While getting married is surely one of the most wonderful things in the world, there are some people out there who don’t seek romantic relationships. There’s nothing to blame for that, however, and it’s also the case for plenty of famous scientists who revolutionized the world we live in through their knowledge.
Last time, we spoke about some of the most influential scientists in history who never had children. This time, it’s time to mention a few brilliant minds in history who decided not to get married. Without further ado, let’s cut to the chase:
Gregor Mendel (1822-1884)
Gregor Mendel was a German-Czech mathematician, biologist, and meteorologist, and he was known for his work on pea plants, which led to the discovery of fundamental laws of inheritance. He concluded that genes come in pairs and are inherited as different units, one from each of the parents. The scientist even tracked the segregation of parental genes and how they look in the offspring as recessive or dominant traits.
Despite being such a brilliant mind, Mendel never got married. He was also an Augustinian friar and abbot, which might have contributed to his decision of not wanting a life partner.
Paul Dirac (1902-1984)
Paul Dirac, an English physicist, is one of the brightest scientists in history, as he is known for being one of the founders of quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics. He laid the foundations of quantum field theory.
Despite having such enormous contributions to science, Paul Dirac never got married. He was known as having a reserved and introverted personality, which might have represented the reason for not gaining a strong bond with a woman.
Nikola Tesla (1856-1943)
Nikola Tesla, the famous Serbian-American inventor and also an electrical engineer known for having crucial contributions in the field of modern alternating current (AC) electricity system, never got married and didn’t have any offspring. It is believed that Tesla didn’t even have any affairs with women and that he believed a lot in the possible benefits of semen retention. The sources indicate that Tesla believed that as much as a man chooses not to have sexual encounters, all that sexual energy can be transformed into intellectual energy.
Nikola Tesla was likely too dedicated to his scientific work, so he didn’t find interest, pleasure, or time to find a life partner.
Isaac Newton (1643-1727)
Isaac Newton is also one of those men who decided never to have any sexual intercourse with women, as he likely remained a virgin his whole life. Known as an exceptionally bright mind and one of the most influential scientists in history, Newton formulated the laws of classical mechanics and universal gravitation, among many other important scientific contributions. He was a physicist, an astronomer, theologian, alchemist, and a mathematician.
Alan Turing (1912-1954)
Alan Turing had a crucial role in the development of computer science, as he was a British computer scientist and mathematician. The man’s work on the Enigma code that he had during the Second World War is also of high importance.
Alan Turing never got married because he was a homosexual, and his sexual orientation was criminalized in the UK. He was even prosecuted for his homosexual acts.
If we look a bit into history, we can find out that in ancient Rome, organizing an extravagant and lavish wedding represented a status symbol. One Roman emperor decided to impose a tax on those men who chose to remain bachelors. The reason for such a tax was that marriage was considered as a way to produce future soldiers for the army, and the emperor believed that those men who chose not to get married were trying to avoid their civic duty.
