Charles-Augustin de Coulomb was a French physicist best known for the formulation of Coulomb's law, which defines the force between two electrical charges and is, in fact, one of the principal forces in atomic reactions. Performed extensive research on the friction encountered in machinery and windmills, the elasticity of metal and silk fibers, and the description of the electrostatic force of attraction and repulsion. He also did important work on friction. The SI unit of electric charge, the coulomb, was named in his honor in 1880.

Leon Charles Thevenin was a French telegraph engineer who worked on Ohm's law and extended it to the analysis of complicated electrical networks. He is remembered today almost entirely for one small piece of work. His theorem, published in 1883, was based on his study of Kirchhoff's Laws and is found in every basic textbook on electrical circuits. It has made his name familiar to every student of electrical circuits and to every electrical and electronics engineer.

Often regarded as one of the most innovative and inventive individuals in the history of the sciences. He was the first to introduce the alternating-current machine, removing the need for commutator bars of dc machines. After emigrating to the United States in 1884, he sold a number of his patents on ac machines, transformers, and induction coils (including the Tesla coil as we know it today) to the Westinghouse Electric Company. Some say that his most important discovery was made at his laboratory in Colorado Springs, where in 1900 he discovered terrestrial stationary waves. The range of his discoveries and inventions is too extensive to list here but extends from lighting systems to polyphase power systems to a wireless world broadcasting system.