Twitter is the source of a great deal of modern news, and scientists are often encouraged to tweet about their research. So what if Twitter had been around during the times of historic scientific breakthroughs and discoveries?

A lot of news these days comes from, or is about, Twitter. Entertainment magazines and shows seem to be entirely dependant on celebrity Tweets, like those fish that feed on the random things that fall out of a sharks mouth.

It's not all random utterances and spats though. Time magazine recently ran an article about the most intelligent celebrities on Twitter. And those of us in the science field are regularly encouraged to Tweet about our research.

But what if these two approaches were combined? What if famous scientists were on Twitter, at the time of their greatest discoveries? Obviously the vast majority of celebrated scientific discoveries occurred before Twitter even existed. But this is the internet, where nothing is impossible!

(Explanatory links in the titles, for those not familiar with the references)

Pythagoras on Twitter.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Andreas Vesalius on Twitter.

Tycho Brahe on Twitter.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Rosalind Franklin on Twitter. Photograph: /Dean Burnett

Charles Darwin on Twitter. Photograph: /Dean Burnett

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Thomas Edison on Twitter.

Erwin Schrodinger on Twitter.

Jonas Salk on Twitter.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Phineas Gage on Twitter.

Florence Nightingale on Twitter.

Ivan Pavlov on Twitter.

Alan Turing on Twitter.

Dean Burnett is, quite obviously, on Twitter, @garwboy