Standing on the backs of Giants

[rov1200]

There has been a series of programs on Channel 4 this week about past scientists who have changed our world. Is there any living scientists who could be added to the program so that in 100 years time they would achieve the same significance?

[MarkRae]

Prof Hawking
Sir Tim Berners-Lee
Trevor Bayliss

[Count-A-Strong]

The phrase is actually standing on the shoulders of giants. I think the bloke who's just created synthetic life would be a candidate.

[boxtops]

The scientists who are presenting this series are all leading lights in their fields (including, in some ways, Mr Dyson!) - Hawking, Robert Winston. There is a strong fan club for Brian Cox and Jim Khalili recently, not for great achievements but for making science really interesting for the rest of us.

[carrot99]

I love Professor Brian Cox he explained everything so simply in the series on the Solar System. I watched it one evening with my 2 year old grandaughter and the next day up the park she asked me if light was green! She almost understood him too!

[MarkRae]

Agreed 100% re Brian Cox.

[jake-the-peg]

He's a nice chap in real life too - went to a lecture he gave a couple of years back and had a quick chat with him after.

James Lovelock very definitely

[jake-the-peg]

Incidently the expression standing on the shoulders (not backs) of Giants is an interesting phrase

Newton used it but it was a rather back handed slap to Robert Hooke who he hated and was rather hunch backed.

Mind you Newton hated a lot of people - great man - not nice company though

[chakka35]

He didn't create synthetic life.

[rov1200]

I have watched Brian Cox but is he not just a lecturer, and a good one at that. Surely the people that stand out will be those that have brought something new into public domain.

It must be more difficult these days as the competition is more fierce and although many nobel prizes are won the scientists are easily forgotten

I would have thought that the invention of the transistor and the invention of lasers would rank high up on the list.

[rov1200]

Assuming the inventors are still alive of course

[mollykins]

Brian Cox used to be in a rock band!

[boxtops]

Indeed he did, molly. People of talent often seem to have a musical bent - many respected medical doctors are talented musicians. Look at Brian May - another astrophysicist.

[vascop]

I would say Roger Penrose, for his work in the mathematics related to the origin of the cosmos (book: The Road to Reality) and also for his work on Artificial intelligence (the Emperor's New Mind and others).

[jno]

aren't Bayliss and Dyson engineers rather than scientists? They make things.