List of Famous people who are 78

Marta Ptaszyńska is a Polish composer, percussionist and professor of music at the University of Chicago. She has been described by the Polish Music Center of the University of Southern California as "one of the best known Polish woman composers" as well as "a virtuoso percussionist specializing in performances of contemporary music".

Peter Robert Law is a British actor and educator, and the father of actor Jude Law and artist Natasha Law.

Klaus Peter Richard Otto Zumwinkel was Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Chairman of Deutsche Post between 1990 and 2008. Being under suspicion of tax fraud, he resigned from office on February 15, 2008. He was convicted in January 2009, and given a suspended sentence of two years imprisonment and fined one million euros.

Manfred Theodor Reetz is a German chemist and professor of organic chemistry, who served as director of the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research from 1991 until 2011. His research focuses on directed evolution, enzymes in organic chemistry, and stereoselective biocatalysis.

Louis E. Brus is the S. L. Mitchell Professor of Chemistry at Columbia University. He is the discoverer of the colloidal semi-conductor nanocrystals known as quantum dots.

Thierry Romain Camille Jordan is a French prelate of the Catholic Church who was Archbishop of Reims from 1999 to 2018. He was previously Bishop of Pontoise for more than a decade.

Hans-Adalbert Rürup is a German economist and former chairman of the German Council of Economic Experts. He was formerly a professor of economics at the Darmstadt University of Technology. From 2010 to 2012 he was president of the International School of Management in Dortmund. In 2013 he changed into the ISM's board of trustees and took up a position as the president of the newly founded Handelsblatt Research Institute.