Best Engineers in the World

Manchot

Though William Shockley is pure scum, I wholeheartedly agree with the other two nominations. You can consider Bardeen to be an engineer, because he was a professor of electrical engineering while he was at UIUC.

Ki Man

he did do hundreds of sketches but i dont know if he counts as an engineer. he tried to be a super-hero by trying to take all the fields in the rennaissance and mushing them all into one person. astronomer, painter, engineer, etc.

he doesn't really count for one field in my opinion

snowygrouch

Hi,
In my field Keith Duckworth.
Single handedly designed the best racing engine ever designed; the Cosworth DFV not only that but on a paper drawing board in 9 months in 1967.

The engine was designed for Ford to be used by Lotus; Lotus were eventually forced to allow other teams to use the DFV or the sport would cease to exist, it was that good.

The engine won on its first ever race and was unbeatable for years.

The DFV was still winning F1 races for McLaren in 1983 with Niki Lauda.

With a just a shorter stroke the engine was made as the turbo DFX which in INDY car and CART USA was a prolific winner well into the 1980s.

A re-developed DFV (the DFR) engine was winning in F1 as late as 1989, thats about 20 years at the top of Formula1 all from a one man design.

A rein for that long in any competitive industry in modern history is possibly without parrallel to my knowledge.

Keith was the first automotive engineer to genuinely really understand combustion and air flow far before CFD and FEA techniques existed.

In fact the engine was so good it is still used today in several racing classes where nearly 4 decades later it still wins; all this in spite that these days an engine will be designed by a fleet of engineers with millions of pounds of computing power.

The combustion chamber and valve anges Keith Duckworth used on the DFV form the basis for almost every successful petrol engine in production today; thats not a coincidence either.

Keith always claims he distrusts theories and doesnt read books. He prefers to analyse everything himself from scratch from 1st principles. What a man.

Just my take.

Calum

PS. For all time best Isombard Kingdom Brunel and Isaac Newton (more of a practial scientist perhaps) take a lot of beating.

DonnaEng

In my opinion, one of the best electronics engineers, alive in the world today, is a shy, slightly eccentric and reclusive man called Haruny Said - I believe he currently lives in Scotland, but spent several years working here in the US.

Everyone I have met that has worked with him says he is a genius. He seeks no credit for his work and is happy for others to take the credit and limelight.

brewnog

Wow, is a five year necropost a record?

Evil Genius

lol tony stark but on a serious not we gotta give props to ben franklin for the oven rite.

n.karthick

No it is Tesla who has conceptualized and got patent for induction motor

In my opinion Nikola Tesla the best Electrical engineer ever lived in this earth.

CourtOakes

Mark Russinovich. Author of the Sysinternals tools. He is a Technical Fellow at Microsoft now. He was responsible for uncovering the Sony Root Kit. He would get my vote. I was a math major unsure of what to do with my life and my brother suggested I read about this genius who was now with Microsoft named Mark Russinovich. I am now a third year Comp E student and a computer tech with a major retail outfit. He inspired me to do what I am doing. He is also author of the novels Zero Day and Trojan Horse. They are both really good reads, BTW, for anyone who likes reading things where the science doesn't make you say to yourself, "this is absurd".

CourtOakes

MARK RUSSINOVICH (Microsoft)

sandplasma

Sergei Koroliev - fresh from the gulag to using old V2 Rocket parts to give birth to some of the greatest and most comlicated multi engine rockets the world had ever seen.

berkeman

Pretty darned close. Most very old threads were supposed to be locked to prevent necroposts like that. Thread is now closed.