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Smartest people to have ever lived? (Top 10 list)

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout' started by LosPollosHermanos, Apr 10, 2011.

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smartest people?

  1. newton

    15 vote(s)
    22.7%
  2. einstein

    12 vote(s)
    18.2%
  3. archimedes

    6 vote(s)
    9.1%
  4. da vinci

    17 vote(s)
    25.8%
  5. galileo

    5 vote(s)
    7.6%
  6. copernicus

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  7. avagadro

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  8. other (biologist)

    2 vote(s)
    3.0%
  9. other (physicist)

    1 vote(s)
    1.5%
  10. other (person)

    8 vote(s)
    12.1%
  1. LosPollosHermanos

    LosPollosHermanos Houston only fan
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    *Please don't post people based on IQ score alone, thats a subjective test.

    Not putting philosophers in mine, although aristotle and socrates could make the cut. Descartes has no place being in there, don't know why some consider him to be, but here goes:

    Newton
    Einstein
    Archimedes
    Da Vinci
    darwin
    Galileo
    Amado Avagadro
    schrodinger
    watson and crick
    copernicus
    Michael Faraday or Tesla


    Toss up between einstein and newton...but newton's contributions are just so great it would be hard to move him down.
     
  2. LosPollosHermanos

    LosPollosHermanos Houston only fan
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    the poll should have said "Person", my bad to all those recruiting for the grammar police.
     
  3. dback816

    dback816 Member

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    This is impossible to rank.

    Even more so than all the Music debates that always end up going no where
     
  4. dharocks

    dharocks Contributing Member

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    Intelligence doesn't necessarily lead to accomplishment. You have people like William Sidis who, despite being incredible intelligent, didn't end up amounting to much.
     
  5. LosPollosHermanos

    LosPollosHermanos Houston only fan
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    in fact true, but it is close to impossible to tell through all the people throughout history who were the smartest if they never used their ability to the full potential.

    Even people who didn't discover anything but are known for success in other areas are mentioned on the internet as among the smartest people.

    If someone discoevers calculus, the structure of DNA, plants the seeds of evolution, etc which sets the basis for the collective advancement of the human race, I don't see how you couldn't give them the nod.
     
  6. liljojo

    liljojo Member

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    other (general manager):

    Daryl Morey.
     
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  7. Mathloom

    Mathloom Contributing Member

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    I think someone like Williams Sidis probably ended up being exactly what he wanted to be.

    In other words, he could have amounted to what you call "much" but instead chose to amount to whatever he himself values.
     
  8. bladeage

    bladeage Contributing Member

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    Nikola Tesla
     
  9. dback816

    dback816 Member

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    And how are you suppose to rank those exactly? Then there's the question of are the people who set the foundation necessarily smarter than those who expanded and put those things into practical use? It gets even messier when you try to compare different fields of study, I mean, really, calculus vs DNA? Who makes the call?

    How many lives did the theory of evolution help save? How many lives did penicillin save?

    Having a poll for the single smartest individual in history is ludicrous, not to mention insulting to every other individual and culture.
     
  10. pippendagimp

    pippendagimp Member

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    correct
     
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  11. geeimsobored

    geeimsobored Contributing Member

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    If Thomas Edison hadn't been such a jerk and a thief, Tesla could easily be known as the greatest modern scientist.

    Tesla wins hands down.
     
  12. LosPollosHermanos

    LosPollosHermanos Houston only fan
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    no its not. chill out, you really need to calm down. Some people ended up contributing more than others. Regarding the structure of DNA, watson and crick were not alone in their endeavors, they had a lot of help from rosalin franklin's picture using xray crystallography. The theory of evolution had been brought up many times in the past, not specifically in darwin's case, but organisms were not seen as static by great minds earlier, they just lacked the ability to go forward with their hypothesis.

    Newton-
    Sir Isaac Newton was most noted for his theories on the Laws of Motion as well as the idea that all bodies exert a gravitational attraction on surrounding bodies (according to legend, Newton found out about gravity when he was sitting under an apple tree and an apple fell on his head - but in reality, Newton was perfectly aware that objects fall, and didn't need to have an apple fall on his head in order to find out; bear in mind that he was among the most intelligent people who have ever lived, and was certainly capable of observing the obvious).

    Other major contributions he made to the field of Classical Physics were:

    The discovery of spectrum:
    He allowed sunlight to pass through a prism into a dark chamber onto a white screen. He observed a band of seven colors on the screen. The colors were the same which made up a rainbow viz, violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange and red. He thus conferred that sunlight or white light was made up of seven colors and the rain droplets in the sky acted as a prism which split sunlight to give the impression of a rainbow.

    Rectilinear Propagation of Light: Newton also made a contribution towards proving that light travels in a straight line. He made a pin-hole camera for the first time with a hole on one of the sides of a cardboard box, and a tracing paper on the opposite side. One could see an upside down image of the object in front of the hole. This proved that light travels in a straight line.

    The equation for the velocity of sound: Newton also made a major contribution to the calculation of velocity of sound. Since this equation was calculated taking into account that sound waves travel in the form of translational waves, there was a slight anomaly in the results. This equation was later corrected by a scientist named Laplace.


    It is also worth noting that Newton was a great mathematician, and he helped invent calculus in order to have the necessary mathematical tools with which to state his theories in a precise form. This was revolutionary in itself.

    Archimedes-Archimedes was a mathematician and inventor from ancient Greece. He discovered the relation between the surface and volume of a sphere and its circumscribing cyclinder (he had discovered pi). He then formulated a hydrostatic principle based on that mathmatical relationship called Archimedes' principle. He inventing the Archimedes screw - a screw-shaped machine or hydraulic screw that raised water from a lower to a higher level. Archimedes also invented the catupult, the lever, the compound pulley, and the burning mirror (a system of mirrors that burned the boots and ships of invading armies by focusing the sun's rays). Although Archimedes is credited with inventing the screw in the 3rd century BC, his screw was not like today's screw fastener but actually two other screw-type devices.


    Schrodinger- schrodinger wave equation,

    The Schrödinger equation is the fundamental equation of physics for describing quantum mechanical behavior. It is also often called the Schrödinger wave equation, and is a partial differential equation that describes how the wavefunction of a physical system evolves over time. Viewing quantum mechanical systems as solutions to the Schrödinger equation is sometimes known as the Schrödinger picture, as distinguished from the matrix mechanical viewpoint, sometimes known as the Heisenberg picture.

    faraday- inductance, electricity

    tesla-He was famous for using the concept of alternating current. He died during World War II. He was born in Europe and saved up enough money to go to America, leaving him with four cents.

    His arch enemy was Thomas Edison (see "What did Thomas Edison invent?"). Edison was mean to him. For instance, Tesla agreed with Edison that he will help him to build electric generators, and will be payed money. When Tesla made the generators, Edison just said "Tesla, you don't understand our American Humor".

    They were also enemies because they each tried to make a certain type of current be used in the majority of households (Tesla alternating, Edison direct current).


    if you actually take a look at the contributions, its not too hard to form an opinion my friend. Just think about it in a fundamental manner.

    My reasoning for newton is that his role was so broad that almost everything past his time was built upon the foundation he set.
     
  13. LosPollosHermanos

    LosPollosHermanos Houston only fan
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    I agree between the comparison of edison and tesla, i thought I was going to get some heat for leaving edison off and putting tesla on there but you're correct, he was a genius beyond measure.
     
  14. LosPollosHermanos

    LosPollosHermanos Houston only fan
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    lmao, repped.
     
  15. LosPollosHermanos

    LosPollosHermanos Houston only fan
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    Da Vinci-
    For being a scientist, inventor and as the creator of two of the most famous paintings ever: The Mona Lisa and The Last Supper.
    He is most famous for his paintings such as the Mona Lisa, Last Supper, Annunciation, Lady with an Ermine, The Baptism of Christ, Saint John the Baptist, Adoration of the Magi, and Portrait of a Musician. Leonardo was also famous for his use of shading, which was not a real priority to painters of that time period, and really changed the way in which many painters would use light and shadows. He also drew stunning sketches of human anatomy and was a brilliant mathematician, one of the most famous drawings in the world, The Vitruvian Man, was drawn by Leonardo and was inspired by the Roman architect Vitruvius who described the correlation between human proportions and geometry. Leonardo's scientific contributions would take at least an essay to describe in full but in short he was a botanist, anatomist, astronomer, engineer, geologist, mathematician, physicist, and a zoologist. Some of the inventions that he is most famous for were only conceptual but they were the helicopter, parachute, calculator, tank, solar power, and a basic theory of plate tectonics. He also greatly improved the understanding of hydrodynamics, astronomy, anatomy, and optics. Leonardo, in my opinion, was no less intelligent and revolutionary than Galileo, Darwin, Einstein, and Newton.
    He painted many famous paintings (most famous for the Mona Lisa) and discovered many things about human anatomy, math, and more.

    He was very talented. He was a scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician and a writer.
    Leonardo Da Vinci became famous because he was an apprentice to Andrea del Verrocchio, who was the best painter and sculptor of his time. And since people knew Verrocchio, they began to know Leonardo. Leonardo also helped paint one of Verrocchio's paintings (Baptism of Christ). Leonardo painted the angel on the left of the painting. Then he became an independent master and was assigned to many different paintings and sculptures for Dukes. That is how he became famous.
    He made one of the first scientific drawings of a foetus in uterus.
     
  16. Mr. Brightside

    Mr. Brightside Contributing Member

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  17. brantonli24

    brantonli24 Member

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    Actually, I was just thinking about genius inventions and discoveries. I swear the most famous scientists and inventors are only known for 'inventing' what they did because it was the most publicized. Pi was around since Egyptian times, Leibniz and Newton argued over who invented calculus first, Tesla and Edison, Hooke and Newton, Darwin took his ideas from his grandfather, and then worked furiously to publish before Alfred Russel Wallace. Science advances step by step, very rarely by great leaps and bounds, but it seems that by placing certain great men on a pedestal above others, we forget the contributions (and genius) of the men on whom the pedestal sits.
     
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  18. Jontro

    Jontro Member

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    My Top 3:

    Dude who invented the Wheel
    [​IMG]

    Dude who discovered fire
    [​IMG]

    Dude who invented sliced bread (Otto F. Rohwedder)
    [​IMG]
     
  19. Invisible Fan

    Invisible Fan Contributing Member

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    I bet all of them gave 2 as the answer in the PEMDAS thread.

    Morans.
     
  20. fadeaway

    fadeaway Contributing Member

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    Stephen Hawking is pretty much the smartest dude on the go these days.
     

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