Who in the last 500 years will make the biggest impact on the next 500 years?

[Lancer]

So pretty close to the same amount of people, just different people, a younger, more resistant population. However, he did discover antibiotics, the population is exploded and the drugs are starting to fail, so I'll sytay with my choice of Flemming.

[KrazyHorse]

You can also add in Maxwell, Faraday, Rutherford, Fermi and Shockley as outside candidates for most important physicist of the last 200 years or so.

Namely 2 for electromagnetism, 1 for the structure of the atom, 1 for nuclear physics and 1 for electronics

[Ned]

If Gutenberg counts, he certainly will continue to have impact for the next 500. Without the printed word, modern civilization is not possible.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Ned
If Gutenberg counts, he certainly will continue to have impact for the next 500. Without the printed word, modern civilization is not possible.

Gutenberg died in 1468. Close, but he's out of the running. I still say Berners-Lee is the next-best thing.

[DAVOUT]

WATSON & CRICK, who discovered the structure of the ADN molecule. The next 500 years will be full of biology with tremendous consequences on the human life.

[Agathon]

Watson and Crick is a good guess.

Inventors of gadgets is a really bad guess as these things tend to become obsolete rather quickly. Of course things like printing didn't, so you might look at the web. But then again things are moving so fast now that this might be a bad bet.

It has to be a a science, ideas or politics person.

[dannubis]

darwin hands down.

he completely changed the way we look at the universe and ourselves in 'the bigger scheme' of things

[Agathon]

darwin hands down.

he completely changed the way we look at the universe and ourselves in 'the bigger scheme' of things

Really? Try travelling to Kansas sometime.

[dannubis]

yes, but in kansas the universe is believed to be ... kansas

so, nothing lost there.

[RGBVideo]

Lots of inventors who have been mentioned in this thread discovered or created the sort of things which would've been created or discovered by somebody else after a while (f.e. von Braun with rockets, Adam Smith with free trade, Newton with laws of motion).

Turing is always a good, solid pick.

he [Darwin] completely changed the way we look at the universe

Uhm, no. Certainly not the most during the last 500 years at least. Think about it for a minute.

[Dauphin]

Adolf Hitler.

I don't say that lightly.

[Kuciwalker]

Re: Who in the last 500 years will make the biggest impact on the next 500 years?

Originally posted by DanS
JohnT nominated von Neumann and Turing. I nominated von Braun.

How about you? Multiple nominations are accepted, but don't list a half dozen without comment.

George III. Without him, no US

[DanS]

Indeed, inventors might not get their due recognition with such a long time frame.

Heck, something as fundamental as the light bulb probably won't be made in 50 years time. A 200 year run for an invention is pretty damn impressive, but it probably eventually falls outside our discussion here.

[Zulu Elephant]

Newton. Both for being the father of physics and for the fact that so many political philosophers that still impact on the world today (and in the future) were inspired by him.

Or maybe darwin

[Solver]

Newton, fundamental discoveries in physics and other areas. Einstein, Planck and others are obviously based on him.

What's special about Darwin? He created a theory that is of little importance. Even if his theory of evolution is true, it doesn't change the humanity drastically. The useful genetic inheritance laws were discovered by Mendel.

For pure brilliance, though, I'd say da Vinci, he seems almost like an alien in his brilliance.