Science Forums 2

[Racoon]

I read a book, its called "Scientific Genius, the 20 greatest minds ever"

Who IS the greatest scientist? Who influenced Mankind the most?Whose accomplishments do you admire? And Why???
HERE ARE THE CANDIDATES:

Aristotle (384 - 322 BC) - Scientific Method
Archimedes (c. 287-212 BC) - Geometry and Mechanics
Galileo Galilei ( 1564-1642) - Astronomy & Physics
William Harvey ( 1578-1657) - Phsyiology
Rene Descartes (1596-1642) - Analytic Geometry
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) - Probability and Projective Geometry
Issac Newton (1642-1726) - Mechanics and Calculus
Karl Gauss (1777-1855) - Pure and Applied Mathmatics
Michael Faraday (1791-1867) - Electromagnetism
Charles Darwin (1809-1882) - Evolution
Evariste Galois (1811-1832) - Group theory
Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) - Genetics
Robert Koch (1843-1910) - Bacteriology
Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) - Nueropsychology
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) - Relativity theory
Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976) - Quantum Mechanics
John Von Neumann (1903-1957) - Computer Science
Alan Turing (1912-1954) - Computer Science
Linus Pauling (1901-1994) - Chemistry
Stephen Hawking (1942- ) - Cosmology

It's A tough vote to be sure, There is no wrong answer!
Again, this list is from a book by Jim Glenn and he admits many names are excluded and some perhaps some wrongly included. But thankfully mankind has been BLESSED by such brilliant minds!
I cast my ballot for Galileo Galilei