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Favorite historical figure...need ideas

Kevin M.Kevin M.
edited September 2008 in General
For one of my Bio classes we have to do an essay on a historical figure / scientist who has done some important work and/or made some fascinating discoveries. I guess individuals such as Charles Darwin, Watson & Crick, and Isaac Newton would be easy but they are a little too mainstream. I was wondering if you guys know any scientist type of people that have done important work in their field that I could write on.
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Comments

  • Shi2
    edited September 2008
    Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, or Immanuel Kant.
  • Kevin M.Kevin M.
    edited September 2008
    Sweeett....I think Karl Marx and Charles Darwin were friends that's perfect.
  • Ether
    edited September 2008
    Oh, sure. Karl Marks isn't mainstream at all. He's practically unknown.
  • meeshmeesh
    edited September 2008
    Nikola Tesla

    i don't know too much about science but i do know his discoveries still influence modern technology, i.e. wireless communication, fluorescent tube lights, etc.
    he was definitely way ahead of his time, and had an interesting personal life as well.
  • Ether
    edited September 2008
    Yeah, I heard Tesla only slept 2 hours per night.


    Michael Faraday is another option. He's less interesting, but also less famous.
  • meeshmeesh
    edited September 2008
    lol i heard he had terrible OCD. he was obsessed with the number 3 and didn't like round things.
  • Agentbob
    edited September 2008
    Mark Twain? James D. Watson is one I can think of. He lead the Human Genome Project.
  • SpectreFire
    edited September 2008
    Or you can write about how Thomas Edison is a thieving, lying little prick.
  • Kevin M.Kevin M.
    edited September 2008
    ummm what? did you know him personally haha
  • Jimmy
    edited September 2008
    Gregor Mendel - Genetics - Pea plants
  • Shi2
    edited September 2008
    If it's for a bio class, maybe research about Stanley Miller. I remember studying him back in high school.
  • Kevin M.Kevin M.
    edited September 2008
    Thanks for all the ideas! It is a Bio class but for some reason we don't have to write about a Biologist so it is very open ended.
  • primexx
    edited September 2008
    Dawkins' Memetics.
  • siuying
    edited September 2008
    albert einstein was rumoured to have stolen the discoveries that made him famous from his wife..=P
    so.. his wife is could be an option?

    then there's david suzuki..=)
  • hikin
    edited September 2008
    is there a limit to the period...?

    Niccolò Machiavelli? Adolf Eichmann? Galileo Galilei? Archimedes? Francis Bacon? David Livingston? Alexander Graham Bell? John Logie Baird? Leonardo da Vinci? Cornelius Drebbel? Sigmund Freud? Benjamin Franklin?

    want more?
  • Kevin M.Kevin M.
    edited September 2008
    Now that's more like it. I'm familiar with Machiavelli, maybe that would be a good option as well. What else you got? :P
  • Ether
    edited September 2008
    Pythagoras of Samos
    Diogenes of Sinope
    Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz
    Alan Turing?
  • Kevin M.Kevin M.
    edited September 2008
    Dude, you can't just make names up lol
  • hikin
    edited September 2008
    what areas of history are u interested in? perhaps it'd be easier to give examples :D
  • NukeChem
    edited September 2008
    Just for total shits and giggles, Trofim Lysenko. :P
  • JayDub
    edited September 2008
    What about Adolf Hitler? Or Joseph Stalin? Both are my favourite historical figures.
  • Ether
    edited September 2008
    ether' said:
    Pythagoras of Samos
    Diogenes of Sinope
    Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz
    Alan Turing?
    Kevin M.;36529 said:
    Dude, you can't just make names up lol
    I hope for your sake you were being sarcastic.

    Pythagoras of Samos
    Diogenes of Sinope
    Gottfried Leibniz
    Alan Turing
  • Agentbob
    edited September 2008
    Ether;36551 said:

    Alan Turing
    I think for the average joe, Alan Turing would be a pretty boring figure to study.
  • Ether
    edited September 2008
    He did commit suicide in a pretty novel way.
  • Kevin M.Kevin M.
    edited September 2008
    Right now I'm leaning towards Adam Smith who published The Wealth of Nations and is known as "the father of economics"
  • Kevin M.Kevin M.
    edited September 2008
    NukeChem;36533 said:
    Just for total shits and giggles, Trofim Lysenko. :P
    Though Lysenko remained at his post in the Institute of Genetics until 1965,[1] his influence on Soviet agricultural practice declined by the 1950s. The Soviet Union quietly abandoned Lysenko's agricultural practices in favor of modern agricultural practices after the crop yields he promised failed to materialize. Today much of Lysenko's agricultural experimentation and research is largely viewed as fraudulent.

    That did make me giggle lol
  • NukeChem
    edited September 2008
    Oh, yeah, totally. His name is synonymous with bad science in biology to an extent unmatched except when it comes to physics and its hate-on for Aristotle. (Not kidding, if you're a philosophy major and want to watch physicists actually get hacked off, mention Aristotle. He's vilified in physics largely because his theories on the motion of matter set back the science more than a thousand years until Galileo and Newton came along.)

    I think the phlogiston theory is just sort of laughed at in chemistry; we're a pretty mellow bunch when it comes to people propounding silly ideas. :P
  • leo
    edited September 2008
    as far as the 20th century, for me it's probably Andrei_Sakharov
  • meeshmeesh
    edited September 2008
    grigori rasputin

    the dude survived cyanide poisoning, beatings, and gunshot wounds until his assassins threw him into a icy river so he'd drown! (according to legends at least haha)

    this cracked me up:
    Guseva thrust a knife into Rasputin's abdomen, and his entrails hung out of what seemed like a mortal wound. Convinced of her success, Guseva supposedly screamed, "I have killed the antichrist!"

    After intensive surgery, however, Rasputin recovered. - wikipedia
  • Insatiable
    edited September 2008
    meesh;36476 said:
    Nikola Tesla

    i don't know too much about science but i do know his discoveries still influence modern technology, i.e. wireless communication, fluorescent tube lights, etc.
    he was definitely way ahead of his time, and had an interesting personal life as well.
    I was gonna say Tesla too! You stole my idea :angry:

    Yea, his work is truly significant, but much of it has been overshadowed by Einstein's success (even though some physicists contend that Tesla's work may perhaps be as, if not more, important).

    Just look at him thinking!
    Teslathinker.jpg

    I'd like to propose Benjamin Franklin and Ivan Pavlov (they're fairly well known).

    I don't know why everyone's mentioning philsophers and social thinkers when the discussion is supposed to be about scientists :confused:

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