# Who is your favorite Scientist
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-your-favorite-scientist/541764
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [June 3, 2010, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-your-favorite-scientist/541764 "2010-06-03T14:02:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2010, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-your-favorite-scientist/541764/1 "2010-06-03T14:02:52Z")
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](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_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.
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### Author:  [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2010, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-your-favorite-scientist/541764/2 "2010-06-03T14:05:56Z")
My favorite scientist is my daughter, but I am biased.
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### Author:  [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2010, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-your-favorite-scientist/541764/3 "2010-06-03T14:18:13Z")
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.
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### Author:  [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2010, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-your-favorite-scientist/541764/4 "2010-06-03T14:51:09Z")
> [@Gagundathar](#):
>
> My favorite scientist is my daughter, but I am biased.
What is her field of study, oh biased one. Gotta spill!
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2010, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-your-favorite-scientist/541764/5 "2010-06-03T15:00:58Z")
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”
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### Author:  [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2010, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-your-favorite-scientist/541764/6 "2010-06-03T15:07:29Z")
Definitely me. But if my advisor asks, it’s him.
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### Author:  [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2010, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-your-favorite-scientist/541764/7 "2010-06-03T15:07:31Z")
James Clerk Maxwell - cool science and a funky life. I like that in a human.
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### Author:  [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2010, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-your-favorite-scientist/541764/8 "2010-06-03T15:11:07Z")
> [@Smeghead](#):
>
> Definitely me. But if my advisor asks, it’s him.
Modesty is not required in your field?
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2010, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-your-favorite-scientist/541764/9 "2010-06-03T15:12:41Z")
> [@](#):
>
> James Clerk Maxwell - cool science and a funky life. I like that in a human.
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.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2010, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-your-favorite-scientist/541764/10 "2010-06-03T15:37:11Z")
Albert Einstein, not only because of his genius, but because he was an acquaintance of my grandfather.
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### Author:  [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2010, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-your-favorite-scientist/541764/11 "2010-06-03T15:40:14Z")
Me.
Followed by Rudolph Virchow.
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### Author:  [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2010, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-your-favorite-scientist/541764/12 "2010-06-03T15:46:29Z")
A tie between Alan Turing and Charles Darwin for me.
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### Author:  [@Taenia\_spp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taenia_spp)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2010, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-your-favorite-scientist/541764/13 "2010-06-03T16:11:43Z")
What? No one’s elected **Neil De Grasse Tyson** , astrophysicist extraordinaire, public television host, and [sexiest astrophysicist alive](http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20132902,00.html)?
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### Author:  [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2010, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-your-favorite-scientist/541764/14 "2010-06-03T16:13:20Z")
> [@Shirley\_Ujest](#):
>
> Modesty is not required in your field?
Modesty, as a trait in scientists, has undergone several generations of severe negative selection.
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### Author:  [@Meyer6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meyer6)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2010, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-your-favorite-scientist/541764/15 "2010-06-03T16:28:47Z")
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.
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### Author:  [@Happy\_Poster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Poster)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2010, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-your-favorite-scientist/541764/16 "2010-06-03T16:31:45Z")
Fenymann or Galton I think. Not so much for their science but for being all round good eggs 😃
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### Author:  [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2010, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-your-favorite-scientist/541764/17 "2010-06-03T16:31:47Z")
> [@Taenia\_spp](#):
>
> What? No one’s elected **Neil De Grasse Tyson** , astrophysicist extraordinaire, public television host, and [sexiest astrophysicist alive](http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20132902,00.html)?
You took mine! :mad:
😃
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### Author:  [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2010, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-your-favorite-scientist/541764/18 "2010-06-03T16:32:43Z")
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.
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### Author:  [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2010, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-your-favorite-scientist/541764/19 "2010-06-03T16:36:21Z")
Probably Faraday, electric motors some what important!
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### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2010, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-your-favorite-scientist/541764/20 "2010-06-03T16:38:39Z")
Oppenheimer. Smart _and_ quotable!
Actually, Faraday.
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