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<blockquote data-quote="Morrus" data-source="post: 6157868" data-attributes="member: 1">So my gut says Newton to me. I'm not entirely sure why I'd rank him above Darwin or Einstein; he just kinda &quot;feels&quot; more solid in my mind. Obviously there have a been a lot of other genuine geniuses who have made important discoveries or introduced new ways of approaching things. It's interesting that we tend to be looking backwards for greatness, rather than modern times. We do that for other things, too, I guess. Is that because the further back we go, the greater the number of potential massive fundamental discoveries is? I mean, obviously someone could hypothetically discover evidence of a multiverse or resolve quantum theories with relativity or figure out how to do something incredible and magical like warp speed or a transporter beam. But without delving into scifi too much, historical figures got to figure out the beginnings of awesome stuff like gravity, heliocentricity, relativity, evolution, etc. Big but basic things which needed that leap (well, relativity isn't so basic). These days folks do make big discoveries (accelerating expansion, for example) but most of the time it seems to be about refinements and ever more specialized fields with the occasional big moment.Then again, it was probably always like that. It's not like someone discovered gravity every week.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Morrus, post: 6157868, member: 1"] So my gut says Newton to me. I'm not entirely sure why I'd rank him above Darwin or Einstein; he just kinda "feels" more solid in my mind. Obviously there have a been a lot of other genuine geniuses who have made important discoveries or introduced new ways of approaching things. It's interesting that we tend to be looking backwards for greatness, rather than modern times. We do that for other things, too, I guess. Is that because the further back we go, the greater the number of potential massive fundamental discoveries is? I mean, obviously someone could hypothetically discover evidence of a multiverse or resolve quantum theories with relativity or figure out how to do something incredible and magical like warp speed or a transporter beam. But without delving into scifi too much, historical figures got to figure out the beginnings of awesome stuff like gravity, heliocentricity, relativity, evolution, etc. Big but basic things which needed that leap (well, relativity isn't so basic). These days folks do make big discoveries (accelerating expansion, for example) but most of the time it seems to be about refinements and ever more specialized fields with the occasional big moment. Then again, it was probably always like that. It's not like someone discovered gravity every week. [/QUOTE]

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