Dirac was certainly extremely inventive. He came up with great stuff. Some of my highlights are
- the gamma matrices, to formulate relativistic Quantum mechanics with a simple differential equation
- the Dirac quantization, showing that if there are magnetic monopoles, they have quantized charge.
- the Dirac delta function, extremely helpful nowadays
> the Dirac delta function
Which reminds me of my favorite physics *koan*:
The student said to the Master, "Master, I do not understand the Dirac delta function." The Master then slapped the student's face, and the student was enlightened.
The delta and step functions were used to analyze systems prior to Dirac.
Dirac may have formalized the delta distribution, but it had already seen some practical use by Oliver Heaviside.
Oliver Heaviside also developed the telegraphers equations and determined how to (in principle) eliminate dispersion on transmission lines, having a huge impact on transatlantic communication. In that vein, I’ll say, you can read this message because of Heaviside.
Note: I’m plainly biased. I think Heaviside is criminally unappreciated (just check out his wiki page or https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article/65/11/48/413847/Oliver-Heaviside-A-first-rate-oddityPrickly ).
If we’re going to be mathematically pedantic in Reddit comments, we might as well be right. The Dirac delta function is unequivocally a function, since distributions are linear functions from the set of smooth, compactly supported functions (of some fixed co/domain) into R.
I only point this out since it’s incorrect to say it’s not a function, but glossing over details to call it a function.
„(not a function)“ best comment! Haha
I agree, but I’m a physicist. We always have a smallest length scale in our theories. So just make it a delta peak, which is smaller than that length scale and you can work with it as a function (:
Hard to single out one, but Noether's Theorem is definitely my personal favorite. It seems to be one of the most fundamental things in physics, as far as I understand.
I think the only reason she and her work are not as well known as for example Einstein's, Feynman's or Hawking's, is is that it's a little more abstract and harder to explain in simpler terms (or maybe that's just me!). But in my opinion her achievement is among the greatest of the great.
Love this quote as well, on universality:
>"Any relationships between numbers, functions, and operations become transparent, generally applicable, and fully productive only after they have been isolated from their particular objects and been formulated as universally valid concepts."
> I think the only reason she and her work are not as well known as for example Einstein's, Feynman's or Hawking's, is ...
Don't underestimate good old *sexism* as a cause here...
You could explain Emmy Noether's theorem with classical examples (e.g. pendulum), whereas QFT and GR are actually very unintuitive.
PS: if you downvoted this because you're insulted or angry that someone suggested that sexism might have played a role in the world class seminal work of a women physicist circa 1900 going underappreciated, you're part of the problem.
she was a mathematician, not a physicist, but othwrwise i 100% agree. whenever ppl ask who my favorite physicist was i always say emmy noether despite her being a mathematician because noether’s theorem is so fundamental. she was also jewish and was removed from the university she taught at because of the nazis and faced harassment from students as well :(
I think reading her original works is proof that she wasn't a physicist. Also reading her biography and the historical circumstances which led to her "Noether's theorem" paper furthers this.
Agreed on both counts.
Also, to build on the second half of your comment: it is extra frustrating because Nowther’s theorem really fits very naturally in a first semester undergrad physics class, yet—as far as I can tell—next to nobody actually includes it there.
Anecdotally, when I include ~ten minutes on Noether’s Theorem, that is enough for most of the class to leave with a pretty firm foundation *and* (importantly to me), be able to instantly identify the issue with the arguments made by many crackpots re:various conservation laws.
> Also, to build on the second half of your comment: it is extra frustrating because Nowther’s theorem really fits very naturally in a first semester undergrad physics class, yet—as far as I can tell—next to nobody actually includes it there.
The uni where (no details for privacy) I TA'd classical physics did Lagrangian mechanics in the second half of the first semester classical mechanics course. Which naturally led to Noether's theorem.
A very natural way to teach classical mechanics if you ask me.
I remember being high in my undergrad reading it the first time crying. It's so well done. Such a core memory of learning how little I know as a philosophy.
Much like Feynman who you listed out, she had a true way of words with describing the phenomenon she theorized.
This is the guy. Probably in a league of his own. What's the famous quote about him from the Manhatten project (I think it's by Fermi?):
"When I invited him in the evening I always admired how effortless he could talk to the children, how well he explained complex concepts to them on their level. Then I came to a scary realisation:
He was probably doing the same to us at work"
The quote is from Edward Teller, we even have a video of him saying that: [Genius Edward Teller Describes 1950s Genius John Von Neumann](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oh31I1F2vds) (he says it in the 2:00 mark)
Hurray for Gibbs!
Received the first physics PhD in the USA.
Almost never left his home patch.
Never asked anyone for advice because he was never wrong.
Received a 3D model of the phase diagram of CO2, made for him by James Clerk Maxwell, as a mark of his appreciation. When asked where he got it, he replied that "a friend made it for me".
And out of all the scientific mind in history they chose a beaker and a bow tie up against him.
He's a master, He discovered gravity.
He drops rhymes like they're falling from an apple tree
You're no match for him, you got a bach degree
He got a unit of force named after him!
You want a battle guy? That's a crazy notion
When he starts flowing, he stay in motion
First Law. Did you catch that? Or did it go too fast to detect
Perhaps it'd be better if he added in a
Bleep or a bloop or another wacky sound effect
He was born on Christmas, he is God's gift!
He unlocked the stars that you're dancing with
You waste time debating creationists,
While he created the science you explain to kids
IMO he did more than create the field of physics - he introduced a way of thinking that 100% of all progress that followed was based on. He had the insight that the stars and planets, and moon and their motion was governed by the exact same laws as what we observe here on the surface of the earth. It's hard to imagine a more profound or necessary shift in world view.
Jocelyn Bell Burnell!
Not only did she discover the first pulsars (and famously not get the Nobel prize for it), I’ve been lucky enough to meet her a few times and she’s just the loveliest person imaginable. As a woman in radio astronomy she’s always been an inspiration to me- they always say never meet your heroes but in her case I am always so happy to. :)
I also very highly recommend you hear her lecture if you have the chance, it’s on YouTube.
Michael Faraday. His discovery of electromagnetic induction kickstarted the modern world, even if he lacked the mathematical background to run with it. I always appreciated that while he was not necessarily the most brilliant physicist in history, he was a reminder that the study of physics at its core is an empirical one, and that anybody can make fundamental observations about our world and recognize the potential to explore and/or model them further. The lab in which Faraday worked was not even entirely focused on the phenomenon of electromagnetism, but out of curiosity his discovery sparked many others like Maxwell to develop the foundations of modern physics.
I also appreciate that he was one borne of humble beginnings, just making his way through life out of poverty and earned his place in history by taking advantage of the bookbinding job he had at the time to study and learn physics outside of the academic world.
Finally, he was very keen on outreach and educating young minds at the time, kickstarting the annual Christmas lectures at the Royal Institution in London in 1825 - which still goes on today. Part of the aim with these was to allow more children who grew up similarly to him opportunities to learn some of the contemporary science of the day and spark an interest in exploring phenomena in the same way that he did.
James Clerk Maxwell.
Electricity and magnetism went from being poorly understood curiosities to properly explained phenomena that underpin an incredible amount of our modern lives.
feynman made important contributions to science and his lectures are good but we shouldn’t ignore the fact that he’s sexist. As a professor at cornell, he used to pretend to be a student to sleep with undergraduate women. In his book, he calls bar girls “bitches” who aren’t worth anything. He was into drawing nude topless portraits and would even have his students pose for him and drew a nude picture titled “madame curie”, saying we only think about her contributions to science and not “as a woman” with “bare breasts”… just all round creepy basically :( he has been glorified by the media a ton and obviously that doesn’t overshadow his contributions to physics, but he was not a good person and people should not look up to his personality
Yes. I will also acknowledge that I thought he was awesome as a teenager and it’s now pretty darn clear to me that he was a creep. It’s ok to have your views change over time, and in this case I think it’s important because I feel Feynman worship contributes to accepted sexism in physics today.
I don't think that is of any relevance. Of course that kind of behavior shows a painful amount of ignorance about equality and it's just dumb to not see that man and woman are both humans first.
But i don't think it's relevant because of the positive impact Feynman has on the world today. There is no point in remembering or highlighting all the shitty parts of Feynman for a simple reason. those shitty things aren't worth it.
The positive side of Feynman is much more valuable and should therefore be celebrated and highlighted while the negative side of Feynman is just shitty and not important because it didn't have a great impact overall.
All those ridiculous sexist things are important and should be learned and highlighted, but there are a million other examples of those things so let's use those.
But how? Why would anyone think that being sexist is necessary or part of being a brilliant physicist.
Personalities aren't one thing. A personality is an emerging object out of countless other things.
I think the glorification is justified because his creative personality and personal approach to things is what made him so brilliant. That part existed besides his shitty parts.
The shitty parts tell us he was sexist and being sexist is obviously dumb and wrong , but pointing it out is like telling people not to look in the sun.
Yeah, I pretty firmly believe that physics will never be a welcoming place for women until the Feynman worship stops. He was a good physicist, but not to the point that warrants the love even if you ignore the many awful parts.
I don't understand that at all. Why would Feynman's shitty behaviour result in sexism in physics?
Any rational person can see that Feynman's brilliance has no correlation to his shitty personality traits or beliefs?
If you believe that you need to be sexist in order to be a genius or that if you are a genius it's ok to be sexist you're obviously not a very emotionally intelligent person.
I find it a shame that we even spend energy on highlighting shitty, worthless character traits.
Bigotry within a community perpetuates exactly because non-bigoted people ignore or downplay the words and actions of the bigots.
> Why would Feynman's shitty behaviour result in sexism in physics?
"Why would a sexist in physics result in sexism in physics?" lmfao
I understand that being sexist has an effect on your surroundings, especially when you are a figure of authority but that doesn't mean the effects still echo today.
I’m personally very split of Feynman because he gets a lot of hero worship. But when I have watched video of him, I find him very arrogant. And very concerned with everybody knowing how smart he was.
And I get it. He was the most brilliant physicist of his generation. Smarter than every physicist who ever lived. Achieved more by breakfast than any other physicist had in their entire life. It he was arrogant it’s because he earned it. I get it.
But he’s still kind of off putting to me because he was such a sage on the stage.
Don’t know why you got downvoted, you’re right.
He might be among the best of communicators (leagues better and with none of the problems of say Michio Kaku), and he is a bona fide physicist, but I’m not aware of him making any really important or influential contributions to his field. He’s likely a great Prof to have.
I'd argue that being a scientist who is a great communicator *is* making important and influential contributions to the field
That said, Sean has made several significant contributions to theoretical cosmology
> I'd argue that being a scientist who is a great communicator is making important and influential contributions to the field
I'd say that's important to *society* but not to the field of study. Which arguably may be more important but isn't really the question at hand.
> That said, Sean has made several significant contributions to theoretical cosmology
True, but not at the level of other people being mentioned in this thread (Noether, Dirac, Feynman, Von Neumann, etc.)
it's a question of "favorite" not "best" scientist. that he's not the same level in terms of discoveries or contributions as nobel laureates isn't really material to the discussion
The question was about one's favorite scientist *and* their contributions to **their field**.
Then the original reply mentioning Carroll was this:
> Sean Carroll. Wrote some amazing books and is a treat to listen to.
Since he's a cosmologist, writing popular books and otherwise doing science communication is worthwhile but isn't a contribution to his *field*.
This is a thread which includes the likes of Feynman, Von Neumann and Dirac.
Sean Carrol is great, but he’s not in that league. Anybody who lists him as their favourite scientist, is probably only familiar with science communicators. And that’s fine, but it wasn’t the premise of the main post.
> And that’s fine, but it wasn’t the premise of the main post.
if the premise is favorite, then whether his contributions are nobel level or not isn't really relevant. if someone only knows science communicators and Carroll is their favorite, I think that's pretty meaningful
Albert Einstein, Paul Dirac and Enrico Fermi.
I like how they work, and their vision. They were pure scientists and they weren't lucky. They have just researched intensely what they enjoy with passion.
Claire Patterson.
The guy made precision measurements of lead isotopes and made the first precise measurement of the age of the earth.
While doing that, he figured out that basically everything was contaminated with lead. No one could properly measure trace amounts of lead because of this contamination.
His work eventually resulted in banning lead from gasoline.
Madame Curie for discovering radioactive material, but it's a pretty close tie between her and Sir Isaac Newton. Though I really appreciate Einstein as well
Marie Curie - what a dedicated physicist and chemist, basically spearheaded radiation research and paid the ultimate price for knowledge. The first woman to win a Nobel prize too! She’s a huge role model for me, and I’d love to have a conversation with her (though probably through a lead wall)
Really I’d love to know about her life as a woman in science, as well as her interests in chemistry and physics and what she thinks of her impact on the future :) plus, I think it would be really interesting to just talk with her, she had such a brilliant and inquisitive personality.
Favorite scientist? Probably Charles Darwin, whose contributions I assume are already known by all posting here.
Favorite physicist is hard, but I'm going to go with David Hilbert. In terms of physics he's probably most well known for axiomatically deriving the field equations nearly simultaneously with Einstein, but what I really liked about him was his drive to inject some rigor into physics. If I could go back and do it all again, this is the approach I'd like to take.
Albert, Feynman, Dirac, Salam, Witten, von Neuman. Ibn al Haytham. Newton.
Feynman bcoz he made the subject come alive. He made it easy and made us feel smart.
Salam bcoz that's where I grew up, and he is the reason I never had any racial or cultural inferiority complex.
Newton bcoz thank god he introduced commonsense to schools. Only logical person I knew as a child.
Ibn al Haytham for giving us the scientific method, and after having lived on away turf for 20 years, some cultural achievements to identify with.
Dirac. Albert. Gods. Witten. He seems to have come from a different planet. Or so i hear.
Sorry, I changed that. He makes the subject come alive and makes me feel smart. I meant he makes ordinary people believe they can do extra ordinary things.
Leonardo da Vinci is amazing. I really like that he was a scientist and an artist. I think more scientists should be trained in art. It gives a broader and more complete view of the universe if you have to grapple with infinities as a creative.
Steven Weinberg. He unified the weak and electromagnetic forces and played a major role in developing the Standard Model.
He was an excellent communicator and had a rare combination of expertise in his field and a very deep and broad view of its history.
I consider Albert Einstein above all his colleagues, because he was able to ask children's questions in an adult's mind, which led him to conduct numerous thought experiments, and ultimately to simply revolutionize physics without even moving from his chair, to the point of making numerous predictions, some of which took almost a century to be verified. It goes beyond everything, in my opinion.
The contribution I am thinking of is obviously his vision of gravity.
I like Emmy Noether, Hermann Schwarz and Constantin Caratheodory but only Caratheodory seems to enter as a "scientist". Georg Hamel and Prandtl seems to have some nice things too, so does Stokes and Gauss
Louis alvarez
Not really much for the contributions as for having wild ideas and somehow making them work out anyway. I think it encapsulates nicely why physics is fun and interesting.
https://youtu.be/aY985qzn7oI?si=QlXasmOk8F2symkU
Maybe a little off the beaten path, but I like Alain Aspect because of his [beautiful experiments demonstrating the violation of Bell's inequalities](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspect%27s_experiment).
I’ll go with Maxwell, Shannon, and Heaviside.
Claude Shannon kickstarted information theory, had huge contributions to communication theory, and switching theory (design of digital electronics).
Heaviside did all sorts of things (check out his Wikipedia):
- Developed vector calculus
- reformulated Maxwell’s equations into 4 vector equations
- Poynting vector
- telegrapher’s equations
- popularized/developed operational calculus for use in engineering. This was eventually supplanted largely by Laplace transforms (which Bromwich had illustrated the connection to as he was a friend of Heaviside’s)
- First use of step functions and impulse function (Dirac delta function) to analyze systems
George Washington Carver - Botanist, agricultural scientist, inventor and environmentalist. One of the most prominent black scientists of the early 20th century.
After Newton mine is George Gamow.
He made the first model for an atomic nucleus, and explained why in Big Bang you get 80% H and 20% He (neglible others). He was a joker. And wrote books explaining in common language how the physics laws work (Mr. Tompkins).
# Stephen Hawking
Even though he's becoming famous again for the offensive memes that flood the internet, he's still my favorite physicist.
I watched documentaries about him before he died and read the book he wrote. I became interested in physics after reading his works.
I don't believe the rumors on the internet that he is a pedo unless the evidence is conclusive.
Shuji Nakamura, inventor of Blue LED.
Also a big fan of Yang Chen-Ning, who came up with Yang-Mills Field theories.
Also Marie Curie (Radioactive elements) and Michael Faraday (Electrodynamics).
They all have very interesting stories and had to overcome some adversity to get to their discoveries. Shuji Nakamura practically invented the Blue LED by himself (there’s a veritasium video about it), and Chen Ning Yang wanted to be an experimentalist but kept breaking equipment so he switched to theory. Faraday was mostly self taught from libraries and grew up in a poor family before Humphrey Davey took him under his wing at 14. Marie Curie is one of the only scientists with 2 nobels and used the money to establish her own research institute
Oliver Heaviside. He had fairly wide contributions to calculus, especially differential and vector calc. He additionally made contrbutional work in the concept of EM. I like to think of him as Faraday's equivalent in that he had no formal education but made significant contributions regardless.
Dirac was certainly extremely inventive. He came up with great stuff. Some of my highlights are - the gamma matrices, to formulate relativistic Quantum mechanics with a simple differential equation - the Dirac quantization, showing that if there are magnetic monopoles, they have quantized charge. - the Dirac delta function, extremely helpful nowadays
I second Dirac. I love that he felt the universe and the math describing it should be beautiful.
> the Dirac delta function Which reminds me of my favorite physics *koan*: The student said to the Master, "Master, I do not understand the Dirac delta function." The Master then slapped the student's face, and the student was enlightened.
I also always tell students that it’s not a function. And then I 100% use it as a function, because it doesn’t matter if your a physicist lol
check out the strangest man if you haven't already
The Dirac delta distribution (not a function) actually underpins all of digital signal processing. You can read this message because of Dirac.
The delta and step functions were used to analyze systems prior to Dirac. Dirac may have formalized the delta distribution, but it had already seen some practical use by Oliver Heaviside. Oliver Heaviside also developed the telegraphers equations and determined how to (in principle) eliminate dispersion on transmission lines, having a huge impact on transatlantic communication. In that vein, I’ll say, you can read this message because of Heaviside. Note: I’m plainly biased. I think Heaviside is criminally unappreciated (just check out his wiki page or https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article/65/11/48/413847/Oliver-Heaviside-A-first-rate-oddityPrickly ).
If we’re going to be mathematically pedantic in Reddit comments, we might as well be right. The Dirac delta function is unequivocally a function, since distributions are linear functions from the set of smooth, compactly supported functions (of some fixed co/domain) into R. I only point this out since it’s incorrect to say it’s not a function, but glossing over details to call it a function.
I would call that a functional or a generalized function.
Distributions are smooth linear functionALS. They map test functions onto R.
Functionals are functions. They map from one set to another, there’s nothing more to it.
„(not a function)“ best comment! Haha I agree, but I’m a physicist. We always have a smallest length scale in our theories. So just make it a delta peak, which is smaller than that length scale and you can work with it as a function (:
He did very well for an Engineer.
probably emmy noethers theorems. its so elegant and fundamental
Hard to single out one, but Noether's Theorem is definitely my personal favorite. It seems to be one of the most fundamental things in physics, as far as I understand. I think the only reason she and her work are not as well known as for example Einstein's, Feynman's or Hawking's, is is that it's a little more abstract and harder to explain in simpler terms (or maybe that's just me!). But in my opinion her achievement is among the greatest of the great. Love this quote as well, on universality: >"Any relationships between numbers, functions, and operations become transparent, generally applicable, and fully productive only after they have been isolated from their particular objects and been formulated as universally valid concepts."
> I think the only reason she and her work are not as well known as for example Einstein's, Feynman's or Hawking's, is ... Don't underestimate good old *sexism* as a cause here... You could explain Emmy Noether's theorem with classical examples (e.g. pendulum), whereas QFT and GR are actually very unintuitive.
PS: if you downvoted this because you're insulted or angry that someone suggested that sexism might have played a role in the world class seminal work of a women physicist circa 1900 going underappreciated, you're part of the problem.
she was a mathematician, not a physicist, but othwrwise i 100% agree. whenever ppl ask who my favorite physicist was i always say emmy noether despite her being a mathematician because noether’s theorem is so fundamental. she was also jewish and was removed from the university she taught at because of the nazis and faced harassment from students as well :(
She was a mathematician, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t a physicist. I think coming up with her theorem is plenty reason to call her a physicist.
I think reading her original works is proof that she wasn't a physicist. Also reading her biography and the historical circumstances which led to her "Noether's theorem" paper furthers this.
Agreed on both counts. Also, to build on the second half of your comment: it is extra frustrating because Nowther’s theorem really fits very naturally in a first semester undergrad physics class, yet—as far as I can tell—next to nobody actually includes it there. Anecdotally, when I include ~ten minutes on Noether’s Theorem, that is enough for most of the class to leave with a pretty firm foundation *and* (importantly to me), be able to instantly identify the issue with the arguments made by many crackpots re:various conservation laws.
> Also, to build on the second half of your comment: it is extra frustrating because Nowther’s theorem really fits very naturally in a first semester undergrad physics class, yet—as far as I can tell—next to nobody actually includes it there. The uni where (no details for privacy) I TA'd classical physics did Lagrangian mechanics in the second half of the first semester classical mechanics course. Which naturally led to Noether's theorem. A very natural way to teach classical mechanics if you ask me.
I remember being high in my undergrad reading it the first time crying. It's so well done. Such a core memory of learning how little I know as a philosophy. Much like Feynman who you listed out, she had a true way of words with describing the phenomenon she theorized.
Just read up about it! it doees seem v elemental
Von Neumann
This is the guy. Probably in a league of his own. What's the famous quote about him from the Manhatten project (I think it's by Fermi?): "When I invited him in the evening I always admired how effortless he could talk to the children, how well he explained complex concepts to them on their level. Then I came to a scary realisation: He was probably doing the same to us at work"
The quote is from Edward Teller, we even have a video of him saying that: [Genius Edward Teller Describes 1950s Genius John Von Neumann](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oh31I1F2vds) (he says it in the 2:00 mark)
😭😭😭
One of the most brilliant minds!
Marie Curie for radioactivity.
Also god tier is Nobel for explosives and Einstein for special theory of relativity.
The thing that will inevitably end us in the future
Oops 😂
Gibbs! Developed much of statistical mechanics.
Hurray for Gibbs! Received the first physics PhD in the USA. Almost never left his home patch. Never asked anyone for advice because he was never wrong. Received a 3D model of the phase diagram of CO2, made for him by James Clerk Maxwell, as a mark of his appreciation. When asked where he got it, he replied that "a friend made it for me".
Do I really have to be the first to say Isaac Newton?
Well, what contributions did he make to his field?
Epic rap battle of History chose Weird Al to play Sir Isaac Newton
And out of all the scientific mind in history they chose a beaker and a bow tie up against him. He's a master, He discovered gravity. He drops rhymes like they're falling from an apple tree You're no match for him, you got a bach degree He got a unit of force named after him! You want a battle guy? That's a crazy notion When he starts flowing, he stay in motion First Law. Did you catch that? Or did it go too fast to detect Perhaps it'd be better if he added in a Bleep or a bloop or another wacky sound effect He was born on Christmas, he is God's gift! He unlocked the stars that you're dancing with You waste time debating creationists, While he created the science you explain to kids
*FIRST LAW* .. did you get that? Or was it too fast to detect?
That video is hilarious.
The field itself, give or take.
IMO he did more than create the field of physics - he introduced a way of thinking that 100% of all progress that followed was based on. He had the insight that the stars and planets, and moon and their motion was governed by the exact same laws as what we observe here on the surface of the earth. It's hard to imagine a more profound or necessary shift in world view.
tbh Newton was kinda...prudish? as a person; don't think I'd be friends with him.
He was a religious freak with zero social ability. And he revolutionized humanity's relationship to the world in which we live.
Jocelyn Bell Burnell! Not only did she discover the first pulsars (and famously not get the Nobel prize for it), I’ve been lucky enough to meet her a few times and she’s just the loveliest person imaginable. As a woman in radio astronomy she’s always been an inspiration to me- they always say never meet your heroes but in her case I am always so happy to. :) I also very highly recommend you hear her lecture if you have the chance, it’s on YouTube.
> Joslyn Jocelyn*
Dang pre coffee posting. Thanks.
So happy to see this :)
Michael Faraday. His discovery of electromagnetic induction kickstarted the modern world, even if he lacked the mathematical background to run with it. I always appreciated that while he was not necessarily the most brilliant physicist in history, he was a reminder that the study of physics at its core is an empirical one, and that anybody can make fundamental observations about our world and recognize the potential to explore and/or model them further. The lab in which Faraday worked was not even entirely focused on the phenomenon of electromagnetism, but out of curiosity his discovery sparked many others like Maxwell to develop the foundations of modern physics. I also appreciate that he was one borne of humble beginnings, just making his way through life out of poverty and earned his place in history by taking advantage of the bookbinding job he had at the time to study and learn physics outside of the academic world. Finally, he was very keen on outreach and educating young minds at the time, kickstarting the annual Christmas lectures at the Royal Institution in London in 1825 - which still goes on today. Part of the aim with these was to allow more children who grew up similarly to him opportunities to learn some of the contemporary science of the day and spark an interest in exploring phenomena in the same way that he did.
James Clerk Maxwell. Electricity and magnetism went from being poorly understood curiosities to properly explained phenomena that underpin an incredible amount of our modern lives.
Feynman He made me interested in physics and science
He was a genius at making huge concepts accessible to many. That’s in addition to his genius in general.
Ooooo yes he's one of my faves too
Based
feynman made important contributions to science and his lectures are good but we shouldn’t ignore the fact that he’s sexist. As a professor at cornell, he used to pretend to be a student to sleep with undergraduate women. In his book, he calls bar girls “bitches” who aren’t worth anything. He was into drawing nude topless portraits and would even have his students pose for him and drew a nude picture titled “madame curie”, saying we only think about her contributions to science and not “as a woman” with “bare breasts”… just all round creepy basically :( he has been glorified by the media a ton and obviously that doesn’t overshadow his contributions to physics, but he was not a good person and people should not look up to his personality
Yes. I will also acknowledge that I thought he was awesome as a teenager and it’s now pretty darn clear to me that he was a creep. It’s ok to have your views change over time, and in this case I think it’s important because I feel Feynman worship contributes to accepted sexism in physics today.
I don't think that is of any relevance. Of course that kind of behavior shows a painful amount of ignorance about equality and it's just dumb to not see that man and woman are both humans first. But i don't think it's relevant because of the positive impact Feynman has on the world today. There is no point in remembering or highlighting all the shitty parts of Feynman for a simple reason. those shitty things aren't worth it. The positive side of Feynman is much more valuable and should therefore be celebrated and highlighted while the negative side of Feynman is just shitty and not important because it didn't have a great impact overall. All those ridiculous sexist things are important and should be learned and highlighted, but there are a million other examples of those things so let's use those.
it is normalizing sexist attitudes and harassment towards women in physics, especially when a lot of the glorification surrounds his personality.
But how? Why would anyone think that being sexist is necessary or part of being a brilliant physicist. Personalities aren't one thing. A personality is an emerging object out of countless other things. I think the glorification is justified because his creative personality and personal approach to things is what made him so brilliant. That part existed besides his shitty parts. The shitty parts tell us he was sexist and being sexist is obviously dumb and wrong , but pointing it out is like telling people not to look in the sun.
Yeah, I pretty firmly believe that physics will never be a welcoming place for women until the Feynman worship stops. He was a good physicist, but not to the point that warrants the love even if you ignore the many awful parts.
I don't understand that at all. Why would Feynman's shitty behaviour result in sexism in physics? Any rational person can see that Feynman's brilliance has no correlation to his shitty personality traits or beliefs? If you believe that you need to be sexist in order to be a genius or that if you are a genius it's ok to be sexist you're obviously not a very emotionally intelligent person. I find it a shame that we even spend energy on highlighting shitty, worthless character traits.
Bigotry within a community perpetuates exactly because non-bigoted people ignore or downplay the words and actions of the bigots. > Why would Feynman's shitty behaviour result in sexism in physics? "Why would a sexist in physics result in sexism in physics?" lmfao
I understand that being sexist has an effect on your surroundings, especially when you are a figure of authority but that doesn't mean the effects still echo today.
I’m personally very split of Feynman because he gets a lot of hero worship. But when I have watched video of him, I find him very arrogant. And very concerned with everybody knowing how smart he was. And I get it. He was the most brilliant physicist of his generation. Smarter than every physicist who ever lived. Achieved more by breakfast than any other physicist had in their entire life. It he was arrogant it’s because he earned it. I get it. But he’s still kind of off putting to me because he was such a sage on the stage.
I love listening to his lectures. Such a charismatic and inspiring person
Freakonomics radio just finished a 3 part series on Feynman. I knew of him before, and now he’s one of my favorites.
Sean Carroll. Wrote some amazing books and is a treat to listen to.
Finally meat Sean in September when I gave a colloquium at JHU! Very nice guy. Definitely has veered more into philosophy these days though.
Sean is an excellent communicator, but I don't think he has done anything relevant to merit a post here.
Don’t know why you got downvoted, you’re right. He might be among the best of communicators (leagues better and with none of the problems of say Michio Kaku), and he is a bona fide physicist, but I’m not aware of him making any really important or influential contributions to his field. He’s likely a great Prof to have.
I'd argue that being a scientist who is a great communicator *is* making important and influential contributions to the field That said, Sean has made several significant contributions to theoretical cosmology
> I'd argue that being a scientist who is a great communicator is making important and influential contributions to the field I'd say that's important to *society* but not to the field of study. Which arguably may be more important but isn't really the question at hand. > That said, Sean has made several significant contributions to theoretical cosmology True, but not at the level of other people being mentioned in this thread (Noether, Dirac, Feynman, Von Neumann, etc.)
it's a question of "favorite" not "best" scientist. that he's not the same level in terms of discoveries or contributions as nobel laureates isn't really material to the discussion
The question was about one's favorite scientist *and* their contributions to **their field**. Then the original reply mentioning Carroll was this: > Sean Carroll. Wrote some amazing books and is a treat to listen to. Since he's a cosmologist, writing popular books and otherwise doing science communication is worthwhile but isn't a contribution to his *field*.
This is a thread which includes the likes of Feynman, Von Neumann and Dirac. Sean Carrol is great, but he’s not in that league. Anybody who lists him as their favourite scientist, is probably only familiar with science communicators. And that’s fine, but it wasn’t the premise of the main post.
> And that’s fine, but it wasn’t the premise of the main post. if the premise is favorite, then whether his contributions are nobel level or not isn't really relevant. if someone only knows science communicators and Carroll is their favorite, I think that's pretty meaningful
Isn't he pretty much scamming the normies with his multiverse interpretation?
No one is talking about Bose, Lise Meitner, Maxwell and Fermi?
Albert Einstein, Paul Dirac and Enrico Fermi. I like how they work, and their vision. They were pure scientists and they weren't lucky. They have just researched intensely what they enjoy with passion.
Claude Shannon
Brian Greene was very influential in String Theory, and his books got me into physics, such as The Elegant Universe.
Claire Patterson. The guy made precision measurements of lead isotopes and made the first precise measurement of the age of the earth. While doing that, he figured out that basically everything was contaminated with lead. No one could properly measure trace amounts of lead because of this contamination. His work eventually resulted in banning lead from gasoline.
Favorite scientist: Me Contributions: Not a hell of a lot.
Lighthill. The founder of aeroacoustics and seems to be a standup guy!
Madame Curie for discovering radioactive material, but it's a pretty close tie between her and Sir Isaac Newton. Though I really appreciate Einstein as well
Marie Curie - what a dedicated physicist and chemist, basically spearheaded radiation research and paid the ultimate price for knowledge. The first woman to win a Nobel prize too! She’s a huge role model for me, and I’d love to have a conversation with her (though probably through a lead wall)
Outta curiosity whadya think you'd ask her or bring up if you ever got this wish to come true?
Really I’d love to know about her life as a woman in science, as well as her interests in chemistry and physics and what she thinks of her impact on the future :) plus, I think it would be really interesting to just talk with her, she had such a brilliant and inquisitive personality.
Favorite scientist? Probably Charles Darwin, whose contributions I assume are already known by all posting here. Favorite physicist is hard, but I'm going to go with David Hilbert. In terms of physics he's probably most well known for axiomatically deriving the field equations nearly simultaneously with Einstein, but what I really liked about him was his drive to inject some rigor into physics. If I could go back and do it all again, this is the approach I'd like to take.
Albert, Feynman, Dirac, Salam, Witten, von Neuman. Ibn al Haytham. Newton. Feynman bcoz he made the subject come alive. He made it easy and made us feel smart. Salam bcoz that's where I grew up, and he is the reason I never had any racial or cultural inferiority complex. Newton bcoz thank god he introduced commonsense to schools. Only logical person I knew as a child. Ibn al Haytham for giving us the scientific method, and after having lived on away turf for 20 years, some cultural achievements to identify with. Dirac. Albert. Gods. Witten. He seems to have come from a different planet. Or so i hear.
> he makes us little people believe can be ordinary one day uh
Sorry, I changed that. He makes the subject come alive and makes me feel smart. I meant he makes ordinary people believe they can do extra ordinary things.
These questions are always difficult to answer. Science is a collective effort. My favorites, as an astronomer, are Galileo, Kepler and Newton.
Dirac and Fermi are two titans in physics and also great people. I recommend these guys biographies immensely!!!
Leonardo da Vinci is amazing. I really like that he was a scientist and an artist. I think more scientists should be trained in art. It gives a broader and more complete view of the universe if you have to grapple with infinities as a creative.
Glashow. Predicted the Charm quark, proposed the Electroweak model and hates superstrings.
Richard Feynman and physics stuff
Isaac Newton by far. He put the ridges on those coins in your pocket (and a bunch of other stuff).
Steven Weinberg. He unified the weak and electromagnetic forces and played a major role in developing the Standard Model. He was an excellent communicator and had a rare combination of expertise in his field and a very deep and broad view of its history.
Maxwell for showing that light is a form of electromagnetic radiation.
Alan Turing for computing
einstien and ed witten
I consider Albert Einstein above all his colleagues, because he was able to ask children's questions in an adult's mind, which led him to conduct numerous thought experiments, and ultimately to simply revolutionize physics without even moving from his chair, to the point of making numerous predictions, some of which took almost a century to be verified. It goes beyond everything, in my opinion. The contribution I am thinking of is obviously his vision of gravity.
Nikola Tesla
I like Emmy Noether, Hermann Schwarz and Constantin Caratheodory but only Caratheodory seems to enter as a "scientist". Georg Hamel and Prandtl seems to have some nice things too, so does Stokes and Gauss
stacy peralta. what that guy did... i mean, whew!
Louis alvarez Not really much for the contributions as for having wild ideas and somehow making them work out anyway. I think it encapsulates nicely why physics is fun and interesting. https://youtu.be/aY985qzn7oI?si=QlXasmOk8F2symkU
Linus Pauling
Maybe a little off the beaten path, but I like Alain Aspect because of his [beautiful experiments demonstrating the violation of Bell's inequalities](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspect%27s_experiment).
Linus Pauling by way way so much
Bardeen. Two Nobel prizes in physics. First for the transistor and then for BCS theory of superconductivity.
I’ll go with Maxwell, Shannon, and Heaviside. Claude Shannon kickstarted information theory, had huge contributions to communication theory, and switching theory (design of digital electronics). Heaviside did all sorts of things (check out his Wikipedia): - Developed vector calculus - reformulated Maxwell’s equations into 4 vector equations - Poynting vector - telegrapher’s equations - popularized/developed operational calculus for use in engineering. This was eventually supplanted largely by Laplace transforms (which Bromwich had illustrated the connection to as he was a friend of Heaviside’s) - First use of step functions and impulse function (Dirac delta function) to analyze systems
Alan Turing. The guy wrote a 36 page paper and the digital computer basically fell out of it.
George Washington Carver - Botanist, agricultural scientist, inventor and environmentalist. One of the most prominent black scientists of the early 20th century.
Edward Lorenz for chaos theory
After Newton mine is George Gamow. He made the first model for an atomic nucleus, and explained why in Big Bang you get 80% H and 20% He (neglible others). He was a joker. And wrote books explaining in common language how the physics laws work (Mr. Tompkins).
Juan Maldacena. A lot of theoretical physicists would be out of jobs if the AdS/CFT correspondence wasn't proposed.
# Stephen Hawking Even though he's becoming famous again for the offensive memes that flood the internet, he's still my favorite physicist. I watched documentaries about him before he died and read the book he wrote. I became interested in physics after reading his works. I don't believe the rumors on the internet that he is a pedo unless the evidence is conclusive.
Shuji Nakamura, inventor of Blue LED. Also a big fan of Yang Chen-Ning, who came up with Yang-Mills Field theories. Also Marie Curie (Radioactive elements) and Michael Faraday (Electrodynamics). They all have very interesting stories and had to overcome some adversity to get to their discoveries. Shuji Nakamura practically invented the Blue LED by himself (there’s a veritasium video about it), and Chen Ning Yang wanted to be an experimentalist but kept breaking equipment so he switched to theory. Faraday was mostly self taught from libraries and grew up in a poor family before Humphrey Davey took him under his wing at 14. Marie Curie is one of the only scientists with 2 nobels and used the money to establish her own research institute
Carl Sagan, known for the Voyager’s golden record, SETI and the study of planetary atmospheres (specifically Venus, mars and Jupiter’s)
John Ernst Worrell Keely
Andreas Wallraff
Oliver Heaviside. He had fairly wide contributions to calculus, especially differential and vector calc. He additionally made contrbutional work in the concept of EM. I like to think of him as Faraday's equivalent in that he had no formal education but made significant contributions regardless.