Top Ten Geeks of the Millennium?

ywwg asks: "Everyone's doing the top ten this-or-that of the Millennium, so why don't we join the fray? Let's choose the top ten geeks of the millennium staying out of the past ten years. I'm thinking of the greats like Gallileo and Newton. What oppressed, nerdy, ignored, and shunned individuals proved everyone wrong? "

Comments

Nikolai Tesla

[Uberminky]

The man basically invented the alternate current power supply system we use today, he invented the radio (yes, Tesla invented the radio)... Did much work with transformers... I mean come on, the man built a remote controlled boat 100 years ago... I forget all the other great stuff he did. But he was really underappreciated.

Here's my 10 and only one is from the 20th Century

[brassrat77]

In no particular order and just a few minutes of thought:

DaVinci, for reasons already stated.

Michaelangelo - master architect and builder as well as painter and sculptor. There's real engineering in that art.

Gallileo; what could be more geek than dropping cannonballs off a tower "as an experiment" or building a telescope from scratch. And he got in trouble with the thought police a few centuries before PC came into vouge.

Gutenberg - where would OReilley be without *his* invention?

James Watt - made steam power practical leading to the Industrial Revoultion, etc...

Bejamin Franklin, for being a geek with style, fame, *and* political clout.

Samuel Morse - telegraphy became the "internet" of the last century (read the book "The Victorian Internet" and see if you agree)

Thomas Edison - quintessinal hardware hacker, entrepreneur, even suffered from NIH [not invented here] at times and wasn't above stealing a trade secret or two [so was he a cracker as well as a hacker?].

Otto Diesel - practical internal (infernal?) combustion engine, and all the cars, ships, planes, oil business, smog, etc. that came from it.

Enrico Fermi - "So you want this grant to build an atomic pile *WHERE*?!"

Some more nominations...

[mudshark]

Here are some I thought of rather quickly (by no means an exhaustive roster):

Alan Turing. No explanation necessary.
Isaac Asimov. His love of science infused his non-fiction and fiction writing, and he showed millions of readers many possible futures.
Charles Babbage. The Difference Engine was a real feat in its day, and still impressive now.
Johannes Gutenberg. I don't know if he qualifies as a geek, but he started the Information Age rolling.
Nikola Tesla. He had a superior technology for electrical transmission, but was relentlessly out-marketed by Edison's well-financed FUD machine.
Galileo Galilei. His views were grounded in bleeding-edge science, but he was hounded and marginalized because they ran counter to the establishment religion.
Leonardo da Vinci. The Renaissance Man made flesh.
Marie Curie. In an age where women scientists were deemed hobbyists and strictly relegated to the fringes, she managed to actually get credit for her work.

I have a feeling I'll spend the rest of today thinking about additions to this list. What a great way to commemorate this arbitrary division of time....

Tesla - Gotta love that coil! :)

[r2ravens]

Nikola Tesla has to be on the list.

From http://www.neuronet.pitt.edu/~bogdan/tesla/index.h tm:

The Serbian-American inventor, electrical engineer, and scientist.

Born on July 9/10, 1856 in Smiljan, Lika (Austria-Hungary)
Died on January 7, 1943 in New York City, New York (USA)

Inventions: a telephone repeater, rotating magnetic field principle, polyphase alternating-current system, induction motor, alternating-current power transmission, Tesla coil transformer, wireless communication, radio, fluorescent lights, and more than 700 other patents.

Another site: http://www.apc.net/bturner/tesla.htm

How many of us have our jobs, hobbies and/or avocations without the inventions of this man? He should also go on the all-time hackers list as well. I just wish he could have gotten that transmission-of-electricity-through-the-air thing working. :)

Russ

Sanity check...

[Stradivarius]

I hate to be the discordant note here, especially with all the great suggestions as to the Top Ten, but...

Has it occurred to anyone else that we may be taking this whole "geek" thing a bit far? I mean, sure, there have been a good number of geniuses, of which many were oppressed or ignored, etc. But it seems as if we're slapping this "geek" label on anyone who made a name for themselves in a non-"popular" area. Especially if they were ignored at first, or oppressed at some point (which many were). It's as if we're this big self-conscious group looking for validation, saying "hey look! so-and-so-genius was ignored and unpopular, so hey I'm like them!". This, despite the fact that we know so little about the lives (especially of a personal nature) of many of these millenial "geeks". We don't know, and often don't have the information to make a good educated guess, as to whether they would have even agreed with the label.

I guess this kinda ties into what I see as a certain ambiguity as to the meaning of the word "geek" today. You've got some people using it to refer to any unpopular or outcast person; others who use it to refer to just about any intelligent and usually motivated individual; and some who mean some mix of the two. How to know which is meant?

So, my question to you all is, am I making any sense here? Does anyone else see something a little odd in this latching onto every genius and referring to them as a "geek" (whatever that means)? Anyone think I'm full of hot air (if so, do try to enlighten me :-)

(BTW, I'm an engineer not a pyschoanalyst, so forgive any psycho-babble :-p )