Most influential people of all time?

[Chaos]

A few more people who were not yet mentioned:

Hannibal - the second Punian war (started by his attack on Italy) pretty much triggered the imperialist expansion of Rome.

(?) - I don´t remember the name - who was the inventor of penicillin?

Pierre and Marie Curie for their work on radioactivity, and Otto Hahn for the first nuclear fission.

And since negative influence is also influence, we sadly cannot ignore monsters like Hitler and Stalin, or conquerors (and plunderers) like Pizarro and Cortez.

 

[davefoc]

AS said:

On a practical level, they have influenced far more people--nearly everyone on the planet--than Albert Einstein ever will.

I have had the same thought. I don't know enough to assess it accurately though. The discoveries of some of the other scientists that people have mentioned had more obvious impacts. Modern technology can not exist except for the foundations laid down by people like Newton, Galileo, Dalton, Maxwell, etc. Quite a bit of science and technology would be just fine without an understanding of Special and General Relativity. I think special relativity at least would have been put forth in about the time frame of Einstein with or without him. Still his insights into the fundamental nature of the universe seems to have played a key role in the unraveling of major mysteries that was going on at the time and these discoveries led to a great deal of technology which has profoundly affected our world.

I think Tez, or Stimpson Cat would have better insight on this issue if they reply to this thread.

 

[Interesting Ian]

OK, just seen this thread. I have read any of the posts at all as of yet. I will do so after I have posted this. I don't want to be influenced you see.

I would say the 4 most influential people ever in terms of affecting our western ideas about the world and in terms of impact are in reverse order.

4. John Locke

3. Descartes.

2. Jesus Christ.

1. Isaac Newton.


Now to see if anyone agrees with me.

 

[davefoc]

AS said:

Alan Turing belongs on a short list. He pretty much invented the modern computer and his team cracked the Enigma Code, playing a critical role in winning WWII in the European Theater.

I agree that Turing was an amazing person, that he played a key role in assembling what was essentially the first electronic computer and a key role in deciphering Enigma. He might also be the only known homosexual that people have mentioned.

But I don't agree that he's a contender for top 10 most influential people of all time. People had fooled with mechanical computers for quite awhile so the development of an electronic computer was very likely with or without Turing once the appropriate electronics were available. He certainily played a key role in the decipherment of Enigma, but so did the Polish guy that managed to get a sample of one into the hands of the British. The point is there were lots of people who made key contributions there and my uneducated guess is that Enigma would have been deciphered well enough without Turing that the outcome of the war would not have been significantly altered.

 

[Giz]

Thermistocoles.

Without him no Greek victory at Salamis. Greece becomes the 20+th Satrapy of the Persian Empire. The 27 year old Athenian experiment in democracy comes to an abrupt halt. Philosophical inquiry relegated to providing auguries, the age of the great greek dramatists never happens.

Western culure would have been aborted almost before it had begun.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Any list can't be complete without Muhammed. Founder of Islam, butcher of Mecca. You can't turn on the international news today without seeing his influence.

OK, just reading through the posts. Yes, if we're not just talking about the west, Muhammad is incredibly influential. Also the Buddha and Confucius.

BTW I probably would put Plato as the 5th most influential for western thinkers. Of course it is incredibly difficult to judge. I just don't have the requisite knowledge.

 

[AmateurScientist]

I would say the 4 most influential people ever in terms of affecting our western ideas about the world and in terms of impact are in reverse order.

4. John Locke

3. Descartes.

2. Jesus Christ.

1. Isaac Newton.


Now to see if anyone agrees with me.

Ian,

You make a very valid point about most of the people being mentioned have influenced Western culture. We are perhaps overlooking those who have been influential in non-Western cultures.

This is probably a built in bias due to two factors. One, probably most of the posters on the forum and in this thread are indeed of Western backgrounds, despite someone like Voob living in Japan at present. Two, Western culture continues to influence non-Western cultures more so than the converse, and such has been the case for the last millenium.

As to your picks, it is not surprising that three of them are arguably philosophers (although I suspect as many do that Jesus is merely a legendary, and not a truly historical, character--in that respect Saul, or Paul, of Taursus was far more influential). It is perhaps more accurate to list them as influential in modern academia than any where else. Locke, perhaps, may be a tremendous indirect influence elsewhere, as he seems to have influenced the founders of the United States a great deal, and the U.S. has profoundly influenced the rest of the world in the last century.

I am quite pleased to see you put a scientist at the top. Indeed, you correctly placed the father of modern science and calculus at the top. Well done.

AS

 

[Tez]

AS: I would put Einstein ahead of say Bell (one of your examples). Not for special or general relativity (neither of which he received the Nobel for IIRC), but rather for his influence in "proving" the atomic hypothesis, and his insights into what we now call the old quantum theory. The impact of just these two pieces of his work was huge on scientists (not least because he was so well respected for the "less useful" stuff) and are so entwined in modern technology (thus showing he had an impact on the rest of humanity) that it would be impossible to overstate them.

Of course one could speculate that the Schroedinger equation is the most useful thing to have come out of the physics done between 1900 and 1950 say...

[edit] for idiocy and poor english - neither of which have been removed completely...

 

[AmateurScientist]

AS: I would put Einstein ahead of say Bell (one of your examples). Not for special or general relativity (neither of which he received the Nobel for IIRC), but rather for his influence in "proving" the atomic hypothesis, and his insights into what we now call the old quantum theory. The impact of just these two pieces of his work was huge on scientists (not least because he was so well respected for the "less useful" stuff) and are so entwined in modern technology (thus showing he had an impact on the rest of humanity) that it would be impossible to overstate them.

Of course one could speculate that the Schroedinger equation is the most useful thing to have come out of the physics done between 1900 and 1950 say...

[edit] for idiocy and poor english - neither of which have been removed completely...

Well, we are really just distinguishing between the proximity of the cause to the effect then.

Einstein owes his contributions to the giants upon whose shoulders he stood, for instance. Do we credit Newton for Einstein's contributions? Not really.

Although Einstein may have laid much of the theoretical groundwork for modern electronics, which affect nearly all of us, I think it's a stretch to credit him with their inventions. Technology is the practical bridge between scientific theory and the application of it. I have merely chosen to credit the most proximate persons who provided the technology rather than the theory behind it.

You, as a physicist, have chosen to credit the theoreticians. That's fine too. On the other hand, they and experimental researchers influence primarily other scientists, who influence engineers and inventors who put the science into practice. It's the practical applications of theory which influence the general public, and thus more persons.

Bell's telephone was the most practical and influential step towards modern telecommunications, in my opinion. More persons are directly affected by it than perhaps any other modern invention.

AS

 

[Luciana]

I don't think we know the true effects of Einstein's or Hitler's actions. It's just too recent. In the latter case, who knows if he will even be remembered within two centuries? They are in the top ten in any list of "most influential people of the XX century", but of all time? I don't think that anyone from the XX century should be even nominated, because we don't have the bigger picture.

 

[Tez]

I don't think we know the true effects of Einstein's or Hitler's actions. It's just too recent. In the latter case, who knows if he will even be remembered within two centuries? They are in the top ten in any list of "most influential people of the XX century", but of all time? I don't think that anyone from the XX century should be even nominated, because we don't have the bigger picture.

Well, "All Time" should presumably be read as "All time up until now" - since in two centuries there'll be a bunch of new candidates. I guess the question is whether we mean "all time up until now and influential on us right now". I appreciate the point about the bias towards more recent figures - but in reality anyone's effect on the present will die out over some timescale. Surely in 100,000 years even Jesus Christ will not be considered influential at all. I don't really see a way of evluating influence without such bias, unless we say something like "who was most influential on those born within the 500 years after he died"...

 

[AmateurScientist]

I don't think we know the true effects of Einstein's or Hitler's actions. It's just too recent. In the latter case, who knows if he will even be remembered within two centuries? They are in the top ten in any list of "most influential people of the XX century", but of all time? I don't think that anyone from the XX century should be even nominated, because we don't have the bigger picture.

On the other hand, more people are living now that at any other time in human history. Thus, it is perfectly appropriate to consider those who have influenced the most people in the most recent century. Of course, the most influential do not have to have lived in the last century, but they should have influenced more people in it than others have.

I don't think Hitler will ever be lost to history. We still remember Caeser 2000 years later. He will always be an important figure in history, barring some cataclysmic event comparable to the destruction of the great ancient library at Alexandria which destroys all modern records, and also most of humanity with them.

As for Einstein's contributions to science, they are well known and understood by modern physicists. I don't think there is anything about Special or General Relativity, for instance, that hasn't been throughly explored by theoreticians. Obviously, there are experiments which can be conducted to test their effects which have been impracticable or impossible with the technology we have to date.

AS

 

[DanishDynamite]

Tez:

Well, "All Time" should presumably be read as "All time up until now"...

Actually, I think we can narrow it down to mean "since recorded history", which is just some 5,000 years or so. Unfortunately, this means my nominees Ugh and Grunt don't qualify.

 

[AmateurScientist]

Tez:Actually, I think we can narrow it down to mean "since recorded history", which is just some 5,000 years or so. Unfortunately, this means my nominees Ugh and Grunt don't qualify.

I was thinking the same thing, albeit without the clever joke.

AS

 

[Tez]

Tez:Actually, I think we can narrow it down to mean "since recorded history", which is just some 5,000 years or so. Unfortunately, this means my nominees Ugh and Grunt don't qualify.

The bible records everything since the big bang. Obviously Ugh and Grunt werent that important coz they dont get a mention.

(I love arguing from infallible scripture, it makes things so damn easy...)

 

[Luciana]

Well, "All Time" should presumably be read as "All time up until now" - since in two centuries there'll be a bunch of new candidates. I guess the question is whether we mean "all time up until now and influential on us right now". I appreciate the point about the bias towards more recent figures - but in reality anyone's effect on the present will die out over some timescale. Surely in 100,000 years even Jesus Christ will not be considered influential at all. I don't really see a way of evluating influence without such bias, unless we say something like "who was most influential on those born within the 500 years after he died"...

That's true. I'm biased into thinking in terms of centuries, because when I look in my calendar, I see 2003, or yet, 20 centuries. Everything behind that gets muddled and is denominated "before Christ", with little distinction.

But if we all descend from a common ancestor, then he must be the most influentional, right?

I was peeved once at seeing the name of John Lennon in one of those lists, and that's when I realized how biased we can be. The guy was great - but was he really influential? I'm not so sure.

 

[AmateurScientist]

Building on DD's theme, I would argue that it was the early hominid or hominids who first formulated communicable verbal language.

Their development of language probably did more to influence the evolution and development of the modern homo sapiens brain than any other person or persons. The enlargement and added complexity of the modern brain provided the foundation upon which all great human accomplishments have been built. Without verbal language skills, all of us would be relatively stupid, as our brains wouldn't have developed as they have.

I nominate Urg and Grunt for their prehistoric contributions.

AS

 

[DanishDynamite]

AmateurScientist:

On the other hand, more people are living now that at any other time in human history. Thus, it is perfectly appropriate to consider those who have influenced the most people in the most recent century.

I would tend to disagree. One could argue that someone who had had a great influence in the distant past, when the world population was small, was more influential than someone recent, because his influence made the other possible. The guy who decided to bring his tribe out of Africa to look for greener pastures, for example.

In any case, it seems to me that the question is so subjective, it is almost meaningless.

 

[AmateurScientist]

Are we talking about influential in thought, or influential in affecting the most aspects of the most persons' daily lives?

There can be a huge divide in those categories, and there can also be a lot of overlap. St. Paul (not really Jesus himself), for instance, would fall into both categories, at least for modern Christians.

AS

 

[AmateurScientist]

In any case, it seems to that the question is so subjective, it is almost meaningless.

Well, of course it is. I thought that was a given.

It's a first-year college student question.

AS