Who is the Most influential Scientist in history?

[Mr. Blonde]

Interesting question. Newton was outstanding as was Einstein or the fathers of quantum physics. Tesla and Edison were more inventors that scientists, imo.

Has anyone considered Sigmund Freud? I know you can say that psychoanalysis is no "real" science and that his theories were crude and soon outdated. But the question was about influence and not about brilliance and I would say that Freud and his psychoanalysis changed the way we percieve ourselves fundamentally. I would consider applying science to our personalities a quantum leap in thinking.

 

[thetrooper]

Who is the Most influential Scientist in history?

I want to nominate a few mathematicians: Euler, Leibniz, Laplace...

They changed our approach to natural sciences and of course mathemathics itself.

I won't claim that they are the most influential scientists in history, but it's worthwhile to appreciate their contributions to get a 'better' understanding of all physical phenomena around us.

 

[Plotinus]

I would consider applying science to our personalities a quantum leap in thinking.

In that case you should probably be nominating Aristotle once again - the "Nicomachean Ethics" is basically that.

Or for a more mathematical approach, Spinoza is unsurpassed! Although I don't think he would normally be considered a scientist, even with all those definitions, proofs, and lemmas.

 

[IamSid]

What make henry ford so important is because he was the guy that invented Mass Production and thus he was the guy that got cheap production for the common man so that things became alot cheaper. So Ford does deserve some recognition for his achievements.

And he was one of the biggest jew haters of his time!!

 

[thetrooper]

And he was one of the biggest jew haters of his time!!

Totally irrelevant in this thread. Feel free to open a thread about the topic though.

 

[Hornblower]

The genius that discovered that Pizza and Beer form what is undisputably the most powerful bond in the scientific world.

 

[Verbose]

What make henry ford so important is because he was the guy that invented Mass Production and thus he was the guy that got cheap production for the common man so that things became alot cheaper. So Ford does deserve some recognition for his achievements.

But standardisation and mass production weren't exactly inventions of Ford's.

He did of course set up the first conveyor belts in his factory, got production up and prices down.
(At the price of quickly wearing his employees out. If you cold stomach the pace indefinately, working for Ford could make an average guy rich. Most didn't though, and the turnover of employees at Ford was enormous.)

In a sense, what Ford did was run the process of the industrial scale Chicago slaughter-houses, set up in the 1870's in, reverse. Chicago was where the first conveyor belt systems appeared, and the rationalisation of work, breaking a process down into minute parts, where each employee got a specific task.

In Chicago cows went in, were dismantled in their constituent parts, packaged and carted away to be sold.
In Ford's factories, the parts for the cars went in, were assembled and then rolled out to be sold.

 

[onejayhawk]

I want to nominate a few mathematicians: Euler, Leibniz, Laplace...

They changed our approach to natural sciences and of course mathemathics itself.

I won't claim that they are the most influential scientists in history, but it's worthwhile to appreciate their contributions to get a 'better' understanding of all physical phenomena around us.

Back to Netwon, to go with Liebnitz. Calculus is indispensible.

J

 

[RickFGS]

Pedro Nunes of Portugal, in the XVI century, which proposed for the first time the loxodrómica line first tested from Recife to Lisboa, wich allowed sea travels to be correctly measured by constantly adapting the route to the earths globe inclination, before him navigators just calculated on a straight line across a chart and guided themselves trough the compass, making for a lot of errors on time travel plannings and locations.

http://www.mat.uc.pt/~jfqueiro/cienciaislamica.htm

 

[Xshayathiya]

I am for Copernicus. Newton was very influencing indeed, but: He cheated. He used the ideas of other scientists as own ideas.

Adler

as Rambuchan already pointed out, the same applies to of Copernicus (see Nasir Al-Din Tusi)

To me, Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Khwarizmi and Omar Khayyam come to mind. For the rest of my slightly biased list see here.

PS Furthermore, Einstein of course. And as one of the fathers of my chosen field of study, I guess Enrico Fermi deserves some of my favour. I would also say Faraday, but he was strictly an engineer if you want to get technical.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

My vote might go to the man ( I forget his name, and am ashamed for it) who discovered the electron, this was the great discovery that led to the understanding of the atom we have now, and everything in between

 

[Xshayathiya]

I think you mean JJ Thomson.

 

[Steph]

Pedro Nunes of Portugal, in the XVI century, which proposed for the first time the loxodrómica line first tested from Recife to Lisboa, wich allowed sea travels to be correctly measured by constantly adapting the route to the earths globe inclination, before him navigators just calculated on a straight line across a chart and guided themselves trough the compass, making for a lot of errors on time travel plannings and locations.

A loxodromy is a route following a constant heading. It doesn't "adapt constantly to the earths globe inclination". It is the easiest route to follow for a plane or ship (if you don't take the magnetic variation into account).
However, it is not the shortest route. The shortest route is an orthodromy, with an heading that continously varies along the route (except when following a meridian). But these routes are very difficult to follow with a compass, as it requires constant calculation of the headings. They are followed by planes guided by a radioelectric beacon (as the signal follows the shortest path, ie the orthodromy).

 

[Naskra]

Newton's achievement was to abolish the distinction between the celestial and the sublunar. He showed that the fall of an apple, the motions of the stars and even the flow of the tides were manifestations of one universal cause. He displayed the power and scope of natural science to a measure that no one before had conceived and lit a beacon that dimmed the lights of
all who preceded him and lighted the path of all who followed.

 

[Steph]

Someone said "You had tto be a genius as Newton to see that the Moon is falling when everyone see it doesn't fall"

 

[Naskra]

Contra Aristotle: Prestige is not influence. Any of the luminaries mentioned in this thread might have said he stood on the shoulders of giants, but I'll warrant not one would have Aristotle in mind. The advancement in science in modern times has been largely in inverse ratio to Aristotle's influence.

Not his fault, of course. He was a wonder of the ancient world with many endearing qualities. And one helluva peripatetic. The poor fellow had just too much common sense to ever get beneath the surface of things.

 

[RickFGS]

A loxodromy is a route following a constant heading. It doesn't "adapt constantly to the earths globe inclination". It is the easiest route to follow for a plane or ship (if you don't take the magnetic variation into account).
However, it is not the shortest route. The shortest route is an orthodromy, with an heading that continously varies along the route (except when following a meridian). But these routes are very difficult to follow with a compass, as it requires constant calculation of the headings. They are followed by planes guided by a radioelectric beacon (as the signal follows the shortest path, ie the orthodromy).

When i put adapt i mean you have to make mathematical calculations (as you yourself say) to keep on route, which for the time XVI century was revolutionary.

 

[Steph]

When i put adapt i mean you have to make mathematical calculations (as you yourself say) to keep on route, which for the time XVI century was revolutionary.

Read again my post. Loxodromies are the EASIEST route to follow, because they are define by a CONSTANT heading, meaning you have NO calculation do to keep on route with a compass.

 

[YNCS]

Nobody has mentioned Francis Bacon (later Lord St Alban). Bacon proposed using inductive reasoning, which separated science from natual philosophy.

 

[Verbose]

Newton's achievement was to abolish the distinction between the celestial and the sublunar. He showed that the fall of an apple, the motions of the stars and even the flow of the tides were manifestations of one universal cause. He displayed the power and scope of natural science to a measure that no one before had conceived and lit a beacon that dimmed the lights of
all who preceded him and lighted the path of all who followed.

Already Gallileo removed the distinction between sub- and supralunar distinctions.

What Newton's physics introduced was an absolute concept of time, among other things. Prior to that, in both Aristotelian qualitative and Cartesian quantitative physics, time was relative.