I was thinking that James Clerk Maxwell is up there with Kepler, Newton and Einstein. Yet most people have never heard of hi.m
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The least-venerated people in history
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Originally posted by San Bernardhinault View PostI've long thought that, even more than Maxwell, Ludwig Boltzmann is almost completely unknown despite - as I understand it - basically developing statistical thermodynamics.
But I would demur that Boltzmann is unknown in the physics community. Maybe to the wider public, but anyone who has studied the subject in further education, not even higher education, will have come across his name attached to important concepts.Last edited by Janik; 22-08-2018, 23:14.
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One also wonders how well known statistical mechanics is. Whereas you could tell people that Maxwell gave an explanation for what light was and why it travelled at a certain speed, and they would probably regard that as important stuff. But Maxwell is well enough known for his major work to be worth someone's while selling on a t-shirt, though most like this put his equations* in God's mouth.
* - or the modern, vector formulation therefore. I'm sure I saw the Maxwell's actual work, which was not in a nice concise vector form, on a poster on Uni hall of residence walls back in the day.Last edited by Janik; 23-08-2018, 00:06.
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What James Clark Maxwell wrote:- https://ethw.org/w/images/9/99/Maxwell_image_05.jpg
The t-shirt is pithier.
My nomination for the physicist whose general fame is not as high as his real standing is Niels Bohr. Not exactly unknown, but not having the same fame as Albert Einstein despite being one of the few who was his genuine peer. Indeed the two clashed philosophically over Bohr's Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, and experiment has sided with Bohr in this case. Who else took on Einstein over a question of physics and the nature of reality and came out on top?
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Humboldt's not a bad call. I had to google him a couple of years back, when I realised that I knew very little about even though he had US counties, ocean currents, squids, penguins and mountains and all sorts named after him.
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In Sociology, Harriet Martineau was largely ignored for 150 years despite her groundbreaking work of the 1830s. As noted above, there must be other examples of women and people of colour doing essential work but being ignored for decades. Codebreakers, NASA computer programmers, etc.
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Gramsci was neglected for decades (except maybe in Italy) before being adopted by New Left Review (especially Stuart Hall) in the 60s. Walter Benjamin too, maybe, due to his tragic early death.
In music, Nick Drake was largely unknown until the 90s. Do most people outside the folk scene know who Davey Graham was?
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- Jul 2016
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William Rowan Hamilton is unknown in Ireland anyway apart from my local area of Cabra where he's a local hero,in a moment of inspiration he carved the formula that made him famous into the stonework of the canal bridge where Broombridge railway station now is
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Originally posted by ursus arctos View PostHumboldt is anything but in Germany.
Indeed, it still is, but I believe that subsequent scientific argument has now reclassified the animal as Giraffatitan (stupid name) and the museum itself is no longer named after Humboldt. And I still know nothing about the man himself.
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