Who was the most influential and important physicist?

[CallMeDirac]

Who, in your opinion was or is the most influential physicist.
Was it Feynman and his diagrams and lectures.
Was it Dirac with his work on positrons.
Was it Einstein and his general relativity.

Who do you think and why.

 

[russ_watters]

Who, in your opinion was or is the most influential physicist.
Was it Feynman and his diagrams and lectures.
Was it Dirac with his work on positrons.
Was it Einstein and his general relativity.

Who do you think and why.

This is obviously impossible to answer definitively since you can't objectively define much less measure these traits. But I'm going to answer Aristotle Because his wrong ideas led to 2000 years of scientific stagnation.

 

[Mondayman]

I have to go with Newton, Faraday/Maxwell, Einstein.

 

[Rive]

Newton.
He had a mint.

 

[CallMeDirac]

Newton.
He had a mint.

And a funny wig

 

[Mondayman]

I think Newton is the obvious choice, because he really set things in motion for the field of physics.

After that, the formulation of the laws of electricity and magnetism was absolutely significant, and had a massive impact on the world as we know it. Maxwell put them into mathematical form. It took a few others, Heaviside, Hodge, Fitzgerald, Hertz among them, to complete our understanding of classical electrodynamics, but Maxwell was the originator, and without Faraday, there is no Maxwell.

Einstein is the most prominent physicist of our time, for obvious reasons. His impact was huge. He is an icon of science and represents what it means to be intellectually brilliant to many.

Beyond that, it's hard to call one physicist influential, because everything that has been done has been the work of many people. Some behind the scenes and whose names might never be known to the public. I would name Philip Anderson, John Bardeen, Claude Shannon as pretty influential in that their work has made huge impacts. I am sure there are others I am missing.

 

[Klystron]

Concur with the previous posts except Dirac contributed much to science beyond 'positrons', while realizing Dirac / antimatter remains a useful mnemonic. Likewise, we should not limit Einstein to relativity though I accept the shorthand.

Galileo Galilei certainly qualifies as a great contributor to physics and astronomy. Leonardo da Vinci and Tycho Brahe at least deserve honorable mention.

 

[Mondayman]

I considered Galileo, Brahe, and Kepler, but decided that Newton had the bigger impact. But it goes to show how science isn't done by one person, and builds upon foundations laid by others. Hence, it's hard to say who's more important or influential than who.

 

[Hornbein]

Who, in your opinion was or is the most influential physicist.
Was it Feynman and his diagrams and lectures.
Was it Dirac with his work on positrons.
Was it Einstein and his general relativity.

Who do you think and why.

Aristotle, Galileo, and Newton. They led to a revolutionary transformation of society.

 

[Hornbein]

Aristotle, Galileo, and Newton. They led to a revolutionary transformation of society.

Oops! I meant Archimedes, not Aristotle.

 

[DaveC426913]

Newton's realization of the connection between a falling apple and the Moon's orbit, finally connected the motions of the Heavens with the motions of the Earth - forever banishing supernatural, celestial notions in the mechanics of our universe. Wasn't that the real 'God is Dead' moment?

 

[bhobba]

It's a matter of opinion. I am with Wigner and say, Einstein:
“I have known a great many intelligent people in my life. I knew Max Planck, Max von Laue, and Wemer Heisenberg. Paul Dirac was my brother-in-Iaw; Leo Szilard and Edward Teller have been among my closest friends; and Albert Einstein was a good friend, too. And I have known many of the brightest younger scientists. But none of them had a mind as quick and acute as Jancsi von Neumann. I have often remarked this in the presence of those men, and no one ever disputed me. [...] But Einstein's understanding was deeper than even Jancsi von Neumann's. His mind was both more penetrating and more original than von Neumann's. And that is a very remarkable statement. Einstein took an extraordinary pleasure in invention. Two of his greatest inventions are the Special and General Theories of Relativity; and for all of Jancsi's brilliance, he never produced anything so original.”

Thanks
Bill