Most famous scientist query

[mandragora]

Who would any of you say is the most famous scientist - after Einstein - of all time. If you were to say that someone is so brilliant that they could be the next Einstein or [ ]. Who would the 'or' be?

For me the name that immediately springs to mind is Newton. But is that because I'm British? What if you're American? Or Canadian? Or any other nationality, come to that. (Yes, it is for a story). I mean, Newton is much venerated in Britain, but that could be partly because he was one hell of a self-publicist.

The other name I think of is Hawking. But, again, he's a Brit and he has the whole crippled genius thing going on, which makes him much more visible to the public's eye than your usual scientific type. I mean, to produce anything at all, let alone a best-selling book, when fighting against a recalcitrant body is amazing in and of itself and I don't know whether the calibre of his work is *that* well received by those who can actually critique it. Which most definitely doesn't include me (there's a reason I'm a lawyer and not involved in any type of work where scientific know-how is usually required).

Anyhow, all comments very welcome.

ETA And... we have a winner. That's four for four. Newton it is. Thank you all for your comments - very much appreciated.

Comments

[mandragora1.livejournal.com]

Interesting choices. And thanks for reminding me of them.

But the character in question is an astrophysicist who has been known to comment that medicine is not *real* science. He's talking to a medical doctor who is a leading geneticist at this point. So, I suspect he'd be a bit sniffy about them (he's such a snob, at times).

[filenotch.livejournal.com]

Well, speaking as a biomedical scientist, the practice of medicine isn't so much a science as an art. Many MDs would argue the point. There is good clinical research and such, so your geneticist is probably doing science in that field, just not while s/he's treating patients. IMnvHO.