879), thermodynamics and electromagnetic theorist
• Archibald Menzies (1754–1852) explorer and botanist
• Philip Miller (1691–1771), botanist
• Roderick Murchison (1792–1871), geologist who first described and investigated the Silurian period.
• Alexander Murray (geologist) (1810–1884), geologist
• John Napier (1550–1617), mathematician (see logarithms)
• William Robert Ogilvie-Grant (1863–1924), ornithologist
• Sir William Ramsay (1852–1916), Nobel prize in Chemistry, 1904
• William John Macquorn Rankine (1820–1872), an engineer and physicist who proposed the Rankine thermodynamic (absolute) temperature scale.
• John Richardson (naturalist) (1787–1865), naturalist
• William Roxburgh (1759–1815), botanist
• Daniel Rutherford (1749-1819), chemist, discoverer of element nitrogen
• Sir James Young Simpson (1811-1870), doctor, Professor of Midwifery, discoverer of chloroform as an anaesthetic.
• Andrew Smith (zoologist) (1797–1872), zoologist
• Charles Piazzi Smyth (1819–1900), Astronomer Royal of Scotland
• Robert Angus Smith (1817–1884), environmental chemist, discovered acid rain
• Mary Somerville, mathematician and astronomer
• Matthew Stewart (mathematician) (1717–1785), mathematician
• James Stirling (mathematician) (1692–1770), mathematician
• John Struthers (anatomist) (1823-1899), anatomist
• William Thomson, Lord Kelvin (1824–1907), mathematician, physicist, engineer
• Thomas Telford (1757–1834), civil engineer, architect, canal builder.
• James Watt (1736–1819), mathematician and engineer whose improvements to the steam engine contributed to a key stage in the Industrial Revolution.
• Robert Watson-Watt (1892–1973), invented radar
• Joseph Wedderburn (1882–1948), mathematician
• Alexander Wilson (1766–1813), arguably the greatest American ornithologist before Audubon
• Charles Wilson (1869–1959), physicist, invented the cloud chamber
• James 'Paraffin' Young (1811–1883), chemist
• William Fairbairn (1789 – 1874), structural engineer

=*Key figures in the Scottish Enlightenment

• Wardrope David (19??), Physicist