The most famous scientist in history. In September 1909, Einstein came to Salzburg and gave his first major public lecture on the special theory of relativity. He was 30 years old and still an unknown patent clerk. Max Planck, the most eminent physicist in the German-speaking world, was in the audience.

One of the last great polymaths. Humboldt passed through Salzburg in 1797, climbed the Kapuzinerberg, and was so moved by the panorama that the Humboldtterrasse viewpoint is named in his memory. One of the few visitors to have a place in the city permanently named after them.

Born in Salzburg into a family of stonemasons. His 1842 paper describing the Doppler effect underlies radar, sonar, medical ultrasound, GPS, and astronomical redshift. A Salzburg native whose name has become universal across science and technology.

Born in Oberndorf bei Salzburg, the village where Silent Night was first performed. Kohr's central idea, that systems become pathological when they grow too large, was summarised as "small is beautiful" and adopted by his student E.F. Schumacher. A little-known but original mind born on the Salzach.

The founder of quantum physics. Planck was in the audience in Salzburg in 1909 when the young Albert Einstein gave his first public lecture on relativity. As the foremost physicist in Germany, Planck had been one of Einstein's most important early champions.