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Favourite scientist / astronomer / mathematician

x6gas

By x6gas
in The Astro Lounge

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x6gas

x6gas

Posted
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I know we are all going stir crazy (in the UK at least) thanks to months of wall-to-wall cloud and I've seen a couple of "Favourite..." threads so here's another one to distract you from the cumulonimbus, nacreous, and nimbostratus.

What's your favourite scientist / astronomer / mathematician of all time?

Mine is greek geek Aristarchus of Samos. He reckoned on a heliocentric solar system in 200 and something BC, the best part of 2000 years before Nic Copernicus worked it out, and also figured out the order of the planets. Impressive stuff.

Unfortunately, almost all of his bodacious stuff got trashed with the destruction of the Library of Alexandria. I often wonder what other stuff had been postulated millenia ago and where we'd be now if that knowlegde hadn't been lost...

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sologuitarist61

sologuitarist61

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Michio Kaku - a brilliant scientist and he writes good simple to understand books on many subjects, string theory, cosmology etc. Has had some excellent science programmes on the Discovery Channel in the past also.

Favourite astronomer has the be Sir Patric of course (and not just because we share the same surname!). There have been others who have discovered far more or whose minds have unlocked never before known secrets, but Patrick has brough astronomy to the masses in this country and without him I doubt many of us would be pursuing the hobby today.

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Orange Haze

Orange Haze

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While I am woefully ill equipped to comment on scientists, I have to say my favourite astronomer is Sir Patrick Moore. I wrote to Sir Patrick when I was around 11 years old to ask advise about clubs and telescopes. Amazed it got to him as I think I only addressed it as Patrick Moore, BBC, London.

But get it he did and he personally replied to me with some great advise and words of wisdom. As an 11 year old kid I was star struck and bowled over. A true gent and I still have that letter today some 20 odd years later.

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x6gas

x6gas

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While I am woefully ill equipped to comment on scientists, I have to say my favourite astronomer is Sir Patrick Moore. I wrote to Sir Patrick when I was around 11 years old to ask advise about clubs and telescopes. Amazed it got to him as I think I only addressed it as Patrick Moore, BBC, London.

But get it he did and he personally replied to me with some great advise and words of wisdom. As an 11 year old kid I was star struck and bowled over. A true gent and I still have that letter today some 20 odd years later.

SPM definitely counts!

I am still amazed at the sheer quanity of stories there are about him taking the time to reply to letters, inviting people to visit and basically evangelising science in general and astronomy in particular on an individual basis. Utterly astounding. ;)

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George Jones

George Jones

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From an earlier thread about scientists that people would like to have met:

Einstein, as I have had a love affair with general relativity for more than 30 years. Also, a couple of others who haven't been mentioned, Paul Dirac (who theoretically discovered antimatter) and Kurt Godel.

I have been lucky enough to attend talks by a few biggies who are currently alive, and whom I greatly admire, e.g., Roger Penrose, Stephen Hawking, Eugene Wigner, and Steven Weinberg.

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ollypenrice

ollypenrice

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Feynman has to on the shortlist. Michael Farraday and Edward Emmerson Barnard rose from abject poverty and educational deprivation to become great men and great discoverers. Einstein and Bohr, both men who could think the unthinklable.

Decisions, decisions...

Einstein.

Olly

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John

John

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Having met Sir Patrick Moore a couple of times briefly and having been drawn into amateur astronomy by his book "The Observers Book of Astronomy" many years ago, he would have to be my favourite astronomer I guess.

I don't honestly know any mathematicians and it's far from a favourite subject with me so I can't offer a name there I'm afraid.

As for scientists, I was very impressed by Monica Grady (Natural History Museum) when I saw her lecture on meteorites and extra-terrestrial life a couple of years back and I've enjoyed her publications on meteorites as well as those by Walter Alverez on major impact theory. I've also enjoyed reading a number of books by Richard Dawkins including his work on evolution "The Greatest Show on Earth".

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Macavity

Macavity

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The discoverers of the Elements have always fascinated me...

As a kid (Aside from Astronomy) I was inspired by:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_T._Seaborg

A well thumbed late 60's paperback book.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Curie (Of course)

Not sure MC would've be a whole lotta FUN tho' :eek:

More distaff:

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

A (unsung) moral nuclear scientist?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chien-Shiung_Wu

A real "Mrs Wu" - unknown to George Formby?

Also, quantum mechanics aside, "Parity" in it's various guises has alternately fascinated / confused me. ;)

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JamesM

JamesM

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Patrick Moore as astronomer and Nikola Tesla with his advances in ectromagnetism. Though not strictly a scientist, his ideas and developments of Michael Faraday's earlier discoveries helped him become a pioneer in modern electrical engineering with many of his discoveries being of groundbreaking importance - true genius.

James

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WayBig

WayBig

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Tycho Brahe ticks all of those boxes and was nutty as a fruitcake by all accounts....metal nose (real one lost in a duel stemming from an arguement with a friend about who was the greater mathematician) clairvoyant dwarf, drunk-house-elk. He would have been a riot.

Did a lot of pre-telescope astronomy too

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Glen

Glen

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B cox!.. Moving on.

astronomer > Galilei Galileo for being banged up for being right, and the Jupiter thing.

scientist > Marie Curie for poking stuff that shouldn't be poked then writing her observations down.

Mathimatition > Newton for saying "hang on, i'll get back to you" then inventing calculus

A close second is Feynman for just being him.

That and the unsung heroes yet to be identified but still living.;)

And Sir P, Of course.

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Spikey

Spikey

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I'm just reading origin of the species so it's got to be Charles Darwin for me at the moment. But I also admire Hawking, Einstein, Hubble, Marie Curie, Newton .... so many.

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Hitesh

Hitesh

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My favourite mathematician has to be Bhaskaracharya, he makes Newton and Leibniz looks like school boys.

And favourite scientist hmmmm possibly Einstein, or even Leonard da Vinci, Darwin, planck, bohr,Turing: probably choose Leo mainly because he was the real renaissance man, truly a man ahead of his time

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Andymarrison

Andymarrison

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Maxwell (probably quite sadly, got goosebumps the first time I had Maxwell's equations explained to me in a lecture - just beautiful); Dirac; Einstein; Feynman; Gauss; Riemann; Hardy; Ramanujan; Chandrasekhar; Sagan (completely inspirational to me as a young teenager).

If I had to order them, I'd put Maxwell first, as the first to produce a proper "unified" theory of two forces previously considered separate. Or maybe Einstein...

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