Inventors. James Watt
Leaders. Genghis Khan
Philosophy. Confucius
Science. Charles Darwin
Yeah, that’s what we’re going to do. When I was putting it together, I was thinking “damn, that’s a lot of work to get to the final 5. Let’s shorten my job!”
Now, I’m of the opinion “Let’s continue the process until we have The One.”
(I was also thinking of shortening the time between rounds, but I feel that will throw some people off, especially since there’s a published schedule in post 3.)
Invention. James Watt
Leader. Sui Wen Ti
Philosophy. Confucius
Science. Euclid
Two new faces: Sui Wen Ti because I really don’t know him and Euclid because I dislike geometry.
Of course, by the time we’re down to the final people, it might be a single voting round to get to the One. If everyone ranks their picks 1-5, a simple line up of votes could possibly solve the riddle of Who Left the Biggest Footprint. But… we’ll see how it goes.
Inventor. James Watt
Leader. Sui Wen Ti
Philosophy. Confucius
Science. Albert Einstein
Watt and Einstein are the new kids on the (chopping) block.
It may be too late to matter, but let me defend my choices anyway. 
Archytas, Eudoxus and Archimedes were all certainly more brilliant than Euclid, and each has interesting detailed biography. Euclid has no biography whatsoever and may have been fictional, much like Homer. Those were not “publish or perish” days; it seems likely that Euclid was a “Department chairman” in whose name much work was published. See the MacTutor biography for further discussion. The axiomatic method certainly did not originate with Euclid, who came after Aristotle.
Despite all this I do acknowledge Euclid as influential; I only started voting to eliminate him recently. I’d have been happy to join an anti-Darwin bandwagon instead, but thought (erroneously?) that voting Euclid was the better way to save Pasteur and Einstein.
Similarly, I won’t dispute whether Edison was the greatest inventor ever, but we’re asked for influence. The phonograph was certainly not in the same league for importance as the steam engine or light bulb, so we need to compare the importance of Watt’s engine improvements to Edison’s light bulb improvements. (There was much light bulb invention before Edison.) I say Edison was less irreplaceable simply because of the date: there were many more professional inventors in Edison’s time, so the delay without him might have been less compared with Watt.
Thanks, John.
I was worried that the final round with the initial conditions was going to be a bunch of single votes for various people.
The elimination of Ts’ai Lun before Edison and Watt was ridiculous and could have been resolved by a simple Google search.
Inventor: Thomas Edison
Leader: Augustus Caesar
Philosophy: Plato
Science: Charles Darwin
Last day for this round!
Inventors. Thomas Edison
Leaders. Lenin
Philosophy. Plato
Science. Albert Einstein
Don’t know if John’s going to let this in, as I return from a week’s vacation. Incidentally, I’d have voted to eliminate Paul as well, mainly because Muhammad was both Paul and Jesus rolled into one in his role in the creation of Islam. I don’t think we’ve slighted Christianity, when 2 of the top 3 and 6 of the top 10 (I think) in the Religion category were of that religion, and #4 was a figure revered by Christians.
Edison: Watt and Gutenberg have been my top 2 for a long time. Edison’s many inventions were not all his work, and they none of them had as big an impact as starting the industrial revolution. Lenin’s time has come. I’m really honestly not all that impressed with any of the leaders relative to the other categories - if we’d been voting out the top 20 one at a time, I’d have voted straight-ticket leader until they were gone. Philosophy is a bit of a punt - I know Plato loses a straight master vs. student duel, so might as well get him out of there now. Einstein just doesn’t quite measure up to Euclid’s 2000+ years of influence, Newton’s general awesomeness, or Darwin’s philosophical and political importance.
You’re fine. I won’t be able to do the scoring until tomorrow morning anyway.
Take a break.
Inventors.
Thomas Edison - 7
James Watt - 6
Johann Gutenberg - 1
Leaders.
V.I. Lenin - 6
Sui Wen Ti - 3
Genghis Khan - 3
Augustus Caesar - 1
George Washington - 1
Philosophy.
Confucius - 9
Plato - 5
Science.
Charles Darwin - 5 (Hart rank 16)
Euclid - 5 (Hart rank 14)
Albert Einstein - 4
So goodbye Edison, Lenin, Confucious, and Darwin. Here’s your Turtle Wax.
No problem losing Darwin, who should possibly have been booted off before Pasteur and Galileo. But it would be a big mistake to put Euclid in the Top Two instead of Einstein.
I’ve already mentioned that several of the (semi-mythical?) Euclid’s near-contemporaries were certainly his superior as a mathematician. But also know that several earlier Greeks, including Hippocrates of Chios had written their own Elements before Euclid’s version. Noted mathematical historian Dirk Struik writes “Hippocrates’ Elements (stoicheia) … is already in what might be called the Euclidean tradition, but it is older than Euclid by more than a century.”
Euclid’s Elements extremely influential? Absolutely. Should Euclid get primary credit? No.
Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, on the other hand, is widely called “the most creative and original scientific theory ever.” And Einstein is so famous for his relativity theories, discovery of the photon and of wave-particle duality, it is often overlooked that some physicists accepted the Atomic Theory only after reading Einstein’s paper on Brownian motion!
Round 18 is over!
Category, Name, # of votes
I, Thomas Edison, 7
L, Lenin, 6
P, Confucius, 9
S, Charles Darwin, 5
Darwin loses the tie-breaker to Euclid. Twas a close race between Edison and Watt, but TE got just one more vote.
Remaining names. This round will close out the Inventor and Philosophy categories, the next round will close out the Science category, and the round after that will have the Top Leader chosen.
Inventors
James Watt, British Inventor, Invented Steam Engine
Johann Gutenberg, Inventor, Inventor of Printing Press
Leaders
Augustus Caesar, Roman Princep, Founded Roman Empire
Genghis Khan, Mongol Ruler, Founded Mongol Empire
George Washington, American Statesman and General, Fought For Independence of United States
Sui Wen Ti, Chinese Emperor, Reunited China
Philosophy
Aristotle, Greek Philosopher
Plato, Greek Philosopher, Developed Platonism
Science
Albert Einstein, Scientist, Physicist, Theory of Relativity
Euclid, Greek Mathematician
Isaac Newton, British Scientist, Theory of Universal Gravitation and Motion
Inventors. James Watt
Leaders. Sui Wen Ti
Philosophy. Plato
Science. Albert Einstein
I don’t see how industrialization is possible without the ability to accurately reproduce knowledge. Sui Wen Ti is voted for because I don’t live in an area where his influence is all that great. Plato was the student. Einstein wouldn’t have been possible w/o the other two, especially Newton.
Actually, Plato was the master. But the student far surpassed the master in this case.
Invention. Gutenberg
Leader. Washington
Philosophy. Plato
Science. Einstein
If it’s not Scottish, it’s crap!
Inventors. James Watt
Leaders. Sui Wen Ti
Philosophy. Plato
Science. Euclid
Inventors. James Watt
Leaders. George Washington
Philosophy. Plato
Science. Euclid
Washington - While he did a great job, he was one of the founding fathers not the founding father.
Euclid - A tough call but I feel Einstein and Newton more directly contributed to science.
Inventors. James Watt
Leaders. Augustus Caesar
Philosophy. Plato
Science. Euclid
Damn! I missed the last round and if I had voted, Darwin would still be in it.
Inventors. James Watt
Leaders. Sui Wen Ti
Philosophy. Plato
Science. Euclid