What is Digg?103 Comments
- BigManOnCampus, on 10/14/2007, -1/+25The most underappreciated scientist of all time is the lowly experimental Materials Scientist. They are the most common form of scientist and they come in many flavors (chemists/physicists/engineers)
Without him/her, you would not have nearly 100% of your modern conveniences/technology. A trip down memory lane helps make us realize this...
Materials science research...
...made data storage go from gigantic arrays of volatile vacuum tubes to silicon-based flash drives you wear on your neck.
...made solid state electronics possible.
...made space travel possible.
...made flight possible.
...made automobile's and engines possible (though back then these people were metallurgists).
...made cheap electricity generation possible.
...is responsible for most of the new technology we expect to be in our hands in the near future.
Therefore, in light of all the praise bestowed upon the great and extremely clever theoreticians of our history and present, I suggest instead honoring the hundreds of thousands if not millions of people who work in labs trying to understand and/or come up with new materials, and in so doing enable all sorts of new devices to be used by Humans everywhere. - inactive, on 10/13/2007, -2/+21I'm so glad to see Tesla on the list. I honestly think that Tesla was brilliant beyond what most people consider him (assuming they have even HEARD of him) to be.
- aywwts4, on 10/13/2007, -0/+16Tesla isn't just under-appreciated, he is often times specifically written out of history, for example; the Smithsonian had a very large exhibit called "Edison, lighting a revolution" or something to that effect, and it mentioned Tesla once in a brief caption entitled "other competitors" even though nearly all the exhibits were depicting AC power, or spoke of things that AC power accomplished, or even generators with the Tesla or Westinghouse name stamped on the side, but spoke only of Edison.
This was a good quote from an article I found about it a while ago, its from the Smithsonian's website about the same exhibit.
"[PICTURED] An Edison electric motor of about 1890. In 1895 a large remote generating station began producing electricity at Niagara Falls. Less than two decades after Edison's invention, electricity thus was accepted as a principle means of power transmission. A revolution had taken place. Cheap electric power made new industrial processes possible, such as the economical production of aluminum. Eventually this power reached the city and the home, where its influence is made clear in a case filled with early 20th-century appliances such as fans, coffeepots, and vacuum cleaners."
The sentence is two non sequiturs, "pictured an Edison motor" which has nothing to do with what we are going to talk about, and "two decades after Edison's invention power was adopted" despite the fact that everything in-between, the Niagara power-plant, the adoption of power, power reaching cities and homes, and powering coffeepots and vacuum cleaners are all achievements of AC and Tesla. But by using those two unrelated items, they don't lie, and completely mislead the audience into thinking all those things are the result of Edison. - ricksite, on 10/13/2007, -0/+11Digg up if you like AC! I hope someday kids will primarily learn about Tesla and Edison will be in a sidebar.
- inactive, on 10/15/2007, -0/+10I feel you man...Edision is highly overrated.
- inactive, on 10/13/2007, -0/+10Paul Dirac
"In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite". - DolphinGL, on 10/13/2007, -2/+10I don't know why people are voting up Tesla. Tesla is very famous and very appreciated. Most people at least know the name Tesla.
Norman Boraug, on the other hand, is known only by few and through his research on genetically engineered crops has saved the lives of an estimated 1 billion people so far.
Norman Borlaug is the poster child for "underappreciated scientist" - eightbitpanda, on 10/15/2007, -2/+8Gordon Freeman?
- geminitojanus, on 10/13/2007, -1/+7I don't care personally who is nominated, whoever it is will rightfully deserve it. This country has gone a long way from idolizing the intelligent to casting stones at the first man to speak of such things. Long lost to this generation is the idea that if you're smart enough, you'll go far in life, phased out and replaced with if you are pretty or wealthy enough. Look at who is always in the media, it's gone a long way down from Einstein and Oppenheimer to Britney Spears and Lindsey Lohan. Even "educational entertainment" like the Discovery Channel has fallen back to dumbing down their content for the generation; first American Chopper, then Dirty Jobs replacing anything vaguely scientific (at least the Mythbusters are /trying/); you're likely to find more science content on the History Channel than anywhere else on TV these days. Sad times really.
- Crosshare, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Seriously? You read that comment without thinking it was humor?
- axisofphilippe, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Not Mentioned: Arnold Didlo, inventor of the Dildo.
- Hobofuzz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Tesla, FTW!
- statrick, on 10/13/2007, -1/+6Tesla hands down...guy invented cellphones and all sorts of crap in the early 1900s
- TheAngryMob, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4You can submit your own entries, you know?
- digghasnoethics, on 10/13/2007, -1/+5I say that just about all scientists are underappreciated.
The people that are responsible for creating damn near every part of the modern world, and most people could hardly name a handful and would recognise even less. Meanwhile a no-talent like Britney gets trips to McDonalds photographed and reported as if it were news.
How did we get to the state of Idiocracy we now inhabit? Where and when did it go so wrong? - drlha, on 10/13/2007, -0/+4Tesla does have a SI Unit of Magnetism named after him, so he's not that "unappreciated".
- dvavasour, on 10/13/2007, -0/+4James Clerk Maxwell.
- Terr01, on 10/13/2007, -2/+6Hi, I'd like to nominate all the computer scientsts who worked at PARC in the early 1980s...
- ryanwarnersteel, on 10/13/2007, -0/+4Dugg for Rosalind Franklin. Watson and Crick stole her research without any citation in discovering the double-helix. Then she died from cancer in her 30s from extensive x-ray crystallography.
- Error601, on 10/13/2007, -0/+4Listing a bunch of world famous people and calling them unappreciated is rather silly. The unappreciated ones are the names you don't know.
- NuchDog, on 10/13/2007, -0/+4If they didn't, then they sure helped us fake it!
- corneliusJones, on 10/13/2007, -0/+3ditto on the Alternating Current-- we would not have modern electric infrastructure without Nikola Tesla
- BigManOnCampus, on 10/13/2007, -0/+3omg, who are these people who put Feynman up there?!?!? FEYNMAN IS NOT UNDERAPPRECIATED.
- simmonsdd, on 10/13/2007, -0/+3Naturalist.
Best known for his studies of the ManBearPig. - jrtcs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3In 500 years, all scientists will be working on is curing baldness and penis enhancements.
- Crosshare, on 10/13/2007, -0/+2I am proud that my High School was named after him!
- HayString, on 10/13/2007, -0/+2I'm glad it's on there too. I find it hard to understand why I never even heard his name in class until having a Serbian teacher in college.
- saunders45, on 10/13/2007, -0/+2Al Gore !!!!!
/sarcasm - Greywhind, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3How many times are you going to leave the exact same comment, DolphinGL? It seems like spam after the first 3.
- glitch47, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Alan Turing?
Helped crack the Enigma machine during WWII, thought to be the father of modern computer science, was prosecuted and chemically castrated for having a homosexual relationship, committed suicide with a cyanide laced apple. - mountainsurfer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Good article. I just happen to be listening to the biography of the equation e=mc2 this week to pass the time in traffic. Good read / listen if any of you are interested. Although Mr. Wizard was one of my favorite TV shows as a kid, I'm going to have to go with Maria Skłodowska-Curie for having died in the line of duty.
- bagboyrebel, on 10/13/2007, -0/+2plenty of schools don't even credit him for the radio. About 2 or 3 years ago I remember learning that Marconi invented the radio without them even mentioning Tesla.
- nick1000, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2During his time maybe...but now Turing is pretty well appreciated and respected.; don't forget the Turing Award (named after him).
- Soraya, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4I second the Mr. Wizard nomination.
- smek2, on 10/13/2007, -0/+2This is ridiculous! Feynman, Dirac, von Neumann, Maxwell and Gödel are "known only to scientists" and underappreciated? Yes, if your intellect is the size of an insect (my apologies to the insects) and you never read anything about physics and math at all. Take your average IT course, for example. You can't miss von Neumann if you have to learn about the basic concepts of modern computers.
- spartan777, on 10/13/2007, -0/+2Tesla is certainly VERY underrated, but all this attention he's getting now in the digg/wired community is due to all the stories about wireless power. I'd rate tesla second to maxwell.
- nick1000, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I had actually forgotten about him.
Yes, he is quite underappreciated and he has saved hundreds of millions at the very least.
btw I am not a agriculture expert but I think he developed Hybrid crops (and not GM crops). - inactive, on 10/13/2007, -0/+2Nor did I say he was, the person who submitted the article did. I merely stated I'm happy to see him on the list.
- Crosshare, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2He did. He would also electrocute dogs in public settings with alternating current to show that Tesla's invention was dangerous to man.
- elk1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Dugg for Hedy Lamarr
- jhshukla, on 10/15/2007, -1/+2sometimes people don't like the joke.
- yojiffyskippy, on 10/13/2007, -0/+1Knowing someone and/or name recognition has nothing to do with "appreciation". Some people can be very well known but not appreciated for example George Bush and Al Gore are very well known but not necessarily appreciated.
- NJank, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Dr. Emmett Brown FTW!
- DolphinGL, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1He's a famous scientist on a list for underappreciated scientists....and the only reason he's getting voted on so much is because he's so famous. Doesn't make much sense.
- NJank, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2ummm, sorry, but computer scientists aren't REAL scientists.
- huertanix, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Tesla ftw.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Nor did I say he was, the person who submitted the article did. I merely stated I'm happy to see him on the list.
- p2a1x7, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Holy *****, are you just going to copy and paste that comment everywhere Tesla is mentioned?
- OneLess, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm not sure about Mr. Wizard, but Bill Nye is an engineer, not a scientist.
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