• Question: Who is your favourite famous scientist it could be darwin or einstien for example?

    Asked by thunderrocks to Emma, Jen, Joseph, Michael, Mona on 20 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by katty.
    • Photo: Michael Taggart

      Michael Taggart answered on 19 Jun 2011:

      It’s not something I often think of but now that you’ve got me thinking …. top of my list would be Marie Curie, she had to endure a lot in her personal and professional life and yet managed to make some revolutionary discoveries.

    • Photo: Jen Gupta

      Jen Gupta answered on 19 Jun 2011:

      Good question! I’m not sure I can pin down my favourite scientist. I think I’ll go for Nicolaus Copernicus. He was the astronomer who first said that the Sun was at the centre of our solar system and that the planets orbited around it. At the time this was a completely revolutionary idea and he didn’t publish his work for a very long time because he was worried about what people would think.

      My favourite not-famous-but-should-be-famous scientist is probably Caroline Herschel. A lot of people know about her brother William Herschel who discovered the planet Uranus but not as many people know about Caroline. She was an astronomer too who discovered several comets. However because she lived in the 18th/19th century, a lot of people didn’t recognise her as a serious astronomer. For example, at the time the Royal Astronomical Society didn’t allow women to be members but she was one of the first women to be made an honorary member.

      My favourite famous-scientist-who-is-still-living would have to be a tie between Bernard Lovell and Jocelyn Bell-Burnell. Bernard Lovell founded the Jodrell Bank Observatory. He’s 97 years old but until recently he still regularly visited the observatory! Jocelyn Bell-Burnell was one of the astronomers who discovered pulsars. Her supervisor got the Nobel Prize for this discovery but she missed out – what I think is amazing is that she doesn’t seem to be bitter about this at all!

      Who’s your favourite scientist?

    • Photo: Emma Bennett

      Emma Bennett answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      My favourite scientist would have to be Gregor Mendle as he did a lot of work that helped shape modern genetics and he studied peas.

Comments