Who was the most important physicist to ever live?

[MiLara]

James Clerk Maxwell

 

[fresh_42]

Archimedes of Syracuse

 

[anorlunda]

Enrico Fermi is my personal favorite.

 

[S.G. Janssens]

Newton, and his giants of course.

 

[MiLara]

Enrico Fermi is my personal favorite.

"Some of you may ask, what is the good of working so hard merely to collect a few facts which will bring no pleasure except to a few long-haired professors who love to collect such things and will be of no use to anybody because only few specialists at best will be able to understand them? In answer to such question I may venture a fairly safe prediction. History of science and technology has consistently taught us that scientific advances in basic understanding have sooner or later led to technical and industrial applications that have revolutionized our way of life. It seems to me improbable that this effort to get at the structure of matter should be an exception to this rule. What is less certain, and what we all fervently hope, is that man will soon grow sufficiently adult to make good use of the powers that he acquires over nature" - Enrico Fermi

One of the best insights in the history of humanity.

 

[Larry Gopnik]

I'm not sure about 'most important' physicist but my personal favourite is Dirac.

 

[newjerseyrunner]

Imhotep, he started our species off.

For our modern world: John Bardeen, Walter Houser Brattain, and William Bradford Shockley. All awarded a Nobel prize in physics for the invention of the transistor.

 

[fresh_42]

Zefram Cochrane

 

[OCR]

Zefram Cochrane

You can not know that !

That would make you a more important physicist then he will be ! .... ..

 

[Evo]

This has been done too many times. Closed.