Who is the best scientist in the world and why?

Answer 1

There is no definitive answer to this. Most people might just blurt out "Albert Einstein" because he's the only one they know. As a physicist myself, here are my personal top five:

1. Isaac newton

The three laws of motion, even though incorrect in the ultrarelativistic limit, still remain the most significant scientific discovery of all time. All subsequent work in physics was done with regard to these--even things like relativity and quantum mechanics, which do not adhere to them. His joint invention of the calculus with Leibniz also represents a great stepping stone in applied mathematics.

2. Erwin Schrodinger

Most people would not put Schrodinger at number 2, but anyone who reads Schrodinger's work is immediately met with a great intellect. The wave formulation is the first comprehensive and completely correct model of quantum mechanics, and is second to none in beauty. Also he kept an open mind to the "new physics" long after Einstein wouldn't believe it anymore. In physics, the more open your mind, the better you are. Lastly, he made significant contributions to other fields, and is credited with one of the first books on quantum and molecular biology ("what is life?").

3. Albert Einstein

At the turn of the last century it was Einstein alone who saw that the contradiction between Maxwell's equations and Newtonian Mechanics was the harbinger of a new physics. In this physics nothing can go faster than the speed of light, and properties such as mass, length, and the speed at which time passes are dependent upon an object's spate of motion with respect to you. It is called special relativity. He later extended this to more general situations, thereby creating general relativity, which is now interpreted as a theory of gravity. He's also become quite the folk hero since his (very understandable) disgust for Hitler in WWII made him huge political capital in the U.S., unfortunately many who would praise him so highly don't fully understand his significance.

4. James Clerk Maxwell

After about 2000 years of mankind knowing about electricity, and 150 of studying it seriously, Maxwell was able to bring together the basic laws which govern all electromagnetic phenomena--they are the Maxwell Equations. It is the first example of a field theory in the history of physics, which is also very important. Modern physics has a lot to owe Maxwell for the simplicity and beauty of these equations. The idea of gauge symmetry (which is important in fundamental particle physics) can be traced back to Maxwell's equations, and their simple U(1) symmetry group.

5. Richard Feynman

Feynman, like Einstein, has had a huge amount of press. This is probably from his zany, sometimes less than true "surely your joking, Mr. Feynman" type books. In fact very little of what you read of Feynman actually focuses on his work as much as it does how good he was in school and all the eccentric things he claimed to have done. Feynman's real contributions to physics are (1) the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, and (2) Quantum Electrodynamics. The path integral formulation is basically like Schrodinger's wave formulation, but makes certain very important things easily calculable. Quantum Electrodynamics is the study of quantizing the electromagnetic field, and was developed first by Dirac, and then by Feynman, Tomonaga, Schwinger, and Dyson. It has been called "the jewel of modern physics" but you'll find this disputed.

These may not be definitive, but at the very least they are all important names you should know.

Answer 2

Some scientists include:
1. Al Zeeper
2. Willem Gravesande
3. Albert Einstein
4. Nicola Tesla
5. Michael Faraday
6. Isaac Newton
7. Robert Oppenheimer
8. Richard Feynman
9. Stephen Hawking
10. Michio Kaku

Answer 3

Scientists who study physics are called physicists, and they study and discover the rules by which the universe functions. They create and study Scientific Laws that attempt to mathematically explain speed, velocity, acceleration, time, electromagnetism, light, gravity, etc..

Answer 4

A quantum physicist is a person who studies the movement and interaction of subatomic particles.

Well to be a bit more specific, a quantum physicist is a physicist whose research revolves around the use and/or study of the implications and predictions of quantum physics with the goal of furthering the understanding of the topic.

Answer 5

Amongst the people who helped develop quantum theory were Ludwig Boltzmann, Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Neils Bohr, Louis deBroglie, Erwin Schroendinger, Paul Dirac, Werner Heisenberg, Max Born, Wolfgang Pauli, and Pascual Jordan. By the late 1920s, scientists began to develop a refinement of QM known as quantum field theory.

My apologies to any name I left out.

Answer 6

it has to be the one and aonly Matt edge because he has found better ways of using the theory of relativity and also has been to the world and back 5 times