The 100 Most Influential Scientists of All Time | Date: 28 April 2011, 06:09
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The 100 Most Influential Scientists of All Time (The Britannica Guide to the World's Most Influential People)
By Kara Rogers
* Publisher: Rosen Education Service
* Number Of Pages: 376
* Publication Date: 2009-12-20
* ISBN-10 / ASIN: 1615300023
* ISBN-13 / EAN: 9781615300020
In science the credit goes to the man who convinces the world,
not to the man to whom the idea first occurs.
—Francis Darwin (1848–1925)
From the very first moment humans appeared on the
planet, we have attempted to understand and explain
the world around us. The most insatiably curious among
us often have become scientists.
The scientists discussed in this book have shaped
humankind’s knowledge and laid the foundation for virtually
every scientific discipline, from basic biology to black
holes. Some of these individuals were inclined to ponder
questions about what was contained within the human
body, while others were intrigued by celestial bodies. Their
collective vision has been concentrated enough to examine
microscopic particles and broad enough to unlock
tremendous universal marvels such as gravity, relativity—
even the nature of life itself. Acknowledgement of their
importance comes from a variety of knowledgeable and
well-respected sources; luminaries such as Isaac Asimov
and noted biochemist Marcel Florkin have written biographies
contained herein.
The influence wielded by the profiled men and women
within the realm of scientific discovery becomes readily
apparent as the reader delves deeper into each individual’s
life and contributions to his or her chosen field. Oftentimes,
more than one field has been the beneficiary of these brilliant
minds. Many early scientists studied several different
branches of science during their lifetimes. Indeed, as the
founder of formal logic and the study of chemistry, biology,
physics, zoology, botany, psychology, history, and
literary theory in the Middle Ages, Aristotle is considered
one of the greatest thinkers in history.
Breakthroughs in the medical sciences have been
numerous and extremely valuable. Study in this discipline
begins with a contemporary of Aristotle’s named
Hippocrates, who is commonly regarded as the “father of
medicine.” Perhaps Hippocrates’ most enduring legacy to
the field is the Hippocratic Oath, the ethical code that
doctors still abide by today. By taking the Hippocratic
Oath, doctors pledge to Asclepius, the Greco-Roman god
of medicine, that to the best of their knowledge and abilities,
they will prescribe the best course of medical care for
their patients. They also promise to, above all, cause no
harm to any patient.
The Greeks were not the only ones studying medicine.
The Muslim scholar Avicenna also advanced the
discipline by writing one of the most influential medical
texts in history, The Canon of Medicine. Avicenna also produced
an encyclopedic volume describing Aristotle’s
philosophic and scientific thoughts about logic, biology,
psychology, geometry, astronomy, music, and metaphysics.
This hefty tome was called the Kitab al-shifa (“Book of
Healing”). About 450 years later, a German-Swiss physician
named Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus
Von Hohenheim, or Paracelsus, once again advanced
medical science by integrating medicine with chemistry
and linking specific diseases to medications that could
treat them.
The Renaissance period brought to light the scientific
genius of painter and sculptor Leonardo da Vinci. His
drawings of presciently detailed flying machines preceded
the advent of human flight by more than 300 years. What’s
more, da Vinci’s drawings of the human anatomy structure
not only illuminated many of the body’s features and
functions, they also laid the foundation for modern scientific
illustration.
Anatomical drawings were also the purview of Flemish
physician Andreas Vesalius. Unlike da Vinci’s illustrations,
which were mainly for his own artistic education, Vesalius
incorporated his sketches and the explanations of them
into the first anatomy textbook. His observations of
human anatomy also helped to advance physiology, the
study of the way the body functions.
Other physicians took their investigation of anatomy
off the page and onto the operating table. Ancient Greek
physician Galen of Pergamum greatly influenced the study
of medicine by performing countless autopsies on monkeys,
pigs, sheep, and goats. His observations allowed him
to ascertain the functions of the nervous system and note
the difference between arteries and veins. Galen was also
able to dispel the notion that arteries carry air, an idea that
had persisted for 400 years.
Centuries later, in the 1600s, Englishman William
Harvey built on Galen’s theories and observations, and
helped lay the foundation for modern physiology with his
numerous animal dissections. As a result of his work,
Harvey was the first person to describe the function of the
circulatory system, providing evidence that veins and
arteries had separate and distinct functions. Before his
realization that the heart acts as a pump that keeps blood
flowing throughout the body, people thought that constrictions
of the blood vessels caused the blood to move.
Other groundbreaking scientists have relied on observations
outside the body. A gifted Dutch scientist and lens
grinder named Antonie van Leeuwenhoek refined the
main tool of his trade, the microscope, which allowed him
to become the first person to observe tiny microbes.
Leeuwenhoek’s observations helped build the framework
for bacteriology and protozoology..............................................................
Introduction 8
Asclepius 17
Hippocrates 18
Aristotle 22
Pliny the Elder 26
Ptolemy 29
Galen of Pergamum 32
Avicenna 36
Roger Bacon 37
Leonardo da Vinci 40
Nicolaus Copernicus 46
Paracelsus 50
Andreas Vesalius 54
Tycho Brahe 57
Giordano Bruno 59
Galileo 63
Johannes Kepler 69
William Harvey 74
Robert Boyle 79
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek 81
Robert Hooke 84
John Ray 85
Sir Isaac Newton 88
Carolus Linnaeus 93
Henry Cavendish 97
Joseph Priestley 101
Luigi Galvani 105
Sir William Herschel 108
Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier 112
Pierre-Simon Laplace 116
Edward Jenner 120
John Dalton 123
Georges Cuvier 126
Alexander von Humboldt 129
Andre-Marie Ampere 134
Amedeo Avogadro 138
Joseph-Louis Gay-Lussac 142
Sir Humphry Davy 145
Jons Jacob Berzelius 149
John James Audubon 154
Michael Faraday 155
Sir Charles Lyell 162
Louis Agassiz 164
Charles Darwin 167
Sir Francis Galton 175
Gregor Mendel 178
Louis Pasteur 183
Alfred Russel Wallace 189
William Thomson 192
Joseph Lister 195
James Clerk Maxwell 199
Dmitry Ivanovich
Mendeleyev 202
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov 205
A.A. Michelson 208
Robert Koch 211
Sigmund Freud 215
Max Planck 222
Nettie Maria Stevens 226
William Bateson 227
Pierre Curie 228
Marie Curie 231
Henrietta Swan Leavitt 235
Ernest Rutherford 237
Carl Jung 242
Albert Einstein 244
Alfred Lothar Wegener 252
Sir Alexander Fleming 253
Niels Bohr 256
Erwin Schrodinger 260
Selman Abraham Waksman 263
Edwin Powell Hubble 264
Linus Pauling 267
Enrico Fermi 271
Margaret Mead 276
Barbara McClintock 278
Leakey Family 280
George Gamow 285
J. Robert Oppenheimer 287
Hans Bethe 291
Maria Goeppert Mayer 294
Rachel Carson 295
Jacques-Yves Cousteau 297
Luis W. Alvarez 300
Alan M. Turing 302
Norman Ernest Borlaug 306
Jonas Edward Salk 308
Sir Fred Hoyle 310
Francis Harry Compton Crick 311
James Dewey Watson 313
Richard P. Feynman 315
Rosalind Franklin 318
Edward O. Wilson 320
Jane Goodall 323
Sir Harold W. Kroto 325
Richard E. Smalley 326
Robert F. Curl, Jr. 327
Stephen Jay Gould 328
Stephen W. Hawking 330
J. Craig Venter 332
Francis Collins 335
Steven Pinker 337
Glossary 339
For Further Reading 341
Index 343
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