Who was the greatest scientist/engineer of all time 12

[friartuck]

I don't know whether anyone has asked this one before but I was interested to hear who would be considered the greatest scientist or engineer of all time.

I can think of many from the dim and distant past including Archimedes, Leonardo Da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Louis Pascal and the great Einstein. How would the modern day scientists rate when compared to these great people.

Which one had the greatest impact on our lives?

And if they were all alive today....with the added benefit of computers and the W.W.W., just think what they could have achieved (perhaps computers might even have hindered them...who knows?)

Any thoughts?

Friar Tuck of Sherwood

 

[notnats]

After Edison invented the light bulb, before he could sell any, he had to develop a power generation and distribution system, lamp holders, and all the associated hardware. That's what I call marketing. Pity he chose DC, I guess his mind was on other things (phonography, cinematography etc) that day.

Jeff

 

[johnwm]

Check up on the actual history of the light bulb. Edison built on the previous success of many other inventors. The bamboo filament by the English inventor Swann is generally recognised as the first practical light bulb, which he did not patent.

Edison purchased other peoples patents to continue his development, and is without doubt a great entrepreneur. For details,

http://www.mysteriesofcanada.com/Ontario/first_electric_light_bulb.htm

Good Luck
johnwm
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[Montemayor]

For those not familiar with Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the following facts may influence you:

* One of his first tunnel projects in London (together with his father) resulted in its collapse and killing many of his workers.

* He terminated his brilliant engineering exploits by launching the Great Eastern in 1858, "the grandest ship the world had ever seen". It was so grand that it resulted in his death by over-stress (or embarrasment) in 1859 when it was found the ship was only 25% as fuel efficient as Brunel had predicted or calculated.

For Greatness in achievement, study, experimentation, and application in pure engineering my vote has to go to Michael Faraday - an exemplatory engineer and human being who never even finished high school but showed us all how to contribute to our society.

Art Montemayor
Spring, TX

 

[johnwm]

For a clearer and more detailed look at Brunel's Thames tunnel story see:

http://www.fls.org.jm/users/worldeng/thamest/thamest.html

Good Luck
johnwm
________________________________________________________
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UK steam enthusiasts:

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[25362]

Those who know say that the englishman Paul Dirac (quantum mechanics and relativity, anti-particles, spin, etc.) was the most brilliant mind (Physics and Mathematics) in the history of humankind.

 

[Heckler]

A good book that illustrates engineering and science is: The Five Equations That Changed the World, as told by Dr. Guillen, are not only chronicles of science, but also gripping dramas of jealousy, fame, war, and discovery.

The individuals are Issac Newton (universal gravitation), Daniel Bernoulli (hydrodynamic pressure), Michael Faraday (electricity and magnetism), Rudolf Clausius (thermodynamics), and Albert Einstein (special relativity).

Best Regards,

Heckler

"Never underestimate the power of very stupid people in large groups" John Kenneth Galbraith

 

[CRG]

25362, you stated, "Those who know ..." Does that mean the rest of us do not know? Perhaps the rest of us were brought up in a less nurturing environment and we are misguided.

 

[25362]

CRG, please don't take exception to what I said. I should have said, those who say they know. No deliberate alienation, patronising or derogation meant. Sorry.

 

[imagitec]

Og, 20,000 B.C. Pioneer of fire engineering.

Rob Campbell, PE
Finite Monkeys -

http://www.livejournal.com/users/robcampbell

 

[0707]

All the ones that have been mentioned here have been great but nowadays we shouldn’t forget Bill Gates.

Luis Marques

 

[vtgeotech]

I know that I am showing my bias, but what about Karl Terzaghi. He practically invented moderned soil mechanics and geottchnical engineering. made a science where, before, much was guess work.

 

[Qshake]

Well, we could go on and on about the oldies...especially since some of them lack the one formality to which they are all undoubtedly, and perhaps wrongly, compared by and that is the degreed scientist and engineers by which we know it today.

Hell, I like all the Greeks, Italians, English, French and others who have brought us here today. It's amazing to think what little things intrigued them to establish the laws of nature in a closed form understandable to the masses. Coloumb and earth pressure....in the 1700s no doubt. Of course even more abstract achievements are mentioned such as the circumference of the earth within 20% of what we can measure today.

Speaking of today, there was a question posed regarding the role of some of these great minds if they had computers and WWW. I wouldn't want to know....it might prove to have been a great distraction!!

That said and moving forward several centuries....

Stephen Timoshenko - What he did for engineering and structural mechanics.

George Housner - Development of the response spectra to characterize complex ground motion in a usable form for all engineers to use. Lets face it, most code applications have to be written for use by the practicing engineers and some are just not up to reading complex codes.

Joseph Penzien and Ray Clough on contributions to Structural Dynamics.

and Ray Clough for significant contributions to Finite Element Analysis. Of course, this method has its origin in mathematics and most likely in Britian and perhaps the USSR. But it was engineers who put it to good use!




Regards,
Qshake

Eng-Tips Forums:Real Solutions for Real Problems Really Quick.

 

[casseopeia]

I thought I might add this little tidbit from my final research project for an Astonomy class.

All features on Venus are named for women (in fact there is quite a complicated protocal) with the exception of James Clerk Maxwell. Maxwell Montes, Venus' highest peak, is named for the famed Scottish physicist. All those women and one Scottish man!

I KNEW there was a compelling reason to want to go to Scotland besides the sheep.

 

[haggis]

Probably the greatest engineer of all time was the Scot Hamish McHinery who compiled one of the most comprehensive texts pertaining to machanical engineering.

The shame of it all is that the publisher misspelled his name on the very first edition. They printed his name with a "Mac"instead of "Mc" and also omitted to capitalize the "H".

After numerous editions, the erronous title still reads Machinery's Handbook

Haggis

 

[ewh]

I have often wondered who started that book!

 

[IRstuff]

Reminds me of the classic crytography problem of finding the translation for:

cho pho use

TTFN

 

[NickelMet]

I'm going to have to give my votes:

Scientist: J.C. Maxwell (and his famous equations)

Engineer: Nikola TESLA (misunderstood GENIOUS whose ideas still circulate today) (take a look at -

http://www.neuronet.pitt.edu/~bogdan/tesla/)

Inventor/Improver: Thomas Edison (sometimes idea thief) I have respect for the man and his accomplishments, but as someone in another post stated, he wasn't always original.

And what about Henry Ford? Not an engineer or scientist, but made full use of the assembly line to mass produce automobiles? Love the line regarding his choice of colors (for the Model T, I believe): "You can have any color you want, as long as it's black."

~NiM

 

[macdonaldallan]

My choices are:

Old Times

Vitrivius - Roman engineer, some of his works are still in use.

Og - for fire.


Industrial Age

Whitworth - For micrometer and screw.

Tesla - For inventing A/C.

Parsons - For the gas turbine.

Brunel - Father and Son for bridges and ships.


Modern Age

Dr. Stan Hooker - Great engineer, tough taskmaster and teacher. Read his Bio: Not much of an engineer.

Harrison Storms - Moon Rockets and designer of the Saturn V stage 2.

Dick Rutan - Draws and flies outside the lines.

 

[Heckler]

"You can have any color you want, as long as it's black."!

Tobias Hobson (c. 1544-1631) was a Cambridge stable manager who let horses. He insisted customers take the horse in the stall closest to the door (the next one up) or take none at all. Hence, a Hobson's choice is no choice at all. He was made famous by Milton. The phrase dates to 1660.

 

[arto]

Simeon North & Interchangable parts (~1812)
led to the "American System of Manufacture"
too bad we don't do so much of that anymore :-(