Oh, and as for Newton, he came up with the concept of universal gravitation, the idea that everything in the universe has a basic attractive force on everything else in the universe.

Also, he came up with the theory of relativity. A different theory than Einstein's, but prior to Newton, everybody assumed that if you were moving, the equations depended on where you were and how fast you were moving judged from some reference point.

Newton proved that that was irrelevant. He also disproved the Aristotelian concept that a body in motion will tend to come to rest. The body could be said to be at rest in its own frame of reference.

Einstein was really, really cool (I lurve the photoelectric effect), but the difference between special relativity and Newtonian gravitation is really, really small for most calculations. And the difference between special relativity and general relativity is really, really, really, really, really (it's `really's all the way down!) small.

Where have all the agnostics gone? Long time passing...

andrewagill: Einstein was really, really cool (I lurve the photoelectric effect), but the difference between special relativity and Newtonian gravitation is really, really small for most calculations.

True - but it also relies on a different underlying principle, and leads to radically different conclusions.

Tatsuma
If a Torah scroll has a letter different, even a coma, it's discarded and destroyed.

So we can guess where you stood on Terri Schiavo....

/rimshot

okay we don't have to believe everything we see on the internets...

(i like how the Moon counts as another planet nowadays, since we're evidently not making it to Mars...)

But Religion is Evil. Don't you all know how much suffering it has caused? And George Bush is religious so it must be evil.

John Muir should be included on the list. His philosophy, writings, and actions influenced US presidents, the world wide environmental movement, and philosophy.

Sloth_DC
True - but it also relies on a different underlying principle, and leads to radically different conclusions.

But we're talking about how influential they are. Newton's theory of universal gravitation is much more important. They still use it for just about any calculation of gravity that doesn't involve objects moving near the speed of light or a zillion decimal places. I wouldn't be surprised if NASA still uses it for most of their calculations.

Newton's law of universal gravitation radically changed things. Einstein's theory of relativity radically changed the explanation of things. But it wasn't as influential.

I think it's funny how Tatsuma has been playing Telephone for about 500+ posts long... =D

Notably missing are Superman, Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Frankenstein, the original founder of the glorious House of Sinanju, Godzilla (not a person, but pretty influential I'd say, especially on Tokyo architecture), and, of course, Santa Clause.

Fark.com

Where you hear 13 year old breaking news.....er....last?

/Owns the book at home
//I've had for several years
///It was outdated then

Sloth_DC--

Actually, let me give you a brief history of Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation.

It begins before Ptolemy. The ancients believed that the heavens were something like a giant colander--a big black spherical wall with holes poked in it to let light through. This was very soon shown to be false by everyone who watched the night sky.

The procession of the planets on a circular orbit around the Earth should be such that each day, each planet should traverse the same amount of sky. But this does not happen. The procession for most planets slows down, stops, even reverses itself.

So Ptolemy came up with the concept of epicycles (it should be stated that this concept was derived largely from the observations of Arabian astronomers). Each planet revolves around an imaginary point as this point revolves around the Earth.

The Ptolemaic system was so simple and so accurate that you can probably still find astronomical charts based on it; planetaria still use it. It's much simpler than the Kepler and Newton models, and there is very little difference between the two in regards to the procession of the planets.

But there were problems. Copernicus resolved to solve these problems by making a universe composed of concentric circles with the sun as the center. They had to be circles, because circles were perfect and the universe was perfect.

Unfortunately, the orbits of the planets are not circular, and this caused the Copernican system to be worse in some cases than the Ptolemaic system.

So along came Kepler. Kepler decided to figure out how the equations had to be, theory be damned. With the aid of his assistant, Tycho Brahe (who lost his nose in a duel and had to wear a prosthetic nose made out of silver and whose moose died after breaking its leg falling down a flight of stairs after getting drunk at a party), Kepler made precise measurements of the movement of the planets, reckoning that the required orbits would have to be elliptical, having one focus at the center of the sun, and the other focus probably somewhere inside the sun, as well.

Kepler had no idea how his equations accurately described the planetary motion. He just knew that they did.

BUT WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH NEWTON AND UNIVERSAL GRAVITATION?

Newton decided to take up the challenge of why this worked. He discovered that the equations for the planetary motion could be explained if the planet were attracting the sun as the sun attracted the planet. But how could that be?

Now we get to Newton's Apple. Newton was watching an apple tree, but he didn't see an apple fall and strike the ground.

He saw the Earth rise up and strike the apple. He had his idea! Universal gravitation! The Earth pulls on the Sun with exactly the same amount of force that the Sun pulls on the Earth. That explained it. F=Gm_1m_2/r**2

Einstein came along and said that the whole thing takes place in five dimensional space and that gravity is just a curve in spacetime.

Oh, and Santa Claus (St. Nicholas of Myra) was very real. He's remembered for giving gold to hookers. Seriously.

In his most famous exploit however, a poor man had three daughters but could not affort a proper dowry for them. This meant that they would remain unmarried and probably, in absence of any other possible employment would have to become prostitutes. Hearing of the poor man's plight, Nicholas decided to help him but being too modest (or too shy) to help the man in public, he went to his house under the cover of night and threw three purses filled with gold coins through the window opening onto the man's floor. One version has him throwing one purse for three consecutive nights. Another has him throw the purses over a period of three years, each time the night before one of the daughters comes "of age". Invariably the third time the father lies in waiting, trying to discover their benefactor. In one version the father confronts the saint, only to have Saint Nicholas say it is not him he should thank God alone. In another version, Nicholas learns of the poor man's plan and drops the third bag down the chimney instead. For his help to the poor, Nicholas is the patron saint of pawnbrokers; the three gold balls traditionally hung outside a pawnshop symbolize the three sacks of gold. People then began to suspect that he was behind a large number of other anonymous gifts to the poor, using the inheritance from his wealthy parents. After he died, people in the region continued to give to the poor anonymously, and such gifts were still often attributed to St. Nicholas.

Jesus should be number 1. Whether you beleive he is the son of God or not. Louis Pastuer (spelling) and Newton should probably be in the top 5. Mao and Stalin (who killed up to 1/2 billion people had some affect on our history, as did Ceasar, Charles Martel, Hitler, Thomas Payne, John Locke, Napolean, Ghengis Khan (who is rumored to be the predessor of 1% of 1% of the world's population), and of course John Calvin and Martin Luther. Don't know where they all fit though.

Gutenberg gets number 1. The ability for all people to read books changed everything. Also, he was a real live person.

Gutenberg is another good one. The fact that we all don't die from eating rotten food is a big one too that puts (in my uneducated opinion) Louis a little higher up though.

Wait, Vosh.

I thought you were talking about Steve Gutenberg. I mean, Steve belongs up there but that's about it.

Steve Gutenberg. And Wilford Brimley. Any list without Wilford Brimley on it isn't worth spit. It's the right thing to do.

I'LL influence YOUR history.

datafox:
These lists always suck a lot.

I personally would not have Ford, JFK, Voltaire, Michelangelo and Vasco da Gama on the list.

Vasco De Gama's first voyage is attributed as the catalyst that helped establish major sea power in Europe at the time, and lasted for a few hundred years; that voyage helped to set up the power struggle and major players in Europe for a long time. He definitely belongs on the list.

JFK. Modern American politics over the last 40 years were shaped by his election. It's not about the laundry list of accomplishments during his presidency, it's about the effect that his life had on modern America... which is huge.

As an aside, ask yourself what the world would be like had our current president been the one sitting in the White House during the Cuban Missile Crisis rather than JFK, and most people who were around at that time would have no difficulty adding JFK to this list. Overall, a lot of additions seem to be from an American point of view, so it's not surprising he'd be there.

Michelangelo is the most reknowned and influential artist in human history. Works of art he created help to define an entire time period of history; it doesn't get much more influential than that.

I'd move some around, like putting Adolf Hitler higher considering that his life has entirely shaped the world since the 1930's and putting Thomas Edison higher on the list. I'd add more but I don't have time...altogether, though, I don't think it's too bad a list at all.

C-Nut

I like the guy who's brave enough to write in that Moses probably never existed and as such, probably shouldn't even be on the list, much less #15 of 100. I agree since we all know no one can live for 900 freaking years! Especially in a got-damn desert. Hell, Moses could've just been a series of Jewish leaders from the time of the tablets being delivered through to the wandering in the desert for 40 years. An uninterrupted string of guys moving into a leadership role and changing their name to Moses whenever the old Moses kicked the bucket. The ancient jews liked a good story you know, (rich oral tradition and all that) so telling the other people you encountered that your leader was an 800+ year-old man had it's upside, in that they may be awed by this news.

I think Tatsuma is actually required by law to hunt you down and see that you are slapped.

//Kidding

2006-05-23 01:20:59 PM RocketRay
Well, about 250 years ago this farked things up pretty well.


Wahhaaaaaaaaaabi!

AtomicPenguin

I feel JFk was over inflated with respect to his presidency; he is credited with a lot more than I think should be added to him. While your idea that Bush could not have handled the crisis is true I do not think he was as great of a president as many think he is.

Vasco De Gama was important but only because he did it with notoriety first; I think others would have done it with out him. I personally favor the idea of someone doing a novel and unheard of being put on this list. His sailing would have been done by someone else.

I will be open and admit my knowledge of art is limited so my idea Michelangelo is not so important comes from my gross ignorance of the subject. I find the works of many scientists, rulers and philosophers to be of more significance to the works of many artists.

Now we get to Newton's Apple. Newton was watching an apple tree, but he didn't see an apple fall and strike the ground.

He saw the Earth rise up and strike the apple.

Hm. It appears that I was wrong. Newton saw that gravity was inversely related to the square of the distance. At any rate, Newton also saw the relativity principle in effect, even if it had nothing to do with the apple.

I would also have Cirus and Xerses on the list as easily two of the most influential people in history.

St. Paul should be #1. The Christianity we have today is far more influenced by Paul than by Jesus. It was Paul who spread the word all around the Roman Empire while the rest of disciples sat around in Judea doing nothing of note. The religion would have probably died out after the Jewish revolt had Paul not spread it. The oldest writings in the NT are Paul's epistles in Greek. In there you'll find the philosophical and theological basis for Christianity, i.e. the meaning of Jesus death and resurrection. Even the name "Jesus" comes from Paul's writings. It is the Greek form of the Jewish Yehusua. Most importantly, Paul never met Jesus so for all we know, he just made the whole thing up, or merged a bunch of tales from religious prophets of the time.