A suggested list, just my opinion.... I think that if we are to truly give credit where credit is due, we should pick people who created something totally new, instead of taking previously existing technology and massaging it into something popular (Bill Gates, etc.). These would be my picks:
1 - Johannes Guttenberg (Invented mass comm.) 2 - Isaac Newton (Invented most of physics/calc.) 3 - Albert Einstein (THE geek posterboy, E=MC^2) 4 - Leonardo Da Vinci (The Do-Everything geek) 5 - Charles Babbage (Invented the computer) 6 - Nikolai Tesla (Invented AC motors, radio) 7 - Verner Von Braun (Gave us spaceflight) 8 - Galileo Galilei (Astronomer, Inventor, Rebel) 9 - James Watt (Started the industrial revolution) 10 - Henry Ford (Invented the assembly line)
A quick note on item 6 - Tesla. People will say "wait a minute... didn't marconi invent radio ?". The answer is no. Tesla is the actual inventor of radio, a fact that the supreme court of the U.S. has upheld. There is a website (tesla: forgotten at the smithsonian) which documents this.
Also, if this list extended to groups of people instead of just individuals, I would put NASA, Bell Labs, and the Lockheed Skunk Works on the list somewhere.... although it would be hard to rank these organizations in comparison with the individuals named. Perhaps 2 lists are needed ?
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A suggested list, just my opinion....
I think that if we are to truly give credit where credit is due, we should pick people who created something totally new, instead of taking previously existing technology and massaging it into something popular (Bill Gates, etc.). These would be my picks:
1 - Johannes Guttenberg (Invented mass comm.)
2 - Isaac Newton (Invented most of physics/calc.)
3 - Albert Einstein (THE geek posterboy, E=MC^2)
4 - Leonardo Da Vinci (The Do-Everything geek)
5 - Charles Babbage (Invented the computer)
6 - Nikolai Tesla (Invented AC motors, radio)
7 - Verner Von Braun (Gave us spaceflight)
8 - Galileo Galilei (Astronomer, Inventor, Rebel)
9 - James Watt (Started the industrial revolution)
10 - Henry Ford (Invented the assembly line)
A quick note on item 6 - Tesla. People will say "wait a minute... didn't marconi invent radio ?". The answer is no. Tesla is the actual inventor of radio, a fact that the supreme court of the U.S. has upheld. There is a website (tesla: forgotten at the smithsonian) which documents this.
Also, if this list extended to groups of people instead of just individuals, I would put NASA, Bell Labs, and the Lockheed Skunk Works on the list somewhere.... although it would be hard to rank these organizations in comparison with the individuals named. Perhaps 2 lists are needed ?