I was going to do a Poll, but realized I would be handed my butt by the much more smarterer Doper Contingency on Scientist who Rock the World dood. and thought I would let everyone here give their two bits of linkage or summary of who their favorite(s) scientist are. Thus allowing lesser mortals a chance to learn about new people.
I’ll start off with heh The Big One: Issac Newton. As I like to tell my kids, " He discovered gravity man…"
I’ve often wondered why a movie has not been done on his fascinating life.
My favorite scientist is my daughter, but I am biased.
I’ve always kinda had an affinity for Robert Hooke, Johannes Kepler, and Nikola Tesla. Maybe because they were all strange ducks, and were somewhat overshadowed by contemporaries.
What is her field of study, oh biased one. Gotta spill!
Me
but I’m definitely biased.
For Important, Influential scientists, there are lots of good choices. I have an affinity for Thomas Young, who discovered or intuited a lot of things in very diverse fields (In mechanics, Young’s Modulus is named after him – and it’s pretty basic to most engineering design. In optics, Young’s Experiment is named after him. It’s the essential experiment proving the Wave Nature of Light. And he has a claim to translating Hieroglyphics, and certainly published well before Champollion). A recent biography was subtitled “the Last Man to Know Everything”
Definitely me. But if my advisor asks, it’s him.
James Clerk Maxwell - cool science and a funky life. I like that in a human.
Modesty is not required in your field?
Another good choice. In addition to his work in electricity and magnetism, thermodynamics, and optics, he once wrote a poem about a vampire.
Another great choice is John Herschel. He was the son of a musician-turned astronomer (William Herschel*) who discovered the first planet since Classical times. The son finished his father’s task of mapping the skies, built one of the biggest telescopes in the world, contributed to the new field of photography, did work on diffraction, was a great popularizer of science (especially astronomy), was an avid user of the camera lucida (and left hundreds of sketches), invented a photometer, and translated the Iliad into English in iambic hexameter.
*Whose sister was a noted astronomer, too.
Albert Einstein, not only because of his genius, but because he was an acquaintance of my grandfather.
Me.
Followed by Rudolph Virchow.
A tie between Alan Turing and Charles Darwin for me.
What? No one’s elected Neil De Grasse Tyson, astrophysicist extraordinaire, public television host, and sexiest astrophysicist alive?
Modesty, as a trait in scientists, has undergone several generations of severe negative selection.
I’m partial to Tycho Brahe, just because he was a brilliant astronomer while also being a complete badass, and did all kinds of crazy things seemingly without caring what anyone else thought. He lost his nose in a sword duel, he kept a dwarf in his castle because he thought he was able to see into the future, he owned an elk that died when it fell down the stairs because it was drunk. He was clearly nutty, and he clearly didn’t care.
Fenymann or Galton I think. Not so much for their science but for being all round good eggs 
You took mine! :mad:
Tycho Brahe is a cool runner up for me. I’d also say Richard Dawkins, mostly because he’s never going to win Miss Congeniality. And mad props to Robin Baker.
But I’m going to have to go with Steven Hawking, just for the rock star aspect.
Probably Faraday, electric motors some what important!
Oppenheimer. Smart and quotable!
Actually, Faraday.