• Question: who is your favorite scientist from history

    Asked by 459xygg26 to Gavin, Karen, Mark, Michel, Roisin on 10 Nov 2016.
    • Photo: Roisin Jones

      Roisin Jones answered on 10 Nov 2016:

      My favourite scientist from history is Marie Curie! She was an incredible scientist and an incredible woman, who achieved amazing things despite a large number of obstacles being placed in her way (for example, she was turned away from the first university she applied to because they didn’t accept women). She was an astoundingly good scientist (she remains the only person to ever win the Nobel Prize in two fields), and also a great humanitarian: during World War I, she used her research to help set up and run mobile X-ray units, something which eventually contributed to her death, which was from aplastic anaemia brought on by exposure to radiation.

    • Photo: Mark Kennedy

      Mark Kennedy answered on 10 Nov 2016:

      I have 3. One from the last 70 years, one who died a long time ago, and one who’s still alive.

      From the last 70 years: Richard Feynman, who was a physicist who just did an enormous amount of cool things with his life. He’s widely regarded as one of the best teachers physics has ever had.

      From even longer ago: Isaac Newton. He was perhaps a bit crazy, but he also (maybe) invented calculus! Which is one of the most important advances in science.

      The person who’s still alive: Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell. She’s a radio astronomer who discovered a type of star called a pulsar. She was overlooked for the Nobel Prize in Physics, but she should have been awarded it! I think she’s awesome because, rather than leaving science after not getting the prize, she stayed in science, and is currently the head of the Royal Society of Edinburgh . She’s also just a really nice person!

    • Photo: Michel Destrade

      Michel Destrade answered on 10 Nov 2016:

      Like Róisín, would have to be Marie Curie. It was her birthday this week. Can you believe she won two Nobel Prizes? One in Physics and one in Chemistry. Can’t beat that! Plus as a woman she wasn’t allowed to go to university in Poland and had to teach herself science.

    • Photo: Karen

      Karen answered on 10 Nov 2016:

      I have two, Alexander Fleming who discovered penicillin and Edward Jenner who discovered the first vaccine (for smallpox). Both discoveries completely revolutionised medicine.

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