greatest living scientist

who is the greatest living scientist?
what do they do and why do you think theyre great?

 

I would have to say Stephen Hawking. Alas, even though he has not published as many papers as some others, he has done some great work on black hole thermodynamics and information entropy, and he has also done much to make physics more accessible to the general public.

2nd place I would give to Kip Thorne.

And although he is not a scientist, I would have to include Cecil Adams...

 

I would say Benoît Mandelbrot for his contributions to fractal geormetry. I know that is more maths related. But it works together with the science of chaos.

that and fractals are pretty...

 

Hawkings

 

He is the only great scientist I know of. I think science needs some help from New Age people. Perhaps. I am not sure.

 

louis pasteur

look for yourself

 

Oh, and my friend Steve.

 

he is dead...

 

You do have a good point about Mandelbrot. I guess I didn't realize he was still alive...

Is Lorentz (of the attractor) still alive? The butterfly curve, chaos theory, and dynamical systems, that is absolutely genious. What about M King Hubbert (peak oil theory), is he alive either?

You know what we need? Scientist obit's...

 

Yup, Mandelbrot is still alive.
And it is Lorenz, and he is also still alive. I forgot about him when writing the previous post. I think he deserves more than a mention.

 

I think Dr. Van Allen of NASA is quite great

 

I never heard of him. I presume that he helps with space shuttle missions. I guess also that he has a bit of history to him.

 

i naturally assumed "living" was used in the loosest sense.

 

Albert Hofmann. Invented LSD. Still alive. 100 years old.

 

The leading scientist today is definately J. Craig Venter. I cant believe noone has mentioned him yet.