Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon

popular name: Camille Flammarion

date_of_death: June 3, 1925

age: 83

cause_of_death: Natural causes

claim_to_fame: Science

best_know_for: Camille Flammarion was a famous French astronomer, author, magazine publisher and notable psychical researcher. He was a prolific author of more than fifty titles, including popular science works about astronomy, several notable early science fiction novels, and works on psychical research and related topics. He also published the magazine L'Astronomie, starting in 1882. He maintained a private observatory at his home in Juvisy-sur-Orge, France which is open to the public today.

popular name: Dr. Henry Murray

date_of_death: June 23, 1988

age: 95

cause_of_death: Pneumonia

claim_to_fame: Science

best_know_for: As the Director and Chief Researcher of the Psychological Clinic Annex on the campus of Harvard University, for 3 years beginning in 1959 Dr. Henry Murray was responsible for the unethical, immoral and horrible experiments in which he used 22 Harvard undergraduates as research subjects in psychological torture. The unwitting undergraduates were submitted to what Murray called "vehement, sweeping and personally abusive" attacks while strapped into a wooden chair with electrodes attached to their bodies. One of the subjects for the entire 3-year period was Ted Kaczynski, later known as the Unabomber who was responsible for killing 3 and maiming 23 other victims through his series of mail bombs.

popular name: Eugene Wigner

date_of_death: January 1, 1995

age: 92

cause_of_death: Pneumonia

claim_to_fame: Science

best_know_for: Eugene Paul "E. P." Wigner was a Hungarian theoretical physicist who also contributed to mathematical physics. He obtained American citizenship in 1937, and received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963 "for his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application of fundamental symmetry principles". Wigner and Hermann Weyl were responsible for introducing group theory into physics, particularly the theory of symmetry in physics. Along the way he performed ground-breaking work in pure mathematics, in which he authored a number of mathematical theorems. In particular, Wigner's theorem is a cornerstone in the mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics.