Si1 Posted November 2, 2018 Share Posted November 2, 2018 Seeing as we've already had Newton, Darwin, Stephenson, Brunel.... In my view NOT Stephen Hawking as his main claim to fame is he's establishment, there are other significant scientists out there. A great hard scientist in the modern era needs to have won a Nobel prize, and he hasn't. Peter Higgs, except he isn't dead. Rosalind Franklin, part discoverer of DNA, to get some appropriate recognition. Frank Whittle , inventor of the jet engine. (They allow engineers too) Arthur Eddington, British astronomer who confirmed Einstein's Theory of General Relativity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
longgone Posted November 2, 2018 Share Posted November 2, 2018 how about an inflationary graph to show what little it buys ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freeholder Posted November 2, 2018 Share Posted November 2, 2018 How about Sir Joseph William Bazalgette pioneer of mains drainage. Built most of the main sewers still in use today in London. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nightowl Posted November 2, 2018 Share Posted November 2, 2018 How about Margaret Thatcher....she was a scientist in her pre-politics days and no longer alive? Could you imagine the 'discussion' that would generate! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Si1 Posted November 2, 2018 Author Share Posted November 2, 2018 57 minutes ago, nightowl said: How about Margaret Thatcher....she was a scientist in her pre-politics days and no longer alive? Could you imagine the 'discussion' that would generate! She helped develop Mr Whippies? Yeah have a picture of her handing ice creams out to children. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Si1 Posted November 2, 2018 Author Share Posted November 2, 2018 1 hour ago, Freeholder said: How about Sir Joseph William Bazalgette pioneer of mains drainage. Built most of the main sewers still in use today in London. Good one Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poppie Posted November 2, 2018 Share Posted November 2, 2018 Mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zugzwang Posted November 2, 2018 Share Posted November 2, 2018 5 hours ago, Si1 said: Seeing as we've already had Newton, Darwin, Stephenson, Brunel.... In my view NOT Stephen Hawking as his main claim to fame is he's establishment, there are other significant scientists out there. A great hard scientist in the modern era needs to have won a Nobel prize, and he hasn't. Peter Higgs, except he isn't dead. Rosalind Franklin, part discoverer of DNA, to get some appropriate recognition. Frank Whittle , inventor of the jet engine. (They allow engineers too) Arthur Eddington, British astronomer who confirmed Einstein's Theory of General Relativity. Has to be a sheila, else why the fuss? Ada Lovelace pictured with a plan of Babbage's Analytical Engine would be super cool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monkey Posted November 2, 2018 Share Posted November 2, 2018 Fred Dibnah Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sledgehead Posted November 2, 2018 Share Posted November 2, 2018 6 hours ago, Si1 said: Seeing as we've already had Newton, Darwin, Stephenson, Brunel.... In my view NOT Stephen Hawking as his main claim to fame is he's establishment, there are other significant scientists out there. A great hard scientist in the modern era needs to have won a Nobel prize, and he hasn't. Peter Higgs, except he isn't dead. Rosalind Franklin, part discoverer of DNA, to get some appropriate recognition. Frank Whittle , inventor of the jet engine. (They allow engineers too) Arthur Eddington, British astronomer who confirmed Einstein's Theory of General Relativity. I hear what you say, but first of all we need to know what purpose the bestowed honour serves. Is it to tell Brits what w've got going for us, to honour the featured notable or to add weight to our currency by reminding Johnny Foreigner what we are capable of? As much as I appreciate a desire to recognise the un-recognised, like the afore mentioned sewerage engineer, does it really add to the perceived value of our currency? And yes, while Hawking is a rather hackneyed idea, it wouldn't go amiss to remind the world he is British. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
longgone Posted November 2, 2018 Share Posted November 2, 2018 5 hours ago, Monkey said: Fred Dibnah they don`t make men like that anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Banner Posted November 3, 2018 Share Posted November 3, 2018 Barnes Wallis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Si1 Posted November 3, 2018 Author Share Posted November 3, 2018 2 hours ago, Bruce Banner said: Barnes Wallis. Very Brexit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freeholder Posted November 3, 2018 Share Posted November 3, 2018 If brexit was the theme how about Arthur Harris or the other famous Arthur Wellesley. edit typo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goat Posted November 3, 2018 Share Posted November 3, 2018 On 02/11/2018 at 11:42, Si1 said: Rosalind Franklin, part discoverer of DNA, to get some appropriate recognition. Dorothy Hodgkin, pioneered the x-ray crystallography techniques used by Franklin in her work on DNA. 1 hour ago, Freeholder said: If brexit was the theme how about Arthur Harris or the other famous Arthur Wellesley. The Duke fought against the French but alongside Portugal & Spain in the peninsular war and alongside Germans, Dutch and Belgians at Waterloo, so maybe not the best poster boy for brexit.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onlooker Posted November 3, 2018 Share Posted November 3, 2018 28 minutes ago, Goat said: Dorothy Hodgkin, pioneered the x-ray crystallography techniques used by Franklin in her work on DNA. The Duke fought against the French but alongside Portugal & Spain in the peninsular war and alongside Germans, Dutch and Belgians at Waterloo, so maybe not the best poster boy for brexit.. Duke of Wellington was on one of the former £5 notes. The trouble with choosing a famous British scientist is that there are too many of them. We have had Michael Faraday, so it has to be James Clark Maxwell next. Lord Kelvin was on a Clydesdale Bank note. Or a geologist William Smith, Hutton, Lyell or Roderick Murchison, or Arthur Holmes. If it has to be a female scientist, how about Mary Anning? Dorothy Hodgkin is too politically dodgy. She had apparently close connections to communist dictators and parties, though claiming never to be a communist herself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kosmin Posted November 4, 2018 Share Posted November 4, 2018 3 hours ago, onlooker said: Dorothy Hodgkin is too politically dodgy. She had apparently close connections to communist dictators and parties, though claiming never to be a communist herself. I don't think this should matter. In the mid twentieth century, academia and the scientific community in particular, was overwhelmingly sympathetic to the idea of expert (central) planning, and by extension communism. We shouldn't judge them for this any more than we judge earlier leaders for the evils of colonialism, denying votes of women, men without property etc. That said, what about Crick? I'm not sure I'd heard of geologist William Smith, Hutton, Lyell, Roderick Murchison, Arthur Holmes or Hodgkin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onlooker Posted November 4, 2018 Share Posted November 4, 2018 7 hours ago, Kosmin said: I don't think this should matter. In the mid twentieth century, academia and the scientific community in particular, was overwhelmingly sympathetic to the idea of expert (central) planning, and by extension communism. We shouldn't judge them for this any more than we judge earlier leaders for the evils of colonialism, denying votes of women, men without property etc. That said, what about Crick? I'm not sure I'd heard of geologist William Smith, Hutton, Lyell, Roderick Murchison, Arthur Holmes or Hodgkin. Crick had some interesting controversial views on eugenics. Also, put him on a banknote, and you will enrage the feminists who claim that the biggest contribution was by Franklin, who never received any recognition in the Nobel Prize awarded for unravelling the structure of DNA. Hodgkin was an X ray crystallographer who worked on organic molecules, not a geologist. Geology was however the British science right down to post WW2. All the big original thinkers were British until Tuzo Wilson. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sledgehead Posted November 4, 2018 Share Posted November 4, 2018 5 hours ago, onlooker said: Crick had some interesting controversial views on eugenics. Also, put him on a banknote, and you will enrage the feminists who claim that the biggest contribution was by Franklin, who never received any recognition in the Nobel Prize awarded for unravelling the structure of DNA. Hodgkin was an X ray crystallographer who worked on organic molecules, not a geologist. Geology was however the British science right down to post WW2. All the big original thinkers were British until Tuzo Wilson. Recognise this from the front of Broadcasting House? or this: These are the work of Eric Gill, a sulptor and typeographer whose work not only appears in countless corporate logos and (leftie) magazines, but who received the honour of Royal Designer for Industry (the highest award a Brit can get for design). He was also a painter. here's a painting of his: That's his daughter. At 13. Who he raped. Regularly. The habit started with his little sister. Don't see any of the BBC lefties etc changing their typefaces of taking down that sculpture, do you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Si1 Posted November 4, 2018 Author Share Posted November 4, 2018 13 hours ago, Kosmin said: I don't think this should matter. In the mid twentieth century, academia and the scientific community in particular, was overwhelmingly sympathetic to the idea of expert (central) planning, and by extension communism. They still are Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikhail Liebenstein Posted November 4, 2018 Share Posted November 4, 2018 On 02/11/2018 at 17:52, zugzwang said: Has to be a sheila, else why the fuss? Ada Lovelace pictured with a plan of Babbage's Analytical Engine would be super cool. I do think Ada Lovelace's importance gets overstated purely because she was female. As far as I can tell, she wrote some notes about how to perhaps use an analytic engine on an Italian translation she was doing. The Ancient Greeks had algorithms 2 millennia before that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikhail Liebenstein Posted November 4, 2018 Share Posted November 4, 2018 6 hours ago, onlooker said: Crick had some interesting controversial views on eugenics. Also, put him on a banknote, and you will enrage the feminists who claim that the biggest contribution was by Franklin, who never received any recognition in the Nobel Prize awarded for unravelling the structure of DNA. Hodgkin was an X ray crystallographer who worked on organic molecules, not a geologist. Geology was however the British science right down to post WW2. All the big original thinkers were British until Tuzo Wilson. Yes, I did think Crick for a bit, but you are probably correct. Also, why has no one mentioned Paul Dirac? Might be that James Clerk Maxwell steals all the physics thunder? I am assuming Ernest Rutherford is considered too much of a New Zealander? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kosmin Posted November 4, 2018 Share Posted November 4, 2018 1 hour ago, Mikhail Liebenstein said: Also, why has no one mentioned Paul Dirac? You read my mind! 2 hours ago, Si1 said: They still are I think this only really exists in the humanities and some of the social sciences (definitely not economics though). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zugzwang Posted November 4, 2018 Share Posted November 4, 2018 2 hours ago, Mikhail Liebenstein said: I do think Ada Lovelace's importance gets overstated purely because she was female. As far as I can tell, she wrote some notes about how to perhaps use an analytic engine on an Italian translation she was doing. The Ancient Greeks had algorithms 2 millennia before that. We could also talk about the anti-kythera mechanism. Clearly couldn't have been unique but whatever happened to its prototypes/successors? Anyway, they're Greek so don't count. The analytical engine was that first Turing complete device. Got to give Ada props for programming that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Si1 Posted November 4, 2018 Author Share Posted November 4, 2018 2 hours ago, Kosmin said: You read my mind! I think this only really exists in the humanities and some of the social sciences (definitely not economics though). Certainly the environmental sciences too, from personal knowledge. Not sure about the harder sciences tbf. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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