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Favourite scientist / astronomer / mathematician

x6gas

By x6gas
in The Astro Lounge

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sologuitarist61

sologuitarist61

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I have to go for Michio Kaku - the Henry Semat Professor of Theoretical Physics in the City College of New York of City University of New York,

Have enjoyed his many appearances on TV over the years and his books are a great introduction to the many topics that he covers Try this link if you have never seen him before

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x6gas

x6gas

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Might be Heisenberg, but I'm a bit uncertain.

Sorry, couldn't resist it.

Allan

Tres bon!

The PhysSoc t-shirt for one of my undergrad years was Heisenberg...Probably the best uncertainty principle in the world (in the Carlsberg script, of course).

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TheMightyKong

TheMightyKong

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Fav mathematician? Newton - for inventing calculus.

Least fav mathematician? Newton - for inventing calculus.

Don't know much about the lives of other scientists but my vote is for Feynman but held the only one I've read a biography about. I keep planning to start QED at some point.

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studdedsole

studdedsole

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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. :icon_salut:

And Sir P, Of course.

Why so anally retentive regarding a scientist, (Brian Cox), who has done at least as much as Sir P to enlighten the conciousness of the general public and for many could be the only scientist they are able to name. The question was "Favourite scientist / astronomer / mathematician" not the greatest.

By the way what is a Mathimatition?

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x6gas

x6gas

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Carl Sagan

I'd have to chose Carl because he was such a big part of my first step into astronomy (Cosmos).

Fair cop. Same story here and truth be told I've only heard of Aristarchus because he's mentioned a few times in Cosmos...

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knightware2

knightware2

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I have a long list of highly respected mathematicians, scientists and astronomers, but without any doubt my favorite is Sir Isaac Newton. The Calculus and the Newtonian reflector design are significant parts of my life, so it's Sir Isaac for me. Think of where these fundamental pieces of math and astronomy have led since the 17th century.

Sir Patrick Moore wrote many of the books that I consumed in my early childhood, so he is a sentimental favorite. The rest of my list goes on and on!

- Phyllis

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Rihard

Rihard

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Isaac Newton, Jean-Dominique Cassini, Galileo Galilei, Nicolaus Copernicus.

And:

Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky (17 September 1857 – 19 September 1935) was an Imperial Russian and Soviet rocket scientist and pioneer of the astronautic theory. Along with his followers the German Hermann Oberth and the American Robert H. Goddard, he is considered to be one of the founding fathers of rocketry and astronautics. His works later inspired leading Soviet rocket engineers such as Sergey Korolyov and Valentin Glushko and contributed to the success of the Soviet space program.

http://en.wikipedia....tin_Tsiolkovsky

Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Biruni (born 5 September 973 in Kath, Khwarezm, died 13 December 1048 in Ghazni), known as Alberonius in Latin and Al-Biruni in English, was a Persian Muslim scholar and polymath of the 11th century.In his description of Sijzi's astrolabe's he hints at contemporary debates over the movement of the earth. He carried on a lengthy correspondence and sometimes heated debate with Ibn Sina, in which Biruni repeatedly attacks Aristotle's celestial physics: he argues by simple experiment that vacuum must exist;[21] he is "amazed" by the weakness of Aristotle's argument against elliptical orbits on the basis that they would create vacuum;[22] he attacks the immutability of the celestial spheres;[23] and so on.

http://en.wikipedia....ayḥān_al-Bīrūnī

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notaclue

notaclue

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Has everyone forgotten about Will Hay? He not only was a film star and stage actor during WWII but also astronomer and the finding of Hays spot. Also a trained engineer as well.

John Harrison. Gave rise to longitude and lived in Wakefield. Without him we may never have gotten the goto scopes working right today.

Scientist? Fleming stands out. Oppemhiemer is another.

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chiltonstar

chiltonstar

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Thomas Bayes - mathmetician and clergyman. His theorem is very widely used for example by teams to model F1 results during the race, by banks to work out the probability of loans being repaid (!!!), and in my own field, to model whether evidence in Court is best explained by the prosecution or defence explanation. It would also work well for estimating the probability that "UFO" sightings were indeed extra-terrestrial or not!

Chris

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Andy McK

Andy McK

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My maths teacher was quite a cool "dude" he put things into perspective for me, helped me so much (I'm a bit of a thickie)

I was quite dissapointed to find out recently that he was involved with 12 assistants in quite a complicated love dodecahedron. :p

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Hals

Hals

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The list is far too big to mention anyone in particular as there are so many great names - you pick him then think "hang on what about x who did this, y who discovered that etc"

Suffice to say we really do stand on the shoulders of giants.

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