He’s already been mentioned numerous times, but Feynman is mine. His books (Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman and The Pleasure of Finding Things Out) are awesome. I don’t know if half of the stories he tells in his books are true, but if they’re not, it just means that he’s writes great fiction as well as being a great scientist. I particularly loved the stories about lock picking at Oak Ridge during the Manhattan Project.
