Favorite Scientists???

[rubinst4]

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VS Ramachandran

.

I always start out chuckling to myself when I watch his lectures, but I always end up amazed. He has a couple of good ones on TED

 

[Signifier]

Lagrange. Newton. Von Leeuwenhoek.

I also am a huge fan of Feynman.

And I second Tycho Brahe as most badass man in science.

And finally:

Pasteur!

 

[Elpenor]

Lawrence Krauss

 

[StudyShy]

Lagrange. Newton. Von Leeuwenhoek.

I also am a huge fan of Feynman.

And I second Tycho Brahe as most badass man in science.

And finally:

Pasteur!

I want Tycho's nose. Kepler rocks more than Tycho, though.

 

[ILikeDrugs]

VS Ramachandran

.

I always start out chuckling to myself when I watch his lectures, but I always end up amazed. He has a couple of good ones on TED

His book was required for my cog. neurosci. class several years ago. Very interesting.

http://www.amazon.com/Phantoms-Brai...2172/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1296005496&sr=8-2

 

[addo]

His book was required for my cog. neurosci. class several years ago. Very interesting.

http://www.amazon.com/Phantoms-Brai...2172/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1296005496&sr=8-2

It looks interesting... i think that might be the next book i read.

 

[goldenwest]

 

[mwall003]

Dr. Francis Collins!!! MD/Ph.D Director of the NIH.

 

[MedicineManACL]

Come on people:

Emil Fischer!!!, dude made a proof for solving structure of glucose!!!

 

[tkp]

Echoing many people here, Dick Feynman.

 

[Lokhtar]

The best science 'book' I ever read was Newton's Principia for the Common Reader. It's expensive and you may not want to get it - having just finished mechanics - but I'll tell you it's worth it. People have asked me why I hold Newton in the absolute highest regard - and this is why. It shows how a man several hundred years ago grasped the universe so eloquently and beautifully, and explained it with such breathtaking elegance that his feat may never be equaled. It shows the how massive the intuitive leaps that needed to be made were, and unbelievable way he connected these seemingly random phenomena and weaved them all into a coherent whole, inventing a new branch of mathematics to, in effect, invent a whole new branch of science.

With that said, you do need to be relatively comfortable with calculus to delve into the book, as it basically translates the proofs that Newton gave into modern math, and it's the type of book you have to work your way through slowly. If you don't have the background or the inclination yet, I would definitely suggest it at a later date.

If someone comes out and proves that everything we credit to Newton was in fact done by a group of a hundred people over the course of a century instead of in a few years of solitude by a single man, it would totally make sense and be much more believable.


So Newton ftw. Smartest man in history.

 

[AGLAIA]

Geek anthem

 

[addo]

Newton is also in my highest regard, but the question was about who was your favorite. Thats why theres a lot of mentions of not so giant scientists.

 

[TheMagician17]

Enough Said.

 

[CecilJacobson]

Dr. Francis Collins!!! MD/Ph.D Director of the NIH.

REALLY? I mean Really??? After I just went ahead and blasted him for spending the last few decades playing politics and being the perfect lap dog to the religious majority? He stopped being a scientist in the 1980's and became a bureaucrat. THUMBS DOWN.

As for Watson... at this point his getting a little over the top in his old age (my grandpa says ridiculous things too--at 88 he's allowed). A lot of the eugenics and test-tube-reproduction statements he's made have to do with the depression, guilt, and frustration of being a brilliant mind and children who suffer from diseases of the mind and body.

👎

 

[Frazier]

Craig Venter has an interesting life story.

 

[ILikeDrugs]

Dr. Miles Dyson, 1960-1995: cybernetics scientist and a high-ranking employee of Cyberdyne Systems Corporation as Director of Special Projects. He was the original inventor of the neural-net processor.

 

[JKinSC]

Dr. Miles Dyson, 1960-1995: cybernetics scientist and a high-ranking employee of Cyberdyne Systems Corporation as Director of Special Projects. He was the original inventor of the neural-net processor.

👍👍

 

[orthomyxo]

Nobody said Koch? I'm surprised. Unless somebody did...I'm too lazy to read the whole thread.

 

[Ursa]

REALLY? I mean Really??? After I just went ahead and blasted him for spending the last few decades playing politics and being the perfect lap dog to the religious majority? He stopped being a scientist in the 1980's and became a bureaucrat. THUMBS DOWN.
👎

So just because you have one opinion means someone else can't have a different opinion? Whew, let me know how that works out for the rest of your life.

 

[Holderlin]

Actually I'll have to add Galileo for being the first to break from the old Aristotelian metaphysics ushering in a new era in the history of the Western tradition, which while distracting philosophers with epistemology for 500 years, created the template for the scientific method.

Yeah so Thales FTW

Then Galileo

Then Schrodinger

 

[Etzio]

House MD

 

[Geneticist]

I think we can all agree that this guy is a stud muffin...

Nicolaus Copernicus

Galileo would be nowhere without that guy...

 

[muhali3]

Leonardo da Vinci was surely genius.

Agree. He had both depth and breadth of knowledge and expertise. The ultimate polymath.

 

[JESSFALLING]

Brian Cox - rock star particle physicist

I second “rock-star” physicist Brian Cox. If you're a doubter, check out his TED conference presentation on the LHC - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6uKZWnJLCM 🙂

 

[fizzgig]

Van Leeuwenhoek. Winning name, plus my mbio book says he referred to the things he saw under the microscope as "wee animalcules." That description is fairly precious.

 

[ILikeDrugs]

House MD

 

[tijames]

Worst Scientist To Walk The Face Of The Earth: Francis Collins. I've never come across a more spineless excuse for a scientific mind. This is what you need to be if you want to play politics, get funding, or get credit for the work of stronger men:
http://www.amazon.com/Language-God-Scientist-Presents-Evidence/dp/0743286391
Not one unique thought in the entire book.

Sounds to me like somebody is a little bitter about the fact that a man of faith is also a successful scientist. I could be wrong, but honestly thats how it came across.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Collins

Francis Collins, MD from Chapel Hill. PhD from yale (do you have that? I mean since Collins is so "spineless excuse for a scientific mind", you likely must be more accomplished). Director of NHIH. Leader of the Human genome project. The list goes on.

The main point: Think before you make an absolute statement.

 

[lorenzomicron]

In our time, Craig Venter has been forwarding some of the revolutionary ideas in synthetic biology.

• http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/craig_venter_unveils_synthetic_life.ht

Also, all time favorite scientist: William Harvey, who "discovered" the flow of blood. Bad-ass dude went to this woman's house; she was a witch, she said, because she had a magical frog, a "familiar", who had black blood. she went to get some iced tea or something; comes back to harvey vivisecting the frog. he exclaims, the blood was just the same as every other frog's. insane.

 

[Holderlin]

I think we can all agree that this guy is a stud muffin...

Nicolaus Copernicus

Galileo would be nowhere without that guy...

Copernicus catalyzed the revolution, Galileo carried it out.

I still gotta go with Galileo. He pretty much invented the modern scientific method.

 

[vivalavie]

Enough Said.

Bill! Bill! Bill! Bill!

 

[Iso4ane]

Beat me to it, but I would have to agree as a child he was awesome.

 

[tanay]

“I have a friend who’s an artist and he’s sometimes taken a view which I don’t agree with very 
well. He’ll hold up a flower and say, ‘Look how beautiful it is,’ and I’ll agree, I think. And he
 says, ‘You see, I as an artist can see how beautiful this is, but you, as a scientist, you take 
this all apart and it becomes a dull thing.

And I think that he’s kind of nutty. First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other 
people and to me, too, I believe, although I might not be quite as refined aesthetically as he is.
 But I can appreciate the beauty of a flower. At the same time I see much more about the
 flower that he sees. I can imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside which also 
have a beauty….

Also, the processes, the fact that the colors in the flower evolved in order to attract insects to 
pollinate it is interesting - it means that insects can see the color. It adds a question: Does 
this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms? Why is it aesthetic? All kinds of interesting
 questions which shows that a scientific knowledge only adds to the excitement and mystery 
and the awe of a flower. It only adds; I don’t understand how it can subtract.”

--Richard Feynman (from What Do You Care What Other People Think?)

 

[tanay]

I second “rock-star” physicist Brian Cox. If you're a doubter, check out his TED conference presentation on the LHC - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6uKZWnJLCM 🙂

His series "Wonders of the Solar System" is great. I do enjoy watching him 😉

 

[Geneticist]

Copernicus catalyzed the revolution, Galileo carried it out.

I still gotta go with Galileo. He pretty much invented the modern scientific method.

I was referring to the Heliocentric Theory, not the scientific method.

 

[Holderlin]

I was referring to the Heliocentric Theory, not the scientific method.

It was all part of the "scientific revolution", and Copernicus really started it all with his discovery.

 

[Doc of the Walk]

Nikola Tesla, the unsung hero of harnessing electricity.


I find it somewhat humorous that he and Edison had a fierce competition and then some time later, Nikola received an award for his work that was named after Edison.

 

[BadHorse]

Yes, you.

 

[mwall003]

REALLY? I mean Really??? After I just went ahead and blasted him for spending the last few decades playing politics and being the perfect lap dog to the religious majority? He stopped being a scientist in the 1980's and became a bureaucrat. THUMBS DOWN.

As for Watson... at this point his getting a little over the top in his old age (my grandpa says ridiculous things too--at 88 he's allowed). A lot of the eugenics and test-tube-reproduction statements he's made have to do with the depression, guilt, and frustration of being a brilliant mind and children who suffer from diseases of the mind and body.

👎

😱😱😱
I'm sorry I didn't see your comment. If I had I would've blasted you -- not. You seem to have a very close minded viewpoint. As someone else pointed out, his CV is incredible. Just because he believes in a higher power doesn't mean he's a bad scientist -- it's quite the contrary, he led the human genome, earned degrees from UVa, Chapel Hill, and Yale. He is now a huge advocate for personalized medicine utilizing genomics. I had the great opportunity to meet him last weekend and he is a very intelligent and well rounded SCIENTIST. He has the ability to speak intelligently while also having the skill to have a regular conversation about music or sports. Please do not speak poorly about Dr. Francis Collins. This man is awesome and what he has done for science is not debatable. His magnitude and impact on our understanding of genetics is largely due to Dr. Collins' dedication and leadership. Whether or not you believe in god, what Dr. Collins has accomplished is unquestionable. Please do your research before being closed minded and come on this board to discriminate and trashtalk with no relevant evidence to support your critique.

 

[mwall003]

Sounds to me like somebody is a little bitter about the fact that a man of faith is also a successful scientist. I could be wrong, but honestly thats how it came across.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Collins

Francis Collins, MD from Chapel Hill. PhD from yale (do you have that? I mean since Collins is so "spineless excuse for a scientific mind", you likely must be more accomplished). Director of NHIH. Leader of the Human genome project. The list goes on.

The main point: Think before you make an absolute statement.

👍
I also want to point out that Dr. Francis Collins was also featured in TIMES rock-star scientist feature.

 

[JaggerPlate]

L. Ron ... err wait, did you say Scient-ist?? Nevermind.

 

[oldyogurt]

I'm throwing a shout out for Alexander Borodin. Co-discoverer of the Aldol Reaction for you Organic Chemistry fans, but I knew him initially as the classical composer (link goes to "Prince Igor") and incidentally found out he was a chemist through Wikipedia.

As much as I like Leonardo I feel like it was easier to be a Polymath in Leonardo's day when the disciplines were not nearly as complex as they are now. Borodin is sort of a role model for me, being a successful bi-disciplinarian in the 19th century and his music is pretty good.

Dr. Miles Dyson, 1960-1995: cybernetics scientist and a high-ranking employee of Cyberdyne Systems Corporation as Director of Special Projects. He was the original inventor of the neural-net processor.

LOL this is the objective answer to the thread

 

[ILikeDrugs]

L. Ron ... err wait, did you say Scient-ist?? Nevermind.

Nah, but he was a smart guy.

“If you want to make a little money, write a book. If you want to make a lot of money, create a religion.” -L. Ron Hubbard

😉

 

[krispy]

madame curie

 

[krispy]

Nah, but he was a smart guy.

“If you want to make a little money, write a book. If you want to make a lot of money, create a religion.” -L. Ron Hubbard

😉

the whole silent birth thing just creeps me out

 

[JaggerPlate]

Nah, but he was a smart guy.

“If you want to make a little money, write a book. If you want to make a lot of money, create a religion.” -L. Ron Hubbard

😉

I read one day that he was worth like 200 -500 million when he died ... 😱

 

[JeetKuneDo]

Iron man was a pretty damn good scientist.

 

[ILikeDrugs]

the whole silent birth thing just creeps me out

Yeah, a completely silent birth seems kind of creepy, but I wouldn't be against a relatively calm and collected birth. Nothing like a bunch of screaming doctors, nurses, and family members to scare the heck out of a newborn.

I read one day that he was worth like 200 -500 million when he died ... 😱

According to wikipedia, and more specifically Forbes magazine, his net worth was $200 million... in 1982. That's $445 million today. He'd probably be a billionaire if he were alive today. He'd be right up there with the vatican.

 

[CecilJacobson]

😱😱😱
I'm sorry I didn't see your comment. If I had I would've blasted you -- not. You seem to have a very close minded viewpoint. As someone else pointed out, his CV is incredible. Just because he believes in a higher power doesn't mean he's a bad scientist --

http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2009/07/27/francis-collins-pollutes-science-with-religion/ WHY EVOLUTION IS TRUE AND FRANCIS COLLINS IS BAD FOR SCIENCE

...I guess I outed myself as a confrontational atheist (even though this is an anonymous site). Arguing for miracles does make you a bad scientist. Men like Francis Collins are biggest threat to scientific thought. If we accept divine intervention as plausible, if we rule anything "beyond question," if religion ever stops someone from asking "why?" than religion becomes poison. So yes, I am tired of respecting religion. Voodoo, Catholicism, Orthodox Judaism, Islam, they're all absolutely BONKERS.

-C.J.

 

[fizzgig]

Nothing like a bunch of screaming doctors, nurses, and family members to scare the heck out of a newborn.

Very comical mental image of literally EVERYBODY in the room screaming at the same time...😀