IUBio

Time Magazine: Man of the Millennium

Neil Rickert rickert at cs.niu.edu
Tue Sep 22 10:40:44 EST 1998


qed at pobox.com (Paul Hsieh) writes:
>In article <6u6qrt$gsp$1 at news.indy.net>, d9090 at indy.net says...

>> Issac Newton.   (that from a Shakespeare and huge Beethovan fan.)

Certainly very important.

>Well for the men, I'll throw in:

>- Andrew Wiley (proved Fermat's last theorem, possibly the greatest 
>intellectual feat of all time.)

I believe it is "Wiles".  His feat was noteworthy, but let's not
overrate its importance.

>- John von Neuman (inventor of the computer, the ultimate society 
>assisting invention of man.)

Very important for other things too.  He easily beats Wiles, but
doesn't make it as MOTM.

>- Mikhail Gorbachev (made the greatest and most important peace in the 
>history of mankind.)

One of history's losers.  He will go down as a footnote.

>- Charles Darwin (for discovering probably the most fundamental law 
>governing life.)

His work is important.  But talk of evolution was already in the
air.  I think the theory was inevitable even without Darwin.  You
might want to give some credit to Linneaus whose classification
scheme helped to bring out the evidence for evolution.




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