He contributed to the design of the world's first programmable digital computer! In fact all early digital computers depended greatly on Turing's work. Not only that he went on to do seminal work in mathematical biology.
He contributed to the design of the world's first programmable digital computer! In fact all early digital computers depended greatly on Turing's work. Not only that he went on to do seminal work in mathematical biology.
The Truth Seeker wrote:Rachel Carson was better known for being a conservationist and a nature writer than a scientist. Still important.___________________________________Yes, but she was still a marine biologist. That would make her a scientist.
luv2run wrote:
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Her work led to the deaths of thousands, many millions from malaria. She deserves condemnation, not praise.[/quote]
I was wondering if this type of opinion would show up on this thread. I don't subscribe to the belief of "results at any price." Ethics studies of means versus results have filled libraries, but I know where I stand.
I won't post again on this topic because I don't want to hijack the thread, and this is veering off topic a bit. But when Rachel Carson pointed out the deleterious effects of pesticides, it led to studies about less harmful ways to control pests, predators, and disease.
Th cost of using DDT was too high in the toll it took on human and animal life, too high in cost to the economy, too high in waste of the earth's resources and ecological systems, and too poisonous for human health and well-being. New research led and is leading to replacing biocidal pesticides with organic sprays and beneficial insects to control prdatory insects. The public has come to recognize the dangers of pesticide-laden soil and runoff that is very costly to clean up--as well as leaving us to face the after-effects of toxic soil, pesticide-resistant insects, destruction of the ecosystem that happens when pesticides kill beneficial insects, and the misery that results in pesticide-induced diseases in people, particularly children.
Malaria is a scourge, but mankind is intelligent enough to find better ways of fighting it off and even ending it someday.
Tesla underappreciated?!?
Not by these guys:
or these guys:
I'm surprised to see Tesla get so many votes. I hear about him very often, but perhaps I'm too close to the subject.
I'm not going to try to pick the "most underappreciated," but I do want to mention someone with whom I was totally unfamiliar until I read his obituary less than two years ago -- Norman Borlaug.
I just read this in Borlaug's Wikipedia entry:
"Borlaug was also featured in an episode of Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, where he was referred to as the 'Greatest Human Being That Ever Lived.' In that episode, Penn & Teller play a card game where each card depicts a great person in history. Each player picks a few cards at random, and bets on whether one thinks one's card shows a greater person than the other players' cards based on a characterization such as humanitarianism or scientific achievement. Penn gets Norman Borlaug, and proceeds to bet all his chips, his house, his rings, his watch, and essentially everything he's ever owned. He wins because, as he says, 'Norman is the greatest human being, and you've probably never heard of him.' In the episode — the topic of which was genetically altered food — he is credited with saving the lives of over a billion people."
Wow, did no one got that Feynman reference?? or is the joke just that bad???
26mi235 wrote:
betterbutter wrote:Claude Shannon
Do you have any information on this guy? :>)
I'm assuming you are joking? He's the father of digital circuits and the digital computer. To take the electrical theory of circuits and relate it to boolean algebra and problem solving in 1937 was the founding of all we know and use electronically today, yet everyone knows Bill Gates.
There are theoretical physicists in government labs in the US, Japan, Russia, Iran, China, etc. who cannot publish and have made remarkable breakthroughs. You will learn their names many decades after their deaths.