(-_-) Who is your favourite scientist? (-_-)..?

Desinishon

Desinishon

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    Hey everyone! Like title state, which scientist(s) you admire most? Any particular reason why you like that scientist? c:
     
    Tycho Brahe had a metal nose and a castle-observatory on a private island. That's Bond villain-level stuff there.

    Personally I really admire lots of the astronomers, particularly the older ones who had a lot less to work with and nevertheless made all kinds of discoveries and breakthroughs. Sitting out in the cold all night, traveling halfway around the world on an old timey boat, and doing years of mathematical calculations - that's some dedication.
     
    I really admire Dr. Brian May. Y'all may know him as the guitarist of the band Queen, but outside of music he is an astrophysicist.

    He wrote his thesis on zodiacal dust, which was a hardly-researched topic in astrophysics at the time he wrote his thesis.
     
    I mean, there's an enormous number of people who made famous discoveries or invented things that I could list here but I think instead I'll go with Neil DeGrasse Tyson simply because I have a great appreciation for his work bringing the sciences and skepticism into the public eye without being an asshat like Richard Dawkins.
     
    Yeah gp asshat lol xD

    Esper said:
    Tycho Brahe had a metal nose and a castle-observatory on a private island. That's Bond villain-level stuff there.

    Personally I really admire lots of the astronomers, particularly the older ones who had a lot less to work with and nevertheless made all kinds of discoveries and breakthroughs. Sitting out in the cold all night, traveling halfway around the world on an old timey boat, and doing years of mathematical calculations - that's some dedication.
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    Damn that's real villain level stuff xD ( I really didn't know that he has metal nose xD)


    Mine favourite one is the god of physics, awesome than all others, best in the world ( of science) the one and only Albert Einstein c: I admire him most. He was such a genius. He created such complex theories and mechanism that left everyone speechless. He always got criticized but he never gave up. He had his weak points also. In the course of unknown exploration of the natures secrets one has to take lead by assumptions, side-tracking and often retreating back in the absence of positive signals. The achievements create history and he has a lot many in his account. Only that matters while the rest of criticism is probably jealousy.
    C:
     
    gimmepie said:
    You know a scientist that doesn't get enough credit? Michael Faraday. He is responsible for so much of the modern world and is the father of electromagnetism but hardly anyone seems to know of him.
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    Faraday law xD bring back memories. There are so many underrated scientists like ... Nikola Tesla. He is best known for many revolutionary contributions in the fieldof electricity and magnetism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Galileo Galilei *damn awesome* c: . His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations, and support for Copernicanism. They're king of kings but nobody knows these guy :c But in my eyes they're cool and awesome guys and it never going to change c:
     
    I'm pretty sure if you ask me this question a few years from now I'd have a different answer lol. Right now two names come to mind- Charles Darwin and James Shapiro, and for the same reason. Charles Darwin needs no introduction, and James Shapiro is a Chicago University Microbiologist who's been working on some really important questions of genome science for the past few decades. Both of these scientists had a rather similar career shape: they spent years collecting and synthesizing data from very many fields (for Darwin, these fields ranged from paleontology and embryology all the way to population science; and for Shapiro, all major sub-disciplines in molecular and cell biology), and then they drew upon their immense knowledge of all of these disparate field to carve out entire paradigms for biology. For Darwin, it was (especially) natural selection, for Shapiro, it's this newfangled idea he has dubbed Natural Genetic Engineering (NGE). This latter is still controversial among scientific circles, but I think what counts here is the effort that went in in both cases. Anyone who's interested in Shapiro's ideas can look up his magnum opus titled Evolution: A View from 21st Century (warning: very technical, requires in-depth knowledge of different aspects of molecular and cell biology).

    Clearly, these thinkers did not content themselves with being just the average run-on-the-mill scientist- who's often nothing more than a glorified puzzle-solver, a data generating machine. What they sought to do is to take all of the extant data into account and weave a broad paradigm that can adequately explain said data. Their analysis ran at such a meta-level that, to my mind, they transcended the level of 'doing science' and became full-blooded philosophers in their own right.

    The reason these two motivate me so much is their purpose is what I see as being closest to mine as a scientist. Generate data, get acquainted with the field, progressively build your knowledge base- then do a comprehensive meta-analysis of all of this to produce an entire theory or paradigm- that's the model I hope to emulate (but may never achieve). That furthers our knowledge of the universe at such a fundamental yet intimate level. At the end of the day, that's what doing science is all about.

    [I'm aware that these were not the only two scientists to have achieved success at the level I've mentioned- I picked these two because they strike closer to my home. I'm a microbiologist by training, so of course I would mention Darwin to whom much of the modern science of biology is due, and Shapiro because his work is contemporaneous and addresses specific issues in biology I'm interested in]
     
    Lelouch said:
    Faraday law xD bring back memories. There are so many underrated scientists like ... Nikola Tesla. He is best known for many revolutionary contributions in the fieldof electricity and magnetism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Galileo Galilei *damn awesome* c: . His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations, and support for Copernicanism. They're king of kings but nobody knows these guy :c But in my eyes they're cool and awesome guys and it never going to change c:
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    I don't know if you can say Tesla gets no recognition anymore. These days most people seem to know that Edison was sham and that a lot of the respect he had in the past should have gone to Tesla. If only he'd gotten that respect when he was alive.
     
    gimmepie said:
    I don't know if you can say Tesla gets no recognition anymore. These days most people seem to know that Edison was sham and that a lot of the respect he had in the past should have gone to Tesla. If only he'd gotten that respect when he was alive.
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    I agree with this statement. I went for a long time not actually knowing both Edison and Tesla were in the same proverbial boat at one point. I thought each were stand alone until I finished reading through the book. I don't remember which book it was though...
     
    I agree with you GP that Edison was overrated and Tesla is getting the recognition he deserved. But still there is a large difference between people knowing Edison and Tesla. But in last both of them have contributed so much. C:
     
    archimedes!

    whenever i picture a "old-timey tech-using character class" i always think of archimedes

    my other fave is hypatia but she's more of a philosopher
     
    Charles Darwin and Norman Borlaug


    Between Charles Darwin's theory of natural and artificial selection, then Norman Borlaug putting that and multiple other theories into practice by helping starving populations of Mexico, India, and Pakistan grow more wheat then they ever had before.....

    it's saved billions. BILLIONS. of people.

    SUCK IT.
     
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