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Favorite Scientists

donald byrd 4 EVA
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Uncle Skid Rookie

Uncle Skid

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Carl Sagan... for a whole bunch of reasons, the first of which is for writing one of my favorite books The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark.

Also, Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Dawkins come to mind.

J Larsen Newbie

J Larsen

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Feynman and Einstein, hands down. They may not have been the most noble man in the world, but they both had incredible physical insight and a very cool way of thinking about fundamental physics.

Honorable mention to Poincare, who worked in chaos way before it was trendy (or even had a name) and also is considered by some to be the true father of relativity theory.

Least favorite might have to be Ed Witten. He was one described as Einstein and Feynman rolled into one, but I have come to the conclusion that he is the exact opposite of them. His work and way of approaching physics have done a lot of damage to the subject, IMO. OTOH, he really is a great guy...

Favorite old-school scientist = Galileo.

Favorite mathematician = Hilbert. Incredible researcher, and (depending somewhat on your POV and who you believe) beat out Einstein to the theory of General Relativity. Honorable mention to Godel.

Favorite biologist = Darwin - no contest.

Favorite chemist = Curie, no contest.

Ultimate favorite - probably Feynman, if only because he was so much more obviously ahead of his peers than Einstein, and as a physicist (even if I am currently getting a paycheck for work in economics) I have to pick one of my own. :)

T.D. Mentor

T.D.

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...

Least favorite might have to be Ed Witten. He was one described as Einstein and Feynman rolled into one, but I have come to the conclusion that he is the exact opposite of them. His work and way of approaching physics have done a lot of damage to the subject, IMO. OTOH, he really is a great guy...

...

Interesting. I'm not a physics expert, but recently read Smolin's The Trouble With Physics and can appreciate your POV...

J Larsen Newbie

J Larsen

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Favorite chemist = Curie, no contest.

Pierre or Marie?!?

Intentionally ambiguous. :)

(Although I personally consider Pierre to be more of a solid-state physicist - but in some sense that's about as close as you get to being a chemist within physics.)

Edited by J Larsen
J Larsen Newbie

J Larsen

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Schroedinger and Pauli deserve mention - Pauli is most well known for his work in quantum mechanics, but he did important work in relativity as well. Liebnitz also deserves mention, as recent historical evidence tends to support the idea that Newton really stole some of his best work from him.

An unsung hero of modern phyiscs is John Bell, who devised a way to experimentally demonstrate that Einstein was wrong and god really does play dice. Absolutely ingenious (and incredibly simple!).

BruceH Newbie

BruceH

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I've long had a lot of admiration for Niels Bohr.

(Leo Szillard is another favorite; right on, conn!)

For mathematicians: Leonard Euler (not that I really understand much mathematics, mind you.)

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