Top 10 Physicists who Changed our Lives 

You should run for president.

Thanks for the comment, I'll try to address your quibbles. The list is just an opinion of course, so you're free to disagree. But remember this is not a list of greatest achievements in physics, but physicists who's work had the greatest influence on the everyday lives of human beings around the world. And I'm calling a physicist anyone who work was rooted in some sense in physics. So engineers, astronomers, ancient polymaths all qualify. Not just people with a official physics degree. That would limit me to after the physicist became an official profession... after the mid 1800s. I'm sure you would agree Newton qualifies as a physicists despite it not being his official profession. Now to answer you qualms with my list. 10. I already explained engineer counts as physicist, and inventor is not a profession or degree. Nobody gets a degree in invention or is hired as an inventor. Everything tesla did is 100% within the field of physics. 9. The list of people involved in the splitting of the atom is enormous. And I clarified in the video she did not do it alone, and neither did anyone on the list for that matter. One could easily argue for Rutherford, Gamow, Fermi, Currie, or many others. But I had to pick one, and chose Meitner as I feel her work was most important. She was the first to actually realize the atom had been split (not just neutron emission) and understand how. You don't have to agree, it's just my opinion. 2. Al-Khwarizmi had a major role in introducing astronomy (and the maybe scientific method) to the Arabs, was the head astronomer in Baghdad and had a major role in initiating the Islamic Golden age. As I said, astronomers/ancient polymaths qualify as working in physics. The Arabs for centuries later were the best astronomers (and scientists in general) in the world, and from whom western Europeans learned astronomy (and math and science in general). Of course there were great mathematical/scientific achievements prior to the Hindu decimal system. I never suggested otherwise. But without this numerical system, we likely would not have algebra (which he also invented) or calculus. (Largely) thanks to him, almost the whole world uses the Hindu decimal system, the Indian conventions of trigonometry (also essential to physics), and algebra. So his work as a polymath/astronomer has had a major affect on almost everyone around the world. Arguably even more than Newton. Which is the basis of the list. Regarding Volta and ibn Sahl, are you saying they are too high or too low on the list? Regarding Einstein, remember this is not a list of greatest physicists. Einstein is arguably the greatest physicist in history, but did his work have a major impact on our everyday lives? More than, electrical power, batteries, nuclear power, ac motors, hydroelectric power, heat engines/refrigeration, the numbers everyone uses, algebra, calculus, trigonometry, lenses, radio communication, computers? I personally don't think so, but again it's just my opinion. Where would you put him and why?

@@physicsalmanac As far as I understand, Volta not only invented the battery, he also invented the first source of direct current (the battery). And direct current use goes way way further than batteries. Many devices which are AC-fed, actually use rectifiers to get DC from AC. So DC is more important than the battery. Lenses were build way before refraction laws were known. So you can build lenses experimentally without knowing refraction laws. And this was indeed done centuries before Ibn Sahl. AFAIK, Special relativity is needed to understand nuclear decay processes. Special and general relativity time dilation corrections are necessary for the proper functioning of GPS, GLONASS and other positioning systems.

@@andys.9300 I agree Volta's work is world changing. That's why he's on the the list. If you think he should be higher up, fair enough. No argument from me. Crude lenses did exist before ibn Sahl, and there's even an account of Nero viewing gladiator games through a clear stone (no idea if credible), but glasses did not come about until the 13th century (well after ibn Sahl and al Haytham) and they were designed (and still are) using the "Lens maker's equation" which is based on Snell's Law (ibn Sahl's law). Prior to this if you had poor eyesight you were essentially partially blind for the rest of your life. Even ignoring everything involving photography, this alone is a major change on people's lives. Looking back, I probably should have put him higher up... like 3 or 4. I'm not saying Einstein's work didn't have an effect on our lives. And yes special relativity and general relativity are important in beta decay (and physics in general), and GPS respectively. But did those things change our lives more than the works of those on the list? Even outside of the top 10 there are a number of people whose work I would put ahead of this when it comes to changing our daily lives.

@@physicsalmanac I did a little bit of research. The first nuclear reaction observed was this one: He-4 + N-14 → O-17 + p It was done by Ernest Rutherford in 1919. Experiments by Hahn and Strassmann were done in 1938. Meitner’s explanation came around 1938 as well. A school-level extracurricular book which I checked calls this Rutherford’s reaction “splitting the nucleus with a fast alpha-particle”. It is interesting that you credit some people (Meitner, Maxwell) for a theoretical discovery and others (Transoxianians) for preserving and promoting discoveries of others. You credit Tesla for the electric motor, but you give credit to Maxwell (not Hertz/Marconi) for radio. These are almost opposites and it is very striking. There is a sort of historic revisionism going on. As an example, you mention “Rutherford, Gamow, Fermi, Currie”. I assume, under “Curie” you mean Marie Skłodowska-Curie. Not “the Curies”, i.e. you leave out her husband Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel. Those three jointly received the Nobel prize in physics in 1903. You can have a look the Awards sections in Wikipedia article summary cards of Marie Curie, Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel. Pierre’s article summary card lists “Nobel Prize in Physics (jointly with his wife Marie Skłodowska-Curie) (1903)”. Marie’s and Becquerel’s article summary cards do not have any extra remarks on their 1903 Nobel prize. It feels like there is a desire to wipe out Pierre Curie and especially Becquerel from history. Wikipedia list of Nobel prizes on Physics lists all three 1903 recipients correctly (for now). I’ve seen an advertisement for a documentary titled “Lise Meitner: The Mother of the Atom Bomb”. Guess who is called “the mother of modern medicine” nowadays! Nikola Tesla is a hero of many tall tales. Some say he did bizarre things, “Philadelphia Experiment” style. I once watched a (thankfully fictional) TV series where Tesla was an immortal vampire. I guess, that work of Edison or Westinghouse probably had a greater I impact than Tesla’s. I have not researched it deeply though.

@@andys.9300 well this certainly took a strange turn... it seems your are hunting for controversy in my claims. The only historical revisionism taking place here is your revisionism, misrepresentations, and invented extrapolations of my words. On which your accusations of revisionism entirely depend. You also seem to be forgetting the goal of the list. It's not about who was the greatest physicist, but which physicist's work had the greatest impact on our everyday lives. And it only the top 10. Just because someone is no on there, does not imply I don't think their work was influential. They just aren't in my top 10. So you don't think Meitner should be there, that's fine. The list is just an opinion. Everyone can make there own. I would not call guys like Edison an influential physicist for the reason that he mainly hired people to invent things for him. He's definitely influential, but not so much as a physicist, more as an entrepreneur. Regarding splitting the atom. I suspect for starters there is a misunderstanding of the terminology here. Splitting the atom, while not a technical term, refers to nuclear fission specifically. Not any old nuclear reaction. That is, the breaking up of a very large nucleus (generally much larger than iron) into smaller nuclei, thereby releasing energy. Which then can be used to power a bomb or power plant. He-4 + N-14 → O-17 + p is a nuclear reaction but not nuclear fission. In fact this process takes energy instead of releasing it. This is not an example of splitting the atom (despite your textbook loose (mis)use of the term). And by the way I listed Rutherford in a previous comment as being a key player in the discovery of nuclear fission. Then there is this strange claim that I am attempting to wipe out the importance of Pierre Curie based on 1) Assuming I meant Marie, and then somehow jumping to a wild imaginative conclusion that this somehow implies Pierre had no important role in my view. And 2) omitting the end of my sentence when you quoted my list. I ended the sentence with "... or many others." So my list was clearly not exhaustive. I have no problem adding both Pierre and Marie to it. Same for Becquerel. I'd also like to point out they all got the prize for radioactivity, not splitting the atom. And Marie got 2. But this was certainly an important step in understanding how nuclei work. And I stated in the video (and in this thread) that none of theses 10 people's accomplishments were done on their own. Next claim... I most certainly never said Maxwell invented the radio. You should go back and re-watch the video. I said his equations lead him to realize light is a propagating electromagnetic wave. This was done by solving his equations in a vacuum, popping out a solution of an EM wave travelling at the speed of light. These waves have a spectrum of wavelengths and on the very long end we call them radio waves. The device we call a radio, emits radio waves. And was invented based on the knowledge of Maxwell's discovery that light is just an EM wave. Maxwell gave us a complete theory of electricity and magnetism and light. All electrical devices and radio/EM emitters are based on solving his equations. Regarding the influence of Transoxiana (I'm guessing you watched my video), I gave my source, which is a historian/archeologist specialized in the region. I'm sure there are historians that don't agree with everything he says, but I'm definitely not qualified to question him. You should read the book. It's really good. And even outside of that, Al-Khwarizmi's accomplishments and influence are hardly fringe. They are widely documented and attested to, and have been for over 1000's years.