Re: Islamic science and the long siesta

In article <fnm8gq$opn$17@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Paul J Gans <gans@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Robert Grumbine <bobg@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In article <fngt5s$m5m$20@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Paul J Gans <gans@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[trim]

But even today nations refuse to recognize their scientists.
Before Einstein, the most famous scientist in the world was
an American. And almost nobody in the US knows his name.

And even if you did, you'd have a very hard time looking him
up, either on the web on in books. There are no monuments
to him, no constant quoting, nothing.

Who is it? The name that comes to my mind is one whose
name is well-known, there is constant quoting, but almost
nobody knows he was a scientist.

Gibbs. Good old J. Willard Gibbs.

Thought of him, but I hadn't realized he had a great audience
elsewhere. My understanding of the history was that he was
essentially entirely ignored in the US, and his mathematics
daunted most Europeans as well.

Fellow I thought of was Ben Franklin. Almost nobody here
realizes he was a scientist and well-respected elsewhere in
the world for it. His work on electricity gets turned in
to a just so story about flying a kite and perhaps electrocuting
a turkey, rather than being quite significant. He also
(my field) was the first to draw up a map of the Gulf Stream,
recognizing it as a persistent, coherent structure.
I wouldn't have thought he'd retained that fame to the late
1800s, but otherwise his science qualified.

--
Robert Grumbine http://www.radix.net/~bobg/ Science faqs and amateur activities notes and links.
Sagredo (Galileo Galilei) "You present these recondite matters with too much
evidence and ease; this great facility makes them less appreciated than they
would be had they been presented in a more abstruse manner." Two New Sciences
.

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