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

[Spiffor]

Prince Henry of Portugal, "the navigator"

[Odin]

Darwin
Newton
Einstein
Watson & Crick

[Ned]

1492?

So close, yet so far.

[Ned]

Ben Franklin?

United States of America.

Electricity.

[Thue]

Originally posted by Winston
How about a guy like Stephen Hawking, especially if his work on a unified theory of physics is succesfully concluded, either by himself (unlikely) or by future generations of scientists.

I don't see how Hawking's work has consequences outside of theoretical physics.

I would nominate Newton, for the philosophical consequences that his work had on the course of the world. He was one of the fathers of The Enlightenment, which can be argued to have had consequences down the road for developments like democracy.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by 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.

There have only been three "gadget" people mentioned so far: Gutenberg, Shockley and von Braun

All are more than simple one-trick ponies though; their gadgets opened the way for innumerable other gadgets.

[DanS]

Gutenberg doesn't fit within the last 500 years. It's Shockley and von Braun so far.

[Whaleboy]

Einstein
von Braun
Watson & Crick
teh j00z

[Master Zen]

The Antichrist

(whoever he ends up being)

[JohnT]

Originally posted by DanS
Gutenberg doesn't fit within the last 500 years.

It's kind of frustrating that he's not eligilble, but in a way I'm glad because he is the obvious #1 choice, the one who made 90% of the others possible. The mass production and distribution of written communication is what truly gave the world to Europe for the subsequent 400 years and is why Western/Modern Civilization is the predominant, (possibly only, depending upon your definition) one on the planet.

All the rest couldn't have done what they did if they had no means but oral or hand-copied communications. Perhaps it is true that printing with movable type, like many things, was something in the ether, just waiting to happen, but Gutenberg is the one who did it and he deserves the credit. Just like all the others...


especially Luther, who got my vote in the other thread.

[Richelieu]

Marx

[Winston]

Originally posted by Richelieu
Marx

Don't forget his brothers. They were all an equally important part of the act.

[DanS]

I would argue that Gutenberg wouldn't be the tops of the list, even if eligible. The printing press has fallen on hard times and many of the current technologies are not built on the printing press concept. Consider inkjet printers, f.e.

[Zkribbler]

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

Edward Teller -- Father of the H-Bomb.

...especially once some #@^&%!! starts a nuclear war.

[Ned]

Originally posted by DanS
I would argue that Gutenberg wouldn't be the tops of the list, even if eligible. The printing press has fallen on hard times and many of the current technologies are not built on the printing press concept. Consider inkjet printers, f.e.

Dan, you would have to consider advances in the technology to be part of that technology. Thus, one would have to include typewriters, copiers, fax machines, computer word processors, radio and TV, the internet, etc., etc.

Communications.