Round 4 has begun…
Looks like a five-peat for me:
Inventors. Hernando Cortes
Leaders. Queen Isabella I
Philosophy. Nicoli Machiavelli
Religion. Zoroaster
Science. Antonine Laurent Lavoisier
Invention. Hernando Cortes
Leader. Genghis Khan
Philosophy. Jean-Jacques Rosseau
Religion. Zoraster
Science. Antonine Laurent Lavoisier
One of these does not look like it belongs. Many people will probably object to Genghis Khan as being my least influential of the bunch. I decided to vote Khan off because of 2 things:
One is that I’m being a bit ego-centric. All of the other people currently on the list is influencing us right now. Rome, Persia, British, American influences are still alive and well with us today, influencing the lives of billions of people. Khan was a long time ago.
The second thing is, how fares the Mongol Empire today? History may eventually scoff at the dictators of the 20th century like Stalin, Lenin, or Mao, but there’s no denying that Russian or Chinese influence will be with us for a long time. Yes, Khan practically conquered the world, had more territories than anyone before or after him, but his entire empire has been decimated. Mongolia is a small, poor country sandwiched between two giant countries they once ruled. There is little influence that Mongolia exerts on people in the modern day, especially compared to Russia or China. Genghis Khan was great in his day, probably the greatest conqueror in history, but his influence is merely a footnote and his empire crumbled soon after he and his offspring ceased their conquering ways.
Inventor. Christopher Columbus
Leader. Peter the Great
Philosophy. Voltaire
Religion. Justinian
Science. Roentgen
Two winners last round. Returning to 20th century physicists in science. Columbus found his discovery by accident and would have died if he hadn’t.
I got 4 out of 5 last round, and I voted first so it wasn’t coat-tail riding.
Inventor. Cortes
Leader. Queen Isabella I
Philosophy. Homer
Religion. Pope Urban II
Science. Johannes Kepler
Invention. Christopher Columbus
Leader. Shi Huang Di
Philosophy. Rene Descartes
Religion. Zoroaster
Science. Leonhard Euler
Little by little, bit by bit
Inventor. Hernando Cortes
Leader. Shi Huang Di
Philosophy. Rene Descartes
Religion. Justinian I
Science. James Clerk Maxwell
Cortes (replacing the voted-off Pizarro) and Justinian (bye-bye, Lord Protector Cromwell!) are the “rookies” on my list.
0 for 5 in the last round so I’ll just go again.
Inventions. Orville and Wilbur Wright
Leader. Isabella
Philosophy and Arts. Rene Descrates
Religion. Zoraster
Science. Werner Heisenberg
Amazed to see Mendel gone so early. Genetics is such an incredibly important discovery, both in theoretical and practical terms.
I think voters against Mendel acknowledge the importance of genetics, but wonder about his influence. It’s a sad little story of science that his discovery was completely ignored for 34 years! Finally his name was brought to public attention by scientists who had made the same discovery, did a literature search, and were honest enough to mention the forgotten Austrian monk.
Darwin was alive then but never read Mendel’s paper, had only a vague incorrect genetic model, and consequently had no answer for certain mathematical objections to his theory. This (ignorance of Mendel’s work) is one source for the creationist screed “Even Darwin had his doubts.”
Roentgen is another example of a scientist scored very high by Hart who may not belong. His discovery of X-rays is an exciting story, but without him wouldn’t the discovery have happened anyway, a few months later?
Invention.Alexander Graham Bell
Leader.Mikhail Gorbachev
Arts.Ludwig von Beethoven
Religion.Asoka
Science.Galileo Galilei
Okay, I have to repeat all my previous 5 votes
Inventions. Christopher Columbus
Leader. Charlemagne
Philosophy. Ludwig von Beethoven
Religion. Umar ibn al–Khattab
Science. James Clerk Marxwell
Columbus - watch out, I’m not the only one who’s got your number
Charlemange - a fanatic redoubles his efforts when he’s forgotten his aim.
Ludwig, if Johann Sebastian’s gone you’ve gotta go too
Umar suffers because as an agnostic, religion ain’t my long suite.
Markwell - just don’t quite see him up with the remaining giants
Invention. Christopher Columbus
Leader. Alexander the Great
Philosophy. Ludwig von Beethoven
Religion. Umar ibn al-Khattab
Science. Galileo Galilei
Round 4:
Inventors. Christopher Columbus
Leaders. Charlemagne
Philosophy. Ludwig von Beethoven
Religion. Justinian I
Science. Galileo Galilei
Inventor. Orville and Wilbur Wright
Leader. Shi Huang Di
Philosophy. Lao Tzu
Religion. Zoraster
Science. William Conrad Roentgen
Inventions. Christopher Columbus
Leader. Shi Huang Di
Philosophy and Arts. Rene Descrates
Religion. ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab
Science. Antonine Laurent Lavoisier
Four out of five making a return:
Inventors. Christopher Columbus
Leaders. Mikhail Gorbachev
Philosophy. Voltaire
Religion. Zoraster
Science. William Conrad Roentgen
And fie on you all for picking on Ludwig. He set the course of Western music and scared the bejeezus out of the composers that followed him for the next hundred or so years. European culture would have been very different without him.
Agreed, but chances are that Beethoven, like Bach, wouldn’t have made it all the way. Just a shame to see such lights put out early.
After this round, if it goes the way it appears to be going, my picks get a lot tougher…
Ok, I think I only have to come up with two new ones.
Inventors. Orville and Wilbur Wright
Leaders. Shi Huang Di
Philosophy. Jean-Jacques Rosseau
Religion. Pope Urban II
Science. Werner Heisenberg
Explaining my new votes:
Rosseau - not uninfluential, but less so that others on the list. I’m kind of half-hearted about this category, though, to be honest.
Urban - the Crusades were formational for medieval Christianity, but Urban was not (by a long shot) the only Pope to call for Crusades in the Holy Land.
And my repeats:
Wright brothers: probably weren’t even the first ones to invent the airplane.
Shi Huang Di: China had to be re-united later, so his unification didn’t hold.
Heisenberg: Quantum physics is too new a field to be considered that influential when looking at the whole of human history.
I’m surprised to see Clerk Maxwell getting so many votes; to my mind, he’s pretty clearly ahead of all the other physicists except Newton and Einstein. Let me go to the scots-language Wikipedia for a character witness:
Heh, yeah. He was the Einstein of the nineteenth century! His unified theory of electromagnetism has been described as the second great unification of physics.
From Wiki:
Inventors. Alexander Graham Bell
Leaders. Queen Isabella I
Philosophy. Jean-Jacques Rosseau
Religion. Zoraster
Science. James Clerk Marxwell
Tom, I’m not denigrating Maxwell one bit here, but whom of the company remaining would you have eliminated in his place?
And I am really quite astonished to see so many voting against Descartes. And misspelling his name in the process.