Pioneers of science & engineering - suggestions please

[LeRoux Strydom]

I am starting a little pet project. I am going to put up a photographic display in my study of the pioneers of modern science & engineering, and I am looking for suggestions from the brain trust as to who should be included & why.

I am thinking along the lines of Marie Curie, Charles Darwin, Mendeleev, Louis Pasteur etc. Even modern pioneers like Robert Oppenheimer, George Eastman (Kodak fame). These are pretty obvious but I'm sure there are many more especially in the engineering field that I will miss.

Any good ideas on who should grace my wall?

[porsche4life]

Albert einstein

[onewhippedpuppy]

Wright Brothers is another no brainer.

[MBAtarga]

Thomas Edison

[Tishabet]

Oppenheimer, Tesla, Watson and Crick, Pauling...

[TimT]

Archimedes, Newton.....

[exitwound]

Don't forget Faraday, Maxwell, Coulomb, ... all the electromagnetism guys.

[Schumi]

Richard Feynman.

[red-beard]

Originally Posted by MBAtarga

Thomas Edison

This man should be top of the honors for his raw science, but also for keeping his eye on the ball of commercial applications of the things he invented and/or improved.

[LeRoux Strydom]

Thanks, these are all good suggestions. Please keep 'em coming.
I also have Pauling, Linnaeus & Fleming on the biology side of things.

[Gooch1971]

Edwin Herbert Land (May 7, 1909 – March 1, 1991) was an American scientist and inventor, best known as the co-founder of the Polaroid Corporation. Among other things, he invented inexpensive filters for polarizing light, a practical system of in-camera instant photography, and his retinex theory of color vision.

[Gooch1971]

You might also consider the guys from Apple, Microsoft, and countless others.

Don't forget Ajay Bhatt, Co-Inventor of USB and Intel Rockstar.

[targa911S]

Ferdinand Porsche

[mike55]

Enrico Fermi, Nikola Tesla, James Watt, Isaac Newton, Galileo, Leonardo Davinci.....

[M.D. Holloway]

Scientists...Aristotle
Then:
Sir Isaac Newton
Galileo Galilei
Charles Robert Darwin
Albert Einstein
Thomas Edison
Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta
Stephen Hawking
Louis Pasteur
Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose
Guglielmo Marchese Marconi


Engineers - without question...Leonardo da Vinci
Then:
Nicolaus Otto
Alan Turing
Mikhail Kalashnikov
Archimedes of Syracuse
Wilbur and Orville Wright
Hero of Alexandria
James Watt
Nikola Tesla
Eli Whitney
Rudolf Diesel
Wernher Von Braun
Enrico Fermi and Leó Szilárd

[WolfeMacleod]

Leo Fender
Les Paul

Without either, music would not be as it is today. Les Paul pioneered modern multi-track recording techniques.

[Schrup]

[RWebb]

I would either narrow it down to focus closely on a particular field, or make it very wide and historical.

For the latter, I'd focus on the development of the modern scientific method: Wm. Harvey could be added there; the Bacons; Descartes etc. - put in a blurb next to the pic as to how they advanced Science [note: Science is first & foremost a PROCEDURE - a method od finding out & being sure you are right about nature].

another theme would be key discoveries - e.g. the structure of DNA (inheritance)
OR...
the transistor - those 3 guys made possible computers - which led to the Internet and to Finite Element numerical modelling - the latter has been used in car & bridge design; camera lens design; buildings; heat exchange physiology; and on & on

[ckissick]

Edwin Hubbell
Stephen Hawkng

[p911dad]

Alexander Graham Bell, father of the telephone(and many others)(and $ patron of Glenn Curtiss)
Glenn Curtiss, father of the seaplane and a contemporary competitor to the Wright bros., inventor of ailerons to control roll(a big deal in 1910), the Wrights never figured that out! Curtiss designed and built the Jenny, which the US used in WWI. Partner with the Wrights in Curtiss Wright Corp., who made many of the war planes in WWII.