The Scientific 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Scientists, Past and Present

1     Isaac Newton     the Newtonian Revolution     Anglican (rejected Trinitarianism, i.e., Athanasianism;
                                                                              believed in the Arianism of the Primitive Church)
2     Albert Einstein     Twentieth-Century Science     Jewish
3     Neils Bohr           the Atom     Jewish Lutheran
4     Charles Darwin     Evolution     Anglican (nominal); Unitarian
5     Louis Pasteur        the Germ Theory of Disease     Catholic
6     Sigmund Freud      Psychology of the Unconscious     Jewish; Atheist; Freudian psychoanalysis (Freudianism)
7     Galileo Galilei         the New Science     Catholic
8     Antoine Laurent Lavoisier      the Revolution in Chemistry     Catholic
9     Johannes Kepler     Motion of the Planets     Lutheran
10     Nicolaus Copernicus     the Heliocentric Universe     Catholic (priest)
11     Michael Faraday     the Classical Field Theory     Sandemanian
12     James Clerk Maxwell     the Electromagnetic Field     Presbyterian; Anglican; Baptist
13     Claude Bernard     the Founding of Modern Physiology    
14     Franz Boas     Modern Anthropology     Jewish
15     Werner Heisenberg     Quantum Theory     Lutheran
16     Linus Pauling     Twentieth-Century Chemistry     Lutheran
17     Rudolf Virchow     the Cell Doctrine    
18     Erwin Schrodinger     Wave Mechanics     Catholic
19     Ernest Rutherford     the Structure of the Atom    
20     Paul Dirac     Quantum Electrodynamics    
21     Andreas Vesalius     the New Anatomy     Catholic
22     Tycho Brahe     the New Astronomy     Lutheran
23     Comte de Buffon     l'Histoire Naturelle    
24     Ludwig Boltzmann     Thermodynamics    
25     Max Planck     the Quanta     Protestant
26     Marie Curie     Radioactivity     Catholic (lapsed)
27     William Herschel     the Discovery of the Heavens     Jewish
28     Charles Lyell     Modern Geology    
29     Pierre Simon de Laplace     Newtonian Mechanics     atheist
30     Edwin Hubble     the Modern Telescope    
31     Joseph J. Thomson     the Discovery of the Electron    
32     Max Born     Quantum Mechanics     Jewish Lutheran
33     Francis Crick     Molecular Biology     atheist
34     Enrico Fermi     Atomic Physics     Catholic
35     Leonard Euler     Eighteenth-Century Mathematics     Calvinist
36     Justus Liebig     Nineteenth-Century Chemistry    
37     Arthur Eddington     Modern Astronomy     Quaker
38     William Harvey     Circulation of the Blood     Anglican (nominal)
39     Marcello Malpighi     Microscopic Anatomy     Catholic
40     Christiaan Huygens     the Wave Theory of Light     Calvinist
41     Carl Gauss (Karl Friedrich Gauss)     Mathematical Genius     Lutheran
42     Albrecht von Haller     Eighteenth-Century Medicine    
43     August Kekule     Chemical Structure    
44     Robert Koch     Bacteriology    
45     Murray Gell-Mann     the Eightfold Way     Jewish
46     Emil Fischer     Organic Chemistry    
47     Dmitri Mendeleev     the Periodic Table of Elements    
48     Sheldon Glashow     the Discovery of Charm     Jewish
49     James Watson     the Structure of DNA     atheist
50     John Bardeen     Superconductivity    
51     John von Neumann     the Modern Computer     Jewish Catholic
52     Richard Feynman     Quantum Electrodynamics     Jewish
53     Alfred Wegener     Continental Drift    
54     Stephen Hawking     Quantum Cosmology     atheist
55     Anton van Leeuwenhoek     the Simple Microscope     Dutch Reformed
56     Max von Laue     X-ray Crystallography    
57     Gustav Kirchhoff     Spectroscopy    
58     Hans Bethe     the Energy of the Sun     Jewish
59     Euclid     the Foundations of Mathematics     Platonism / Greek philosophy
60     Gregor Mendel     the Laws of Inheritance     Catholic (Augustinian monk)
61     Heike Kamerlingh Onnes     Superconductivity    
62     Thomas Hunt Morgan     the Chromosomal Theory of Heredity    
63     Hermann von Helmholtz     the Rise of German Science    
64     Paul Ehrlich     Chemotherapy     Jewish
65     Ernst Mayr     Evolutionary Theory     atheist
66     Charles Sherrington     Neurophysiology    
67     Theodosius Dobzhansky     the Modern Synthesis     Russian Orthodox
68     Max Delbruck     the Bacteriophage    
69     Jean Baptiste Lamarck     the Foundations of Biology    
70     William Bayliss     Modern Physiology    
71     Noam Chomsky     Twentieth-Century Linguistics     Jewish atheist
72     Frederick Sanger     the Genetic Code    
73     Lucretius     Scientific Thinking     Epicurean; atheist
74     John Dalton     the Theory of the Atom     Quaker
75     Louis Victor de Broglie     Wave/Particle Duality    
76     Carl Linnaeus     the Binomial Nomenclature     Christianity
77     Jean Piaget     Child Development    
78     George Gaylord Simpson     the Tempo of Evolution    
79     Claude Levi-Strauss     Structural Anthropology     Jewish
80     Lynn Margulis     Symbiosis Theory     Jewish
81     Karl Landsteiner     the Blood Groups     Jewish
82     Konrad Lorenz     Ethology    
83     Edward O. Wilson     Sociobiology    
84     Frederick Gowland Hopkins     Vitamins    
85     Gertrude Belle Elion     Pharmacology    
86     Hans Selye     the Stress Concept    
87     J. Robert Oppenheimer     the Atomic Era     Jewish
88     Edward Teller     the Bomb     Jewish
89     Willard Libby     Radioactive Dating    
90     Ernst Haeckel     the Biogenetic Principle    
91     Jonas Salk     Vaccination     Jewish
92     Emil Kraepelin     Twentieth-Century Psychiatry    
93     Trofim Lysenko     Soviet Genetics     Russian Orthodox; Communist
94     Francis Galton     Eugenics    
95     Alfred Binet     the I.Q. Test    
96     Alfred Kinsey     Human Sexuality     atheist
97     Alexander Fleming     Penicillin     Catholic
98     B. F. Skinner     Behaviorism     atheist
99     Wilhelm Wundt     the Founding of Psychology     atheist
100     Archimedes     the Beginning of Science     Greek philosophy

Theory of relativity

The theory of relativity, or simply relativity, encompasses two theories of Albert Einstein: special relativity and general relativity. However, the word relativity is sometimes used in reference to Galilean invariance.
The term "theory of relativity" was based on the expression "relative theory"  used by Max Planck in 1906, who emphasized how the theory uses the principle of relativity. In the discussion section of the same paper Alfred Bucherer used for the first time the expression "theory of relativity"
In September 2011, CERN found possible evidence of the theory being violated by particles travelling faster than light -- these results are currently being analyzed for accuracy.

Scope

The theory of relativity enriched physics and astronomy during the 20th century. When first published, relativity superseded a 200-year-old theory of mechanics elucidated by Isaac Newton. It changed perceptions. However, Einstein denied that Newton could ever be superseded by his own work.

The theory of relativity overturned the concept of motion from Newton's day, into all motion is relative. Time was no longer uniform and absolute. Therefore, no longer could physics be understood as space by itself, and time by itself. Instead, an added dimension had to be taken into account with curved spacetime. Time now depended on velocity, and contraction became a fundamental consequence at appropriate speeds.

In the field of physics, relativity catalyzed and added an essential depth of knowledge to the science of elementary particles and their fundamental interactions, along with ushering in the nuclear age. With relativity, cosmology and astrophysics predicted extraordinary astronomical phenomena such as neutron stars, black holes, and gravitational waves.

Two theory view

The theory of relativity was representative of more than a single new physical theory. It affected the theories and methodologies across all the physical sciences. However, as stated above, this is more likely perceived as two separate theories. There are some explanations for this. First, special relativity was published in 1905, and the final form of general relativity was published in 1916.

Second, special relativity fits with and solves for elementary particles and their interactions, whereas general relativity solves for the cosmological and astrophysical realm (including astronomy).

Third, special relativity was widely accepted in the physics community by 1920. This theory rapidly became a significant and necessary tool for theorists and experimentalists in the new fields of atomic physics, nuclear physics, and quantum mechanics. Conversely, general relativity did not appear to be as useful. There appeared to be little applicability for experimentalists as most applications were for astronomical scales. It seemed limited to only making minor corrections to predictions of Newtonian gravitation theory. Its impact was not apparent until the 1930s.

Finally, the mathematics of general relativity appeared to be incomprehensibly dense. Consequently, only a small number of people in the world, at that time, could fully understand the theory in detail. This remained the case for the next 40 years. Then, at around 1960 a critical resurgence in interest occurred which has resulted in making general relativity central to physics and astronomy. New mathematical techniques applicable to the study of general relativity substantially streamlined calculations. From this physically discernible concepts were isolated from the mathematical complexity. Also, the discovery of exotic astronomical phenomena in which general relativity was crucially relevant, helped to catalyze this resurgence. The astronomical phenomena included quasars (1963), the 3-kelvin microwave background radiation (1965), pulsars (1967), and the discovery of the first black hole candidates (1971)

On the theory of relativity

Einstein stated that the theory of relativity belongs to the class of "principle-theories". As such it employs an analytic method. This means that the elements which comprise this theory are not based on hypothesis but on empirical discovery. The empirical discovery leads to understanding the general characteristics of natural processes. Mathematical models are then developed which separate the natural processes into theoretical-mathematical descriptions. Therefore, by analytical means the necessary conditions that have to be satisfied are deduced. Separate events must satisfy these conditions. Experience should then match the conclusions.
The special theory of relativity and the general theory of relativity are connected. As stated below, special theory of relativity applies to all inertial physical phenomena except gravity. The general theory provides the law of gravitation, and its relation to other forces of nature.

Special relativity

 

USSR stamp dedicated to Albert Einstein

Special relativity is a theory of the structure of spacetime. It was introduced in Einstein's 1905 paper "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" (for the contributions of many other physicists see History of special relativity). Special relativity is based on two postulates which are contradictory in classical mechanics:

    The laws of physics are the same for all observers in uniform motion relative to one another (principle of relativity),
    The speed of light in a vacuum is the same for all observers, regardless of their relative motion or of the motion of the source of the light.

The resultant theory agrees with experiment better than classical mechanics, e.g. in the Michelson-Morley experiment that supports postulate 2, but also has many surprising consequences. Some of these are:

    Relativity of simultaneity: Two events, simultaneous for one observer, may not be simultaneous for another observer if the observers are in relative motion.
    Time dilation: Moving clocks are measured to tick more slowly than an observer's "stationary" clock.
    Length contraction: Objects are measured to be shortened in the direction that they are moving with respect to the observer.
    Mass–energy equivalence: E = mc2, energy and mass are equivalent and transmutable.
    Maximum speed is finite: No physical object, message or field line can travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum.

The defining feature of special relativity is the replacement of the Galilean transformations of classical mechanics by the Lorentz transformations. (See Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism and introduction to special relativity).

General relativity

General relativity is a theory of gravitation developed by Einstein in the years 1907–1915. The development of general relativity began with the equivalence principle, under which the states of accelerated motion and being at rest in a gravitational field (for example when standing on the surface of the Earth) are physically identical. The upshot of this is that free fall is inertial motion; an object in free fall is falling because that is how objects move when there is no force being exerted on them, instead of this being due to the force of gravity as is the case in classical mechanics. This is incompatible with classical mechanics and special relativity because in those theories inertially moving objects cannot accelerate with respect to each other, but objects in free fall do so. To resolve this difficulty Einstein first proposed that spacetime is curved. In 1915, he devised the Einstein field equations which relate the curvature of spacetime with the mass, energy, and momentum within it.

Some of the consequences of general relativity are:

    Clocks run more slowly in deeper gravitational wells.This is called gravitational time dilation.
    Orbits precess in a way unexpected in Newton's theory of gravity. (This has been observed in the orbit of Mercury and in binary pulsars).
    Rays of light bend in the presence of a gravitational field.
    Rotating masses "drag along" the spacetime around them; a phenomenon termed "frame-dragging".
    The Universe is expanding, and the far parts of it are moving away from us faster than the speed of light.

Technically, general relativity is a metric theory of gravitation whose defining feature is its use of the Einstein field equations. The solutions of the field equations are metric tensors which define the topology of the spacetime and how objects move inertially.