In another thread, we've commenting that some rather silly, lightweight names were included on the list of "most influential people of the millenium" as published at

http://www.falls.igs.net/~dphillips/biography3.htm

But it might be interesting to consider what names were foolishly excluded, and should arguably should have made the list. Who, omitted, do we feel was of striking importance? And why?

Dear AR: Any such list is obviously a Procrustean bed. I can't see any satisfactory way of evaluating candidates.

Any such list is obviously a Procrustean bed. I can't see any satisfactory way of evaluating candidates. - wwh

I agree Bill, but we, the jaded, do need amusement.

Let me go first...

Guglielmo Marconi 1874 - 1937

to replace

Steven Spielberg 1947 -

Guglielmo Marconi 1874 - 1937

Bah, humbug! Marconi's most famous "invertion" used eight of Nicola Tesla's patents! It was Tesla who invented radio, but got no credit; it was Tesla who invented practical A/C generators, radio control, etc.....

I agree. Part of the list seems strange.


Charlie Chaplin over Alan Turing?
Enrico Caruso?
Princess Diana?
Immanuel Kant over Karl Friedrich Gauss?

Does this list reflect what the people really think or were they trying fill it with quotas?

k

My, my, Geoff, such carrying on. Surely a list that includes
Adolf Hitler could overlook a little idea thievery by Marconi. You probably won't like my next one either.

_____Queen Victoria

_____to replace

_________~ >>>//**THE BEATLES**\\<<< ~ ____


Postedit: Wassamattau, K, you like a lotta mathematicians but you don't like Kant?

I've heard he was a real pissant who was very rarely stable.

k

FF, I agree with you that Gauss should be included.

(That's without regard to the question of who should be dumped to make room for him. I certainly could learn much more from hearing discussions of the infulence of various omitted names.)

The omitted name that strikes me of particular importance is the pope (Urban II?) who kicked off the Crusades. As I understand it:

a) the Crusades were tremendously important to European history (though more modern scholars have somewhat down-graded their importance).

b) Also, the Crusades and the resulting Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, a viciously-run state, quite justifiably triggered intense anti-european attitudes among the peoples native to the middle east -- attitudes still being played out today as a major undercurrent of modern middle-east political tensions.

Also, the Crusades and the resulting Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, a viciously-run state, quite justifiably triggered intense anti-european attitudes among the peoples native to the middle east -- attitudes still being played out today as a major undercurrent of modern middle-east political tensions.

To say nothing of the European nations' having divvied up Africa and established political boundaries that cut across established native boundaries. I also find it interesting that the height of classical Spanish culture was under the Moors, who tolerated the Spanish Jews. Then Catholic Aragon and Castille united, and, well, there went the neighborhood!

Gauss is reputed to have said that everything Kant wrote was either trivial or false. In any case, I think either Gauss or R. A. Fisher should be on the list.

One of Turing, Weiner, or Von Neumann.

And one of Goddard or Von Braun.

Possibly Fibonacci, not because he invented anything, but for introducing Hindu-Arabic numerals into the west. I'm tempted to believe that he (along with a few others whose names I can't recall, but all of whom prodded europeans) may have been very responsible (in a James Burke connections kinda way) of laying the groundwork for the later scientific revolutions.

Also at least one of the inventors of the transistor should be on the list (or listed collectively as was done for The Beatles).

And if this is a popularity contest which is what I think it is, then I vote for Charles Steinmetz, mostly because his was the first scientific biography I ever read (sixth grade, thanks to Mrs Clark letting me use my spare time as I wished), but also because he was cool guy. There's a great anecdote (probably apocryphal) about him at http://makeashorterlink.com/?D67814AD. (Hope this works. It's my first time using it. I'm really a stubborn cuss about not wanting to learn new-fangled stuff.)


k

Dear FF: that URL required leading a single line a mile long. I found another URL about a Phi Beta Kappa address, which gave the same attribution to Steinmetz:


But, how do we value our engineers? This anecdote, which some of you know, may shed
some light on that question. Legend has it that long after Charles Steinmetz retired from GE
he got a panicky request from a GE employee to come fix what was wrong with a complex
system of machines that had broken down. Steinmetz agreed and came to the facility. He
walked around testing the various machines, and then took a piece of chalk out of his pocket
and marked an 'x' on a specific spot on one particular machine. The GE people took that
machine apart and found that the defect lay exactly beneath Steinmetz' 'x.'

Shortly after that, GE received a bill for $10, 000 for services rendered. Management
protested the amount and asked for an itemization. Steinmetz' bill read as follows:
Making one chalk mark -- $1; knowing where to make it -- $9, 999.

Thanks for alerting me to that.


I related this story to my oldest daughter some years ago and told her that that is why she's going to school - so she'll know where to make the X.



k

Perhaps the most influential person of the twentieth century was Karol Wojtyla, also known as John Paul II. My argument for his inclusion on the list is that of all those who opposed Communism, if JP II had not existed, Communism would still be the controlling system in the Soviet Union.

It is of course inappropriate to say that he defeated Communism single-handedly, but ...

Noah Webster

1758 ~ 1843

About as word related as they come! And having been in the home he grew up in, I feel a special bond.

The Influentials: Noah Webster

Lovely! I asked for ideas, and in flew Angel's.

Sorry if it looks like I'm picking nits, but having just finished a fascinating book called The Calendar , which encompasses the mathematics necessary for calendrical reform as well as the calendar itself, I feel I must correct TheFallibleFiend. Fibonacci did not 'introduce' Hindu-Arabic numerals into the west. From said book:

"The first Hindu numbers known to have been scrawled on a European manuscript appeared in northern Spain in 976 and used the 'western' Arabic form of the numbers...Twenty years later, in the 990s, Gerbert of Aurillac taught the Hindu numbers to his students, undoubtedly picking them up after a stint in Spain... Mention of the numbers all but disappeared for another century until the Englishman Robert of Chester (c.1100) visited Spain..." etc etc, Euros reluctant to use this magical-looking symbols...

Anyway. The book is by David Ewing Duncan, and I highly recommend it for being easy to read... and Fiend, sorry again if I appear to be acting lofty

alexis

Sorry if it looks like I'm picking nits

For something as important as correctly attributing the introduction of Hindu-Arabic numerals to western "civilization" I grant you unlimited nit-picking rights, alexis.

Replace Enrico Caruso with Nadia Boulanger.

Replace Princess Diana with John Wayne.

Shoot muzak, I wanted to be the one to replace Princess Di.
And you know darn well that I can't replace John Wayne.
Oh well...

KING JAMES THE FIRST to replace MACHIAVELLI THE DARK PRINCE

The King James version of the Christian Bible directed and
influenced the expantion of the redeaming values of western culture more so than other any controlling mechanism or impetus. Thank you King James.

(By-the-way musick, just between me and you, you put that Boulanger chick in there just to be politically correct, didn't you?) - mw

...just to be politically correct... Moi? Shirley, you jest... at least there was a after that!

Nadia Boulanger also had quite an impression on Quincy Jones (who, also, could replace Enrico Caruso in a heartbeat)!

<<immanuel kant.>>

*Not* include Kant?! Sorry, I don't get *that*.

Not at all. An error is an error. I really appreciate the reference - I'll put it on my list.

I think I used the word "introduced" incorrectly (although I've seen it used to describe the same situation). I was vaguely aware there were a lot of other people before and after Fibonacci whose combined efforts helped to change a continent's way of thinking.


From http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Fibonacci.html:



Liber abaci, published in 1202 after Fibonacci's return to Italy, was dedicated to Scotus. The book was based on the arithmetic and algebra that Fibonacci had accumulated during his travels. The book, which went on to be widely copied and imitated, introduced the Hindu-Arabic place-valued decimal system and the use of Arabic numerals into Europe.



I've read similar statements in books, but I'd be hard pressed to come up with an exact source.


In any case, I didn't mean to (although I guess I clearly did) imply that Fibonacci was the the first or the last or even the most relevant among them, although he was the most relevant one of whom I was aware.


In one source I read (again, I apologize, but I don't have a reference), there were several people listed whose collective efforts established helped.


How's this for a rewording:

I don't know that any one person can be credited with changing the intellectual opinion of Europeans regarding the use of HAN (Hindu-Arabic Numerals). Perhaps we can choose XYZ for being the first known European to use them or perhaps Gerbert of Aurillac (of whom I had not heard until Alexis' post) who taught it to European students, or maybe Fibonacci (or any of several other writers over the course of several centuries) who helped to spread the gospel, as it were. However, taken either individually or collectively, this achievement of popularizing HAN stands as one of the important social-intellectual accomplishments of the past millemium - and whomever it was as an individual or group - was among the most influential people in that same period.


k