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Greatest Sciencetist Ever?

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Luna:
Who do you have your money on? Providing your own standards for why you choose that person. Or is this to subjective a subject? Or should I never bothered with it in the beginning? lol...

Tips On Judging

Diffences made because of discovery or work(Lives saved and such).

Advancement of Human knowledge of the universe and how it works.

Or anyother Criteria you think is important. I can't save for now, I'll wait a couple years until my knowledge is a bit more extended.

Here are some good ideas..

http://forums.hypography.com/physics-mathematics/4774-greatest-scientist-ever.html

zylark:
Tough one. And singeling out one of a great number of well deserving "Scientist of all time" is a bit unfair, since every scientific discovery is based upon other scientists work in one sense or another.

And also it depends very much upon the criteria. And all criteria are equal in the objective sense, but weighed differently in the subjective.

But to me, personally, I'd say Carl Sagan.

Now, Carl Sagan was no great scientist in the strictest sense of actually making groundbreaking new discoveries. He was a science grunt, that contributed to his field by making small and incremental discoveries. As do thousands of scientists around the world then and now.

What he was great at, perhaps the greatest thus far, was communicating the scientific process and scientific understanding of nature to a vast audience. Inspiring youngsters and laymen (like myself) to take interest in science and rational thinking. And in effect thus ensuring the recruitment of new scientists to further and even accelerate the advances of science. Sparking minds so to speak, rather than the more dull filling of minds that happen in schools all over the world.

springbank:
Here's a few names:

Norman Borlaug

Einstien

Copernicus

Pauling

Banting and Best

Crick et al.

Maxwell

Newton

Leeunwenhoek

pastuer

The list is too long.

gost:
I'll throw in a vote for Thales of Miletus (aprox. 624-547 BC), just because he's so often overlooked. He's the guy who is purported to have been the very first person to propose that the universe is completely explicable by natural laws, rather than being the result of the arbitrary whims of gods. In other words, he's the inventor of modern science. Who knows if this is actually true or not, but hey, it's a damn good story.

springbank:
Does that mean we have to take it on faith? :)

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