What makes a scientist famous?

Question

Hawking, Einstein, Newton....why do most of us know these names? Is it discovery? The timing of the discovery? The scientist's personality? The intellect? Simple luck?

Answer 1

Because they looked at what everyone else had looked at, and saw what no-one else had seen.
Anyone can have a brainstorm, and decide that "what goes up, must come down", but to be able to explain it all is a cut above the rest. It should also be noted that Newton readily acknowledged in one famous quote that if he had seemed to have seen further than others, it was because he had stood upon the shoulders of giants. Those giants he spoke of were other well known scientists, like Galileo and Kepler. I'm sure Hawking and others have built their life's work on Einstein's shoulders.
So, it is apparent that, if you want to become famous, you need to study the work of a famous scientist and do work which complements it, in effect, stand on his/her shoulders. At the moment, Hawking is the most famous scientist, so, get to work trying to understand theoretical physics, it shouldn't take too long.

Answer 2

Proving something wrong earns you big reputation points in science. So does coming up with an idea that opens up new directions for other people to investigate. Proving something wrong that was really big and fundamental opens up huge new areas for other people; the scientists who do that are the ones who are most famous.

Sometimes there is an element of sheer luck. Alfred Russell Wallace was working on the same ideas that Darwin was, but Darwin made it into print first and is therefore the one remembered, while most people don't even recognize Wallace's name.

Answer 3

A scientist has to find new information. Like find a new cure for a disease or something like that. Do something that teaches people something new about something such as animals, how plants get there food, why birds fly, anything that is new information. That's how most scientist get famous. Like Charles Darwin's theory on evolution and such things like that.

Answer 4

i think its all of those. discovery-obviously cuz if they found out something it'll change the world and thats something to talk about. timing-if u dicover something and its so far fetched of wut the ppl in the period believe then they wont think at all for a sec that wut they say is true. personality-if u say u found something but kill the ppl who say ur wrong...makes a difference. if ur nice and explain ur reasoning they'll believe u more. intellect- if u have the brains to back it up, thats credibility and makes things more believable. luck-idk...congrats, u found something...

Answer 5

discovery, and usually intellect

and when it comes to personality they are usually excentric just look at einstein (i'm not kidding i read a biography on him and he had an excentric sence of humor)
http://webs.lanset.com/aeolusaero/images/einstein's%20tongue.jpg