You know Marie Curie and Charles Darwin and Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein. But do you know about Frank Dukepoo, Liberty Hyde Bailey, Anna Botsford Comstock or Jim Bell?

You will if you close your textbooks, open your eyes and stare straight up at the Ithaca Sciencenter's new Wall of Inspiration to be dedicated on July 27 at 5:30 p.m. The Wall of Inspiration will honor 100 scientists, each with a 28-inch-square plaque, in the center's new NYSEG Foundation Community Room. Each plaque, which represents a donation of $3,000, includes the name of the scientist, a description of his or her achievements, a photo, a quote and a dedication from the donor.

"This is not a top 100 scientists list. This is a very personal display for donors to choose someone who was inspirational to them. We tried consciously to get people from all backgrounds. It's a very diverse group," says Charles Trautmann, the Sciencenter's executive director and Cornell adjunct professor of engineering. "There are Nobel laureates and emerging scientists. Inspiration could be from a teacher, a professor, or someone from the historical past. It's intended to be a fun-to-read exhibition and to be inspirational for kids."

Never heard of Grace Murray Hopper? She's on the wall, thanks to a donation by Joel and Cathy Zumoff. Hopper was a mathematician and the first woman admiral in the U.S. Navy. While a Vassar mathematics professor, she joined the Navy's Ordnance Computation Project at Harvard University during World War II. After the war, Hopper joined the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corp., which became Remington Rand and then Sperry Rand. She is credited with developing the computer programming language COBOL, which helped to usher in today's software-intensive world.

Cornell's American Indian Program donated funds for a plaque honoring the late Frank Dukepoo, a native American (Hopi) geneticist and an administrator of the National Science Foundation.Cornell is well represented on the wall. Included is Liberty Hyde Bailey, a Cornell agriculture professor and dean at the beginning of the 20th century, who many consider the father of modern farming. (Cornell made the donation for the Bailey plaque.) And there is Anna Botsford Comstock, the first female Cornell professor and arguably the mother of nature education. (Mary and Brad Grainger made the donation for the Comstock plaque.)

Who is Tracey McNamara, whose name is on one plaque? She is a Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine graduate who identified the similarities between encephalitis in birds and humans while working at the Bronx Zoo. Those findings led to the discovery of the West Nile virus. (The Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine made the donation for the plaque.)

Nobel laureate Hans Bethe, Cornell's J. W. Anderson Professor Emeritus of Physics, also earned a place on the wall. So did the late Carl Sagan, the Cornell astronomer who brought knowledge of the breadth of the cosmos via TV into millions of American living rooms. Jim Bell, a Cornell assistant professor of astronomy, made the wall for his research on the geology of Mars and for being an inspirational teacher. (James and Terry Byrnes donated the Bethe plaque, M&T Bank donated the Sagan plaque, and Kristian A. and Ida M. Christianson donated the Bell plaque.)

The Ithaca Garden Club chose botanist John Bartram, a pioneer of plant hybridization, for its donated plaque. The Ithaca Journal and the Gannett Foundation chose Johann Gutenberg, believed to have been the first European to print with movable type. Stone Travel picked Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly the Atlantic Ocean and the first to fly it alone.

The Wall of Inspiration is but one part of the Sciencenter's new wing opening in the fall. There also will be a discovery room, a teen technology clubhouse, an exhibit development shop, an early childhood area and an amphitheater.

"The wall is not just a big bronze plaque, it's a whole room," Trautmann said. "In fact, it's not just a whole room, it's a whole room and a hallway."

Related World Wide Web sites:

• Ithaca Sciencenter: http://www.sciencenter.org