Science Chats Forum

Who is the most famous physicist of all times? It can either be the Father of Physics or just the most famous one. The person people think of when they say, "physics."

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Dorm Earning

wouldnt that be einstein, hes very popular.

or newton, gallileo etc.

I know more about Einstein than the others, but I am sure that there are other more famous ones. I have not done much with physics.

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Dorm Earning

What about Newton? I don't rememeber the mag, but I do recall that he was listed as the most influential.

Even us philosophers have heard of him--mostly because we are not adept enough to study relativity (just kiddin').

Newton was also the one famous for creating Calculus. Well, there were two that created it, but he's the one I remember.

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Dorm Earning

Newton got everything started. He's like the father of physics. Sadly, he got gravity wrong , which caused him to lose a lot of popularity. I'd have to say Einstein is the most famous, and rightfully so.

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The Nerd Council

How did Newton get gravity wrong? I heard of it before, but I am not sure of the precise details behind it.

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Dorm Earning

His main idea was that things were pulled to the center of gravity. This was a revolutionary idea that worked... terrestrial objects and the such. However, this theory doesn't really work in the grand picture of the universe. If everything moved towards the center, the universe would be much different from how we know it. It's really complicated stuff that the Theory of Relativity talks about. Of course, Einstein's ideas were at the opposite end of the spectrum of Newton. The string theory is something in-between.

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The Nerd Council

What about Mike Wright! Does anyone know of him or about him? He rocks.

I would have to say Einstein because I don't know too much about physics. If anyone is curious, here's a list of physicists from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_physicists