Greatest Scientists Ever: Elimination Game

[septimus]

The first thread I participated in here, almost a decade ago, was “The President Elimination Game.” I learned a lot in that fun thread, and it introduced me to this message board…

@Tom_Scud

And with that, the game is over. By the process of elimination, the greatest US President is:

George Washington (None, 1789-1797)

Eliminated Presidents:

1. James Buchanan (Democrat, 1857-1861)
   …
2. Grover Cleveland (Democrat, 1885-1889, 1893-1897)
3. Thomas Jefferson (Democratic-Republican, 1801-1809)
4. James K. Polk (Democrat, 1845-1849)
5. Dwight Eisenhower (Republican, 1953-1961)
6. Harry S. Truman (Democrat, 1945-1953)
7. Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Democrat, 1933-1945)
8. Theodore Roosevelt (Republican, 1901-1909)
9. Abraham Lincoln (Republican, 1861-1865)

And for post-game celebrations, I will turn it over to Brad Neely, for his unforgettable but perhaps not entirely historically accurate (and not completely work-safe) tribute.

(Note that Polk edges out T. Jefferson for the Seventh Greatest President title. Dark horse Cleveland comes in Ninth!)

*The thread was started by Qin Shi Huangdi, then known as Curtis LeMay. The Great Emperor Qin is still around of course, recently posting on the same topic – Greatest American Presidents

@Qin_Shi_Huangdi

1. Abraham Lincoln
2. FDR
3. George Washington
4. LBJ
5. Harry Truman
6. James K. Polk
7. Thomas Jefferson
8. Barack Obama
9. Ulysses S. Grant
10. Theodore Roosevelt

Some of the other posts in that thread are interesting. I’d agree with

@Little_Nemo

I have to give Lincoln the nod over Washington if you’re looking for our Greatest President. If you’re going for lifetime achievement, Washington would win. But a large share of Washington’s reputation is based on things he did before becoming President. His presidency was pretty quiet. Lincoln had to handle a lot more as President than Washington ever had to in that office.

Surely we don’t need to wait the full decade to have
Greatest Scientists Ever: Elimination Game

We are now in Phase I — Nomination Phase.  Players may choose to add qualifiers (e.g. biology) to submissions.  Mod reserves all rights.  If we get fewer than 50 nominees, the Game is cancelled.

In Phase II, the set of nominees will be reduced to twenty finalists.  The final Phase III will rank the finalists.  Mod is not allowed to vote, but may break ties.  

Nominations, please?

[Quartz]

Let me offer a starter 13:

Einstein
Newton
Leibnitz
Darwin
Archimedes
Pythagoras
Eratosthenes
Galileo
Ge Hong
Zhang Heng
Galen
Brahmagupta
Al Khwarizmi

I’ll also offer that the farther back you go, the more nebulous the definition of scientist becomes.

[Dendarii_Dame]

Marie Curie
Sir Humphrey Davy
Robert Boyle
Barbara McClintock
Rosalind Franklin
Emmy Noether

[SCAdian]

Heisenberg
Pauling
Fermi
William Smith
Oppenheimer

[snfaulkner]

Wiki has lists.

[Prof.Pepperwinkle]

Euclid
Halley

[jtur88]

I’m going to add Marconi. He was on a very short list of thinkers who used a physical property that was not intuitively visible to common men, and apply it to practical use.

And Benjamin Franklin. Just because he did other things does not detract from his being a brilliant theoretical scientist. Wikipedia itemizes eleven different scientific principles to which Franklin contributed.

[Quartz]

I think an immediate sniff test for Western scientists would be to see if you could recognise them by only their last name.

And I’ll add Dalton to the list of nominations.

[Giles]

James Clerk Maxwell

[wevets]

Sounds great - a few nominations in no particular order…

Francis Bacon
Louis Pasteur
Paul Dirac
Lise Meitner
Edwin Hubble
Richard Feynman
Jonas Salk
Johannes Kepler
Nicolai Tesla

[septimus]

Here are the nominations so far, in alphabetical order:

Al-Khwarizmi, Muhammad ibn Musa - math, astronomy
Archimedes - math, physics
Bacon, Francis - philosophy
Boyle, Robert - chemistry, physics
Brahmagupta - math, astronomy
Curie, Marie - radioactivity
Dalton, John - chemistry
Darwin, Charles - biology
Davy, Sir Humphrey - chemistry
Dirac, Paul - physics
Einstein, Albert - physics
Eratosthenes - math, astronomy
Euclid - math
Fermi, Enrico - atomic physics
Feynman, Richard - physics
Franklin, Benjamin - physics, etc.
Franklin, Rosalind - chemistry, X-ray crystallography
Galen, of Pergamon - biology, medicine
Galileo - physics, astronomy, etc.
Ge Hong - philosophy, alchemy
Halley, Edmond - astronomy, etc.
Heisenberg, Werner - quantum theory
Hubble, Edwin - astronomy
Kepler, Johannes - astronomy, math
Leibnitz, Gottfried - math, physics, etc.
Marconi, Guglielmo - radio transmission
Maxwell, James Clerk - physics
McClintock, Barbara - genetics
Meitner, Lise - atomic physics
Newton, Sir Isaac - math, physics
Noether, Emmy - math
Oppenheimer, Robert - atomic physics
Pasteur, Louis - chemistry, biology
Pauling, Linus - chemistry
Pythagoras - math
Salk, Jonas - medicine, vaccination
Smith, William - geology
Tesla, Nicolai - physicist, inventor
Zhang Heng - astronomy, mechanics

Participants are free to define their own criteria for “greatness,” to advocate for their choices in the thread, and to suggest improvements for the very brief summary shown in the List.
I think several very important scientists are still missing. Feel free to contribute more names; encourage your friends to participate!

@snfaulkner

Wiki has lists.

Wholesale nomination by linking is not permitted. If any of those lists contain scientists you think should be nominated, please submit them individually. Following the precedent set by Quartz, no more than 13 scientists may be nominated in a single post.

[Aspidistra]

Aristotle
Ptolemy
Nicolas Copernicus
Pierre de Fermat
Niels Bohr
Bertrand Russell
Gregor Mendel

[Iggy]

Norman Borlaug

[Chronos]

Leonard Euler (mathematics)
Karl Frederich Gauss (astronomy, mathematics)
Carl Sagan (astronomy)
Murray Gel-Mann (physics)
Kip Thorne (physics)
Kary Mullis (biology)

I figure we need at least a few contemporary names on the list, and a great science popularizer.

[JohnT]

Most of my picks have been spoken, but want to give a shout-out to Edwin Hubble, without whom this game would be meaningless. IMHO, of course.

[septimus]

@JohnT

Most of my picks have been spoken, but want to give a shout-out to Edwin Hubble, without whom this game would be meaningless. IMHO, of course.

Ninja’ed by wevets in #10. But I agree Hubble is a good choice. How prescient of his folks to name him after the famous space telescope!

[Mahaloth]

@Iggy

Norman Borlaug

This is what I came in to say. Certainly a required person.

[Snarky_Kong]

Faraday.

Took to post 9 for Maxwell? Tsk tsk.

I think a lot of this will come down to criteria. Is science that has a lot of applications better? Is revolutionary better than incremental improvement? Depth vs breadth of contributions?

Interesting thread.

[Little_Nemo]

A few more nominations:

Fritz Haber - Controversial figure. Chemist who invented artificial fertilizer and gas warfare.
Maurice Hilleman - Biologist who developed dozens of vaccines. Saved more lives than any other person in history.
Justus von Liebig - One of the founders of organic chemistry and a great practical scientist.
Albert Michelson - One of the first astronomers to measure the speed of light. First American to win a Nobel Prize in science.
Edward Morley - The other half of the Michelson-Morley experiment. Did major work in astronomy, chemistry, optics, and physics.
Ernest Rutherford - Major figure in nuclear physics. Advanced atomic theory and explained radioactive decay.

[septimus]

We’re up to sixty nominations already. Let’s shoot for an even hundred!
Al-Khwarizmi, Muhammad ibn Musa - math, astronomy
Archimedes - math, physics
Aristotle - philosophy, geology, biology, etc.
Bacon, Francis - philosophy
Bohr, Niels - atomic physics
Borlaug, Norman - agronomics
Boyle, Robert - chemistry, physics
Brahmagupta - math, astronomy
Copernicus, Nicolas - astronomy
Curie, Marie - radioactivity
Dalton, John - chemistry
Darwin, Charles - biology
Davy, Sir Humphrey - chemistry
Dirac, Paul - physics
Einstein, Albert - physics
Eratosthenes - math, astronomy
Euclid - math
Euler, Leonhard - math
Faraday, Michael - electromagnetism, etc.
Fermat, Pierre de - math, optics
Fermi, Enrico - atomic physics
Feynman, Richard - physics
Franklin, Benjamin - physics, etc.
Franklin, Rosalind - chemistry, X-ray crystallography
Galen, of Pergamon - biology, medicine
Galileo - physics, astronomy, etc.
Gauss, Karl - math, astronomy
Ge Hong - philosophy, alchemy
Gell-Mann, Murray - physics
Haber, Fritz - controversial figure; chemist who invented artificial fertilizer and gas warfare.
Halley, Edmond - astronomy, etc.
Heisenberg, Werner - quantum theory
Hilleman, Maurice - biologist who developed dozens of vaccines; saved more lives than any other person in history.
Hubble, Edwin - astronomy
Kepler, Johannes - astronomy, math
Leibnitz, Gottfried - math, physics, etc.
Liebig, Justus von - one of the founders of organic chemistry and a great practical scientist.
Marconi, Guglielmo - radio transmission
Maxwell, James Clerk - physics
McClintock, Barbara - genetics
Meitner, Lise - atomic physics
Mendel, Gregor - genetics
Michelson, Albert - one of the first astronomers to measure the speed of light; first American to win a Nobel Prize in science.
Morley, Edward - the other half of the Michelson-Morley experiment; did major work in astronomy, chemistry, optics, and physics.
Mullis, Kary - biology
Newton, Sir Isaac - math, physics
Noether, Emmy - math
Oppenheimer, Robert - atomic physics
Pasteur, Louis - chemistry, biology
Pauling, Linus - chemistry
Ptolemy - astronomy
Pythagoras - math
Russell, Bertrand - math
Rutherford, Ernest - major figure in nuclear physics; advanced atomic theory and explained radioactive decay.
Sagan, Carl - astronomy
Salk, Jonas - medicine, vaccination
Smith, William - geology
Tesla, Nicolai - physicist, inventor
Thorne, Kip - physics
Zhang Heng - astronomy, mechanics
When Phase II begins, eliminations will be fast and furious! So advocates for dark horses like Ge Hong may want to start campaigning now. I may incorporate suggested bio synopses as I did with Little Nemo’s nominees.

@Snarky_Kong

I think a lot of this will come down to criteria. Is science that has a lot of applications better? Is revolutionary better than incremental improvement? Depth vs breadth of contributions?

It will be hard to agree on criteria. Genius versus Influence — often they don’t go together. Feel free to debate in-thread which criteria are most appropriate.