Albert Einstein may have made the discoveries that led to nuclear and solar power, lasers and even a physical description of space and time, but Sir Isaac Newton had a greater impact on science and mankind, according to a poll published Wednesday.
Posted on 11/23/2005 6:04:12 PM PST by PatrickHenry
Newton, the 17th-century English scientist most famous for describing the laws of gravity and motion, beat Einstein in two polls conducted by eminent London-based scientific academy, the Royal Society.
More than 1,300 members of the public and 345 Royal Society scientists were asked separately which famous scientist made a bigger overall contribution to science, given the state of knowledge during his time, and which made a bigger positive contribution to humankind.
Newton was the winner on all counts, though he beat the German-born Einstein by only 0.2 of a percentage point (50.1 percent to 49.9 percent) in the public poll on who made the bigger contribution to mankind.
The margin was greater among scientists: 60.9 percent for Newton and 39.1 percent for Einstein.
The results were announced ahead of the "Einstein vs. Newton" debate, a public lecture at the Royal Society on Wednesday evening.
"Many people would say that comparing Newton and Einstein is like comparing apples and oranges, but what really matters is that people are appreciating the huge amount that both these physicists achieved, and that their impact on the world stretched far beyond the laboratory and the equation," said Royal Society president Lord Peter May.
Pro-Newton scientists argue he led the transition from an era of superstition and dogma to the modern scientific method.
His greatest work, the "Principia Mathematica", showed that gravity was a universal force that applied to all objects in the universe, finally ruling out the belief that the laws of motion were different for objects on Earth and in the heavens.
Einstein's supporters point out that his celebrated theory of relativity disproved Newton's beliefs on space and time and led to theories about the creation of the universe, black holes and parallel universes.
He also proved mathematically that atoms exist and that light is made of particles called photons, setting the theoretical foundations for nuclear bombs and solar power.
Come on now...this is sooooo obvious...if it weren't for Newton, we wouldnt know that we were hanging upside down , feet planted...or would we?
I'm sure the Grand Master of Darwin Central™ will arrange a suitable award for your accomplishment....
I'll be allowed to affix a fourth condor feather to my tri-cornered hat.
Einstein did not invent the A-bomb. He did devise Relativity, which is even more illusory than Newtonian mechanics.
IIRC that Hilbert had independently developed many of the same insights when Einstein published his Theory of Special Relativity. The may have even been some collaboration between the two before SR was published.
Pressures were just as intense in Newton's day, and more personal. It was cutthroat competition, literally.
Given the achievement and the Holiday, a turkey feather would be more apropos....
;-)
What about Mr. Wizard?
Mersenne should not be overlooked.
Mr Wizard was important. Science education lacks a Mr Wizard these days, and the popularity of science suffers as a result.
ooops; that was the General Theory, not SR, that Hilbert had independently derived the field equations for gravitation.
" Pressures were just as intense in Newton's day, and more personal. It was cutthroat competition, literally."
Heck, he might have been jailed for his work in alchemy alone. (Though alchemy became legal again in his lifetime.)
Those were tough times in Jolly Old England. The King was beheaded and all his cronies were in danger. It was nearly every man for himself. Newton was tough and used every available tool to keep his position, rode roughshod over competitors.
You obviously are not a physicist. This is a silly poll and even a sillier comment. If there are two peers that tower over all others in the world of physics it is these two. Relative importance given the separation in epochs and intervening development is impossible to establish. Einstein's ability to reason from prosaic observation to extremely profound truth is unmatched in science, and his contributions have been every bit as significant to the modern world as Newton. Of course you have to have read some of Einstein's papers to understand the true subtlety and profundity of his reasoning.
Better than Feynman?
I won't argue that Pascal was a great scientist, certainly in the top ten or even five greatest mathematicians of all time. But his direct contributions to physics were limited to the study of atmospheric pressure, and his most important contribution to physics, his enunciation of the laws of probability, was indirect, a consequence of his work in pure mathematics.
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