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There are some difficulties with my question. For one, the way I have phrased it, it is asking for one single person as the answer, whereas there may be a number of people who are all up there more or less tied for the prize. For another, it is always difficult to go back in time conceptually and factor in all that was not known in order to judge the leap which one genius made for humanity. I also thought of putting up a poll, but decided not to because I would have to decide which four or five names to include, and there may be no general agreement on those. So, despite all the difficulties, my vote goes to Sir Isaac Newton.
I'll start with Pope's famous epigram "Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night:/ God said, Let Newton be! and all was light." Maybe this was a bit hyperbolic, but such a notable as Einstein (certainly another candidate here) had enormous respect for Newton's accomplishments: "His great and lucid ideas will retain their unique significance for all time." Newton worked on many problems, but I think two things stand out, his law of gravity and his development of differential calculus (developped independently about the same time by Leibnitz).
By positing the law of gravity as universal and by discovering its mathematical underpinnings, Newton made possible the entire field of predictive astronomy (aside from obvious predictions based on past sightings, such as a comet reappearing every so and so many years). "With this formula he had determined how the planets and the starts held their places and what caused the precession of the equinoxes, and explained the ebb and flow of the tides. Even now the majestic range of this reasoning ranks among the greatest of all advances in human understanding;..." (Richard Cohen, Chasing the Sun)
Calculus was the mathematical discipline required for every scientific advance of the twentieth century. I think it is almost impossible to overstate its importance.
Isaac Newton casts such a long shadow that Isaac Asimov is said to have remarked that when scientists dispute among themselves who is the greatest scientist in history, they are actually arguing about who is the second greatest.
Newton is going to be a hard one to argue with since he is so influential and idolized within the scientific community.
So, I am going to take a differenct tact....
Socrates. Socrates' ideas as relayed by Plato and embodied in the Socractic method have formed the basis of western thought for virtually all of recorded history. No man has been more influential in helping us to understand ourselves than Socrates whose ideas are still influential to this day.
While our understanding of science and the universe is constantly changing and evolving built on the work of all who came before, when we look to adjust our minds to discover our place within this understanding and how we relate to others, we still retreat to the work of Socrates.
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Originally Posted by NJGOAT
Newton is going to be a hard one to argue with since he is so influential and idolized within the scientific community.
So, I am going to take a differenct tact....
Socrates. Socrates' ideas as relayed by Plato and embodied in the Socractic method have formed the basis of western thought for virtually all of recorded history. No man has been more influential in helping us to understand ourselves than Socrates whose ideas are still influential to this day.
While our understanding of science and the universe is constantly changing and evolving built on the work of all who came before, when we look to adjust our minds to discover our place within this understanding and how we relate to others, we still retreat to the work of Socrates.
I have a hard time disagreeing with that. Newton spontaneously generated a lot of mathematics and physical science, but he wasn't burdened with quite as much rank pioneering as the old Greeks. Much of their math and science was wrong, but the advance of the sciences essentially began with them.
Newton recited in some of his correspondence with Robert Hooke that "...if I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."
Except Newton was OBSESSED with alchemy and biblical code, perhaps even more so than his scientific works. He would be considered quite the wackjob crackpot today.
I have a hard time crediting 1 person as the "greatest genius" There have been lots of great minds; they tend to compliment and build upon the genius of each other. Human accomplishment should be credited to humanity... our species itself rather than any one individual.
Besides, in only another 20 or 30 years, there will probably be computer AI systems that will make us all look like retards anyway.
I cannot select but one genius as the ultimate because genius itself is compartmentalized and found in numerous areas. Designating Newton as # 1 relies on the theory that scientific genius trumps all other forms. Advancing Socrates for the title would mean that philosophy is the most critical area of human achievement. Someone else might believe that military genius is the proper criteria and argue for Caesar or Napoleon. For politics...etc.
Is there anyone who cuts across all fields? A gifted scientific thinker who was also a brilliant philosopher who could not be defeated on the battlefield? If we try to award the title to whoever represents the best balance of genius in multiple fields, we are watering it down and honoring someone who wasn't the greatest genius in any particular field. Still, there would be fine candidates among the multi field genius group, Ben Franklin springs immediately to mind,
So, I would ask of the OP, are we supposed to be looking for the greatest scientist? Are we supposed to be arguing about which field demands the greatest genius? Are we supposed to be looking for the best all round genius?
Oh yeah....I also ask the OP.....why "produced by our species?" Were you anticipating some posters trying to nominate animals and extraterrestrials ?
Last edited by Grandstander; 09-21-2011 at 05:13 PM..
So, I would ask of the OP, are we supposed to be looking for the greatest scientist? Are we supposed to be arguing about which field demands the greatest genius? Are we supposed to be looking for the best all round genius?
Oh yeah....I also ask the OP.....why "produced by our species?" Were you anticipating some posters trying to nominate animals and extraterrestrials ?
The question is wide open - you can argue it any way you wish. In the OP I alluded to the possibility of multiple answers. I am not one of those posters who thinks I "own" the thread just because I started it. Also, I certainly accept the drafting correction you suggested regarding unneeded words. I plead guilty to sloppy drafting and will stand in the corner for five minutes.
Except Newton was OBSESSED with alchemy and biblical code, perhaps even more so than his scientific works. He would be considered quite the wackjob crackpot today.
I agree, but all that takes nothing away from his accomplishments, which were quite simply staggering. As a child he was a real loner - quite friendless - and pretty much remained so as an adult. He was the opposite of well-adjusted. Yep, wackjob crackpot is a pretty good description.
Apparently the writer John Milton composed most of Paradise Lost in his head, after having gone nearly blind, unable to write out his sentences and look at them anymore. He dictated the lines to an assistant, who jotted them down. That's a remarkable accomplishment considering that he took several years to finish the text, meaning that he basically had a complete word-for-word map of the entire poem in his head as he went along.
It seems like a most of the people cited as historical "geniuses" did a lot of work in mathematics, regardless of whatever else they did.
Along with Newton, people like to cite the German philosopher/mathematicians Gottfried Leibniz and Gottlob Frege, along with the French mathematician/astronomers Joseph-Louis Lagrange and Pierre-Simon Laplace.
Da Vinci is an excellent choice. He is said to have encompassed nearly all knowledge of his time. Archimedes was one of the greatest mathematicians of the ancient world and is often ranked with Newton and Gauss. Science may be just catching up with Nikola Tesla's concepts and vision. Johann Goethe was brilliant in several disciplines.
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