Tesla discovery of AC>DC
somehow never won a Nobel prize.
I don't think you can count Tesla as under appreciated when he had a whole "Modern Marvels" episode on the History channel.
Most of the names mentioned are very well known scientists who (though surely great) are probably not too underrated. My pick: Ibn al-Haytham. Probably the first person to use experiments in a way that resemble modern science. In other words: He invented science.
Everybody here is naming famous and very appreciated scientists/math guys. In fact scientific fame is probably like the efficient market model in finance, if their work is worthy of appreciation, it will be; there is not hidden information out there. If you can think of their name within a few seconds of reading the thread title - they are famous and appreciated. The flip side of course is that there are many dead and living scientists whose are not appreciated but that's because their work is not worthy of appreciation. There are some dead and living scientists whose work will be appreciated in the future but that won't happen until we recognize that there work really was/is valuable. So these latter scientists aren't "under appreciated" because their work has not be influential (yet).
never wrong wrote:
Can't really think right now but Tesla is a great choice. The world would not be the same without him.
So what would be doing right now if he wasn't born?
I think the fact that Tesla has been named by at least of third of the people responding to the question indicates that he is not only not underappreciated but has achieved a cult status as the fad scientist du jour. Anyway, few of the people named strike me as underappreciated. Most are household names. I'll throw out one who may have been bigger than them all:
Thales of Miletos (sixth century, BCE)
The case for Thales is two-fold:
1) He is the first person to whom any mathematical proof has ever been attributed. This would make him the father of demonstrative mathematics, and this is how all mathematics has proceeded ever since.
2) He is regarded as the first true scientist. Eschewing mythological explanations, he sought to secularize and rationalize our understanding of the natural world. He influenced people like Anaximandros and might well be considered the father of science.
I would be more definite in picking Thales, except that our sources on the Archaic era of Greece are always a bit sketchy.
lucKY2b wrote:
When I poll my physics classes... Few have heard of Planck, Lorentz, Bohr, Dirac, Pauli (unless they've taken chemistry), Fermi, Feynman, Gell-Mann, Maxwell, Faraday.
I find that hard to believe if you're talking about physics students. At what level?
Dr. Science
Rock and Roll wrote: Can't really think right now but Tesla is a great choice. The world would not be the same without him. [/quote]
never wrong wrote: So what would be doing right now if he wasn't born?[/quote]
Electric power would revolve around Edison's DC system. Ugh!
Tesla, with backing from George Westinghouse, develop the AC power systems needed that run the electrical grid we all take for granted.
DC was winning the power-grid battle. It is incredibly inefficient. DC requires electricity users to be close to the power generating source because the lose of energy in transmission is huge. AC lets the user be almost anywhere. A DC grid would be a bunch of point-sources, not an interconnected grid like we have today.
With a DC grid, think of our nation being much more compact; mostly all urban with little rural. Most people can forget about living away from a grid point (power plant). Cities like Las Vegas and Phoenix would not exist.
We would probably have less power to use if the grid was DC based rather than AC. It would be too difficult to get the amount of power wanted by users to them.
DC power requires larger wires. Making compact appliances would be very unlikely.
Feynman... Surely You're Joking!
But DC is also used for sending power long distance on a dedicated line.
The person who discovered beer. No one even knows who he or she is! Talk about unknown/unappreciated.
And I don't want to hear any of this crap about food science not being a real science!
Yes, many of the names are well known, but it may be because the people who have contributed the most are the most well known and remembered.
I am so enjoying this discussion. I am looking up all the names that I am not familiar with.
I, myself, have to chime in for Tesla, Leonhard Euler, and Lise Meitner. Meitner split the atom (theoretically) and did not get proper credit for it, Euler made a library full of contributions to mathematics and still is generally not considered to have been better than Karl Gauss. And Euler, who went blind later in life, once found an error in the 6oth decimal place of one of his students (according to legend).
A strong case could have been made for Tesla having a high-functioning form of autism or Asperger's Syndrome.
I have another name to add: Rachel Carson, who was a marine biologist and a nature writer.
Carson wrote a wonderful book called Silent Spring which alerted people to the dangers of DDT. Back in the day, people thought DDT was a godsend, and Carson wrote about pesticides as indiscriminant killers which would eventually lead to a world absent of songbirds (hence the title).
Most touching about her life, at least to me, was the way the agribusiness went after her with their government-supported millions of dollars, calling her work unscientific, accusing her of being a lesbian (in a day and age where this was extremely damaging for someone to ever live a normal life)--all the while Carson herself was dying quietly of cancer.
Another name I can add to this list: H.A. Lorentz. He was a very talented man, great scientist, strong leader, multi-lingual, excellent people skills, whom Einstein once called "A work of Art!" Many of those early Solvay conferences revolved around him and he is almost entrely forgotten today.
Rachel Carson was better known for being a conservationist and a nature writer than a scientist. Still important.
Music Therapist wrote:
Carson wrote about pesticides as indiscriminant killers which would eventually lead to a world absent of songbirds (hence the title).
Most touching about her life, at least to me, was the way the agribusiness went after her with their government-supported millions of dollars, calling her work unscientific, accusing her of being a lesbian (in a day and age where this was extremely damaging for someone to ever live a normal life)--all the while Carson herself was dying quietly of cancer.
There's not a single scientist mentioned in this whole thread is "under appreciated". Anyone who would respond to this post cares about science, so our opinions are quite biased.
Having said that, Edward Witten comes to mind. He is the 21st century's Einstein.
The Truth Seeker wrote:
Rachel Carson was better known for being a conservationist and a nature writer than a scientist. Still important.
Music Therapist wrote:Carson wrote about pesticides as indiscriminant killers which would eventually lead to a world absent of songbirds (hence the title).
Most touching about her life, at least to me, was the way the agribusiness went after her with their government-supported millions of dollars, calling her work unscientific, accusing her of being a lesbian (in a day and age where this was extremely damaging for someone to ever live a normal life)--all the while Carson herself was dying quietly of cancer.
Her work led to the deaths of thousands, many millions from malaria. She deserves condemnation, not praise.
o.o wrote:
Tesla discovery of AC>DC
Love "Back in Black".
I had heard of Tesla but Modern Marvels enlightened me as to the extent of Tesla's genius and contributions. I was hoping this thread tell me about some other scientists I hadn't heard of. It hasn't disappointed.Its been interesting.
a chemist wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Newton_Lewissomehow never won a Nobel prize.
I don't think you can count Tesla as under appreciated when he had a whole "Modern Marvels" episode on the History channel.
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.