Who is the greatest scientist of all time

seriously wtf is up with tesla?

it it just because he is last on the list? there is no way tesla should be before gauss, feynman,dirac or maxwell. He shouldn't even be in the top 15 as far as i'm concerned.
 
I think its because people think pretty small. "He made AC = created the internet, and I use that, so he must be the greatest"

Furthermore, many of his lightning experiments were more urban legend than actual science.
 
nah it's because he's one of the only names people recognize and he's the most popular scientist to be portrayed in films. If Breaking Bad didn't exist maybe 3 people who posted in this thread would have actually heard of Heisenberg. And at that I bet most people think he was chemist.
 
It's interesting that most people credit Tesla with the invention of AC current because there were many more scientists that were present in the development of the technology.

Tesla was the one who applied for a patent first and because of this many people think he is the sole inventor of the AC motor, this however isn't true. Everything these scientists did was based off of Faraday's discoveries so I think he is much more important than Tesla or any other invention of the AC motor.

 
I would think that more people would know who he was, because of the uncertainty relation named after him, which taught (vaguely) to highschool students. Same goes for Schrodinger because of his cat.

I don't think people realize how influential the wave and matrix formulation of quantum mechanics were though!

although probably less people have heard of dirac who I think is more important than the other two. I mean he (along with some of arabians mathematicians) showed that the two formulations were the same, and is basically the father of second quantization. Basically he is my second favourite of the quantum guys (behind Feynman obviously).
 
Someone make a large informative post about Tesla and the controversies surrounding his work. Way too lazy to type that shit up myself.
 
awesome book. I have it on my bookshelf. it's basically his autobiography. feynmans rainbow is pretty good too.

it's like his third best book (behind quantum mechanics and path integrals, and of course the LEGENDARY Feynman lectures on physics.
 
My chem teacher is named Mr. Boyle and every time someone forgets Boyle's law he freaks out so I had to choose Boyle.
 
Probably Einstein. But you can't forget Maxwell’s and Faraday's impact.

Maxwell is kind of a hero of mine, and his achievements are definitely unrecognised in comparison to other well know scientists. His and Faraday's work on electromagnetism unquestionably changed the world forever.

Some quotes from other scientists about Maxwell.

Max planck on Maxwell:

"He achieved greatness unequalled."

Einstein on Maxwell:

"The special theory of relativity owes its origins to Maxwell's equations of the electromagnetic field."

"The work of James Clerk Maxwell changed the world forever"

Richard Feyman on Maxwell:

"From a long view of the history of mankind — seen from, say, ten

thousand years from now — there can be little doubt that the most

significant event of the 19th century will be judged as Maxwell's

discovery of the laws of electrodynamics. The American Civil War will

pale into provincial insignificance in comparison with this important

scientific event of the same decade.

"

 
Albert Hofmann

hofmann_albert4_med.jpg
 
I don't know if I would put Faraday in the same category as Maxwell (or Gauss).

I mean you have the early experimenters like Coulomb, Faraday, Ampere, and they basically discovered everything, but Maxwell's unification of electromagnetism is simply beautiful. Hell it was so amazing that it directly led to most of Einstein's most famous work.

Gauss is equally as influential as Maxwell in my mind, although probably not as a scientist. Gauss was a great mathematician though, and late-classical physics would not have been possible without his advances.

 
I've added some more that I forgot. Also cracked and added arabian's suggestions, because obviously they should be on there.

If you want someone else on this list, just post it. These are all mostly physicists, astronomers and mathematicians because they are the ones I know of! Any scientists are allowed on the list besides Dawkins because he is a complete dick.
 
I thought I had Pasteur on it?

I dunno if archemedes belongs on this list? I don't really know much history other than in modern science.

I thought those early philosophers were not into doing experiments to test their ideas?
 
I thought it was important to say Faraday as Maxwell expanded upon his experiments to form his equations. Also, the fact that he really didn't have any formal eduction, is incredible. But yeah he's probably not in the same category, but remarkable none the less.

Really not familiar with Gauss' work, but I've got a book called the little book of scientific principles, theories and things, which mentions his law and considers him as one of the greatest Mathematicians of all time along with Archimedes and Newton.

 
Some scientists that aren't mathematicians or physicists, that you might include.

Lyell, for his theory of Uniformitarianism and proving that the earth was billions of years old and not 6000, as was believed.

Double helix, Crick and Watson. Changed molecular biology and our understanding of life.

 
yeah but its hard to compare that to the huge volumes of work by other ppl. Not to mention, their discovery of the structure was so dependent on having stollen Rosalind franklin's image... its hard to say doing such a thing would qualify them as on par as some of the other greats.

 
Crick was more important in biology in general. He was the one to propose the central dogma of molecular biology.

For the DNA structure Franklin was just as or more important than either though.
 
I think impact and practical outcomes aren't very relevant in asking who the greatest SCIENTIST ever was. Advance in pure science should count. It's Einstein's World.
 
im not sure why the distinction between pure and applied science should really matter, often they go together. So many of the big breakthroughs in "pure science" have resulted from motives involved with the applied sciences.

a famous example is newton developing calculus to better describe the elliptical movements of the earth
 
This. Dude straight up invented science and his theories held sway over nearly all of Western science for 2000 fucking years.
 
It's actually the other way around. Theoretical science leads to practical use. (Although I do admit incentive matters)

Furthermore let's remember that it's about who the best scientist ever is. So should we be judging based on impact or the actual magnitude of discovery? Some applied sciences have changed the commercial world but without the formulas and theories they would not exist. People like Einstein and Hawking made discoveries much bigger than ourselves.
 
yeah i agree. i was just saying its not explicitly that way tho.

i think it should go to those that made the greatest leaps in their field RELATIVE to their colleagues.

Pure science is only as good as the means of applying it to life itself, so i disagree with holding one as drastically more valuable than the other. Also, many of the hallmark "discoveries" in the theory side of sciences are made by a person who is in the right place at the right time. If a given scientist didn't submit his idea, historically its been seen that there would have been a guy right behind him with a similar insight. For example if darwin had submitted the origin of the species a week later, we would know Wallace's name, not darwin.

What do you go for at uvm? i graduated last year in bio. Gotelli has some sick history of science shit in his ecology/evolutionary bio class
 
Anybody who thinks what tesla did matches or even comes near what einstein did is fucked in the head.

Einsteins leaps in intuition were earth shattering. Judging between him and dirac and feynman is silly- they were all immeasurable geniuses.

But einstein is in another ballpark than tesla
 
yeah go ahead and pose a very opinion-based question about the history of scientific development to a ski forum full of high school boys, most of whom have heard of MAYBE 5 people on this list.

im sure these results will be very conclusive
 
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