Who was the greatest scientific genius? (Page 2) superdream: Pythagoras Avicenna Plato da Vinci Albert Einstein Isaac Newton Aristotle Archimedes Al-Khwarizmi Rene Descartes James Clerk Maxwell Galileo Galileo Max Planck Erwin Schrodinger Stephen Hawking Charles de Coulomb Johannes Kepler Niels Bohr Sigmnd Freud Michael Faraday Nicolaus Copernicus Dmitri Mendeleev William Harvey jim-jim!: My vote goes to Vygotsky..... because somethings are so obvious but still need to be pointed out, espescially in a climate of intelectual suppression! Check out the "Zone of Proximal Learning" 261252: I have a really good observation, I think. We have more educated people today then ever in history but far and away and we have had for over one hundred years. Why then,when we talk of genius, whether science or art, do we always refer to past genius? It seems to me the greatest geniuses, by far, and the greatest number of them, by far, must be within the last hundred years or so. Outbackjack: The problem 261252 is that the majority of our great minds these days are put towards the most single minded of pursuits. Creating more artificial wealth for greedy corporations. riley75: Impossible to pick just one, of all the scientists throughout history. Most of them have been mentioned already. Except one modern scientist / inventor: Ray Kurzweil. There's a documentary film about him called Transcendant Man coming out sometime this year. It's incredible how little the public knows about him, considering how much he's already done. Usually when people *have* talked about him, they were dismissive because he's been off by a few years on some predictions. But he's done a whole lot more than make technology predictions. He started as a pioneer in electronic keyboards; and has since moved to optical character recognition, text-to-speech, speech recognition and language translation, and artificial intelligence. He's also been pushing along nanotechnology, and was heavily involved in the Human Genome Project. Not to mention the fact that he cured himself of diabetes by scientifically analyzing the proper diet. You don't get a whole lot more genius than that. jim-jim!: Edward Witten... here's why from wiki. In the 1980s, a new mathematical model of theoretical physics called string theory emerged. It showed how all the particles, and all of the forms of energy in the universe, could be constructed by hypothetical one-dimensional "strings," infinitely small building-blocks that have only the dimension of length, but not height or width. Further, string theory suggested that the universe is made up of multiple dimensions. We are familiar with height, width, and length as three dimensional space, and time gives a total of four observable dimensions. However, string theories supported the possibility of ten dimensions--the remaining 6 of which we can't detect directly. These "strings" vibrate in multiple dimensions, and depending on how they vibrate, they might be seen in 3-dimensional space as matter, light, or gravity. It is the vibration of the string which determines whether it appears to be matter or energy, and every form of matter or energy is the result of the vibration of strings. String theory then ran into a problem: another version of the equations was discovered; then another, and then another. Eventually, there were five major string theories, all based on a 10-dimensional universe, and all of them appeared to be correct. Scientists were not comfortable with five seemingly contradictory sets of equations to describe the same thing. In the mid 90s, a string theorist named Edward Witten of the Institute for Advanced Study and other important researchers considered that the five different versions of string theory might be describing the same thing seen from different perspectives. They proposed a unifying theory called "M-Theory", in which the "M" is not specifically defined, but is generally understood to stand for "membrane." M-Theory brought all of the string theories together. It did this by asserting that strings are really 1-dimensional slices of a 2-dimensional membrane vibrating in 11-dimensional space.  urbanhermit: It was our common ancestor who first asked how do we find the answer. Is this not the reason for science in tht first place.  kraljo: einstein is known as the pladgurist of the centry most of his theorys and inventions were other peoples id vote tesla  Bell214: This is Nos’ thread, but I like statistics, so let’s see how many scientific geniuses we have mentioned so far. 1. Leonardo da Vinci (8) 2. Albert Einstein (6) 3. Sir Isaac Newton (4) 4. Nikola Tesla (4) Nikola Tesla: The Forgotten Wizard Note: Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) was a man ahead of his time ― Tesla’s patents and theoretical work formed the basis of modern alternating current electric power (AC) systems, including the polyphase power distribution systems and the AC motor, with which he helped usher in the Second Industrial Revolution. Contemporary biographers of Tesla have regarded him as “the father of physics“, “the man who invented the twentieth century“, and “the patron saint of modern electricity.“ (See: http://www.netsense.net/tesla/) 5. Nicolaus Copernicus (2) 6. Johannes Kepler (2) 7. Galileo Galilei (2) 8. Rene Descartes (2) 9. Stephen Hawking (2) 10. Archimedes (2) 11. Max Planck (2) 12. Niels Bohr (2) 13. James Clark Maxwell (2) 14. Marie Curie 15. Mihajlo Pupin (long–distance telephone communication) 16. Milutin Milanković (Milankovitch cycles) 17. Charles Darwin 18. Pythagoras 19. Avicenna Note: Known as Abu Ali Sina Balkhi or Ibn Sina and commonly known in English by his Latinized name Avicenna (circa. 980–1037) was a Persian polymath and the foremost phisician and philosopher of his time. He was also an astronomer, chemist, geologist, logician, paleontologist, mathematician, physist, poet, psychologist, scientist, and teacher. 20. Plato 21. Aristotle 22. Al–Khwarizmi Note: Muhammad ibn Musa al–Khwarizmi (circa 780–circa 850) was a Persian mathematician, astronomer and geographer. His “Algebra“, written around 820, was the first book on the systematic solution of linear and quadratic equations. Consequently he is considered by many to be the father of algebra, a title some scholars assign to Diophantus of Alexandria (between 200 and 214–between 284 and 298 CE). In the twelfth century, Latin translations of his “Arithmetic“, which explained Arabic numerals, introduced decimal positional number system to the Western world. He was among the first to use zero as a place holder in positional base notation. The word “algorithm“ derives from his name, and the word “algebra“ is derived from al–jabr, one of the two operations used to solve quadratic equations, as described in his book. He revised and updated Ptolemy’s “Geography“ as well as writing several works on astronomy and astrology. 23. Erwin Schrödinger Note: Erwin Schrödinger (1887–1961) was an Austrian theoretical physicist who achieved fame for his contributions to quantum mechanics, especially the Schrödinger equation, for which he received the Nobel Prize in 1933. In 1935, after extensive correspondence with personal friend Albert Einstein, he proposed the Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment. 24. Charles de Coulomb Note: Charles–Augustin de Coulomb (1736–1806) was a French physicist, best known for developing Coulomb’s law: the definition of the electrostatic force of attraction and repulsion. The SI unit of charge, the coulomb, was named after him. 25. Sigmund Freud 26. Michael Faraday 27. Dmitri Mendeleev Note: Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev (1834–1907), was a Russian chemist and inventor. He is credited as being the creator of the first version of the periodic table of elements. Using the table, he predicted the properties of elements yet to be discovered. 28. William Harvey Note: William Harvey (1578–1657) was an English physician who was the first in the Western world to describe correctly and in exact detail the systemic circulation and properties of blood being pumped around the body by the heart. 29. Lev Vygotsky Note: Lev Semenovich Vygotsky (1896–1934) was a Russian developmental psychologist and the founder of cultural–historical psychology. 30. Ray Kurzweil 31. Edward Witten | Science Chat Room 1 Person Chatting Similar Conversations |
