Any list that doesn't include Sommerfeld is written by amateurs. But it's unsurprising. He's the best physicist no one has heard of.

Aside his long list of accomplishments which span pioneering work in all of physics, from QM, relativity, to fluids, he also accomplished:

- Arguably the father of QM, since the "founders" were all his students and built upon, or generalized his ideas.

- Four of his students got Nobel prizes. Three of his post-docs got the nod. One of them, Pauling, got two Nobel prizes. His students include Heissenburg, Debye, Bethe, Pauli.

- Nominated 84 times.

- His work on Special Relativity helped it gain acceptance

- Wrote some of the best physics books.