• Question: who is better? einstein or hawken

    Asked by anon-380723 on 19 Jan 2024.
    • Photo: Fraser Smith

      Fraser Smith answered on 19 Jan 2024:


      That’s a hard question to answer. They both made fundamental contributions to how we understand the universe. If pushed to choose I would say Einstein for his ideas about relativity (e.g. the way time passes changes depending on how fast you travel, and the idea that gravity makes space curved).

    • Photo: Andrew Maynard

      Andrew Maynard answered on 19 Jan 2024:


      I’m not sure you can rank scientists — both made transformative contributions to science, but there are also many scientists that most people haven’t heard of who have done incredible things in their fields.

    • Photo: Sheridan Williams

      Sheridan Williams answered on 20 Jan 2024:


      Einstein or Hawking I believe you mean.
      You cannot say who is better, it’s like saying who is better Djokovic or Spassky (one plays tennis, the other is a grandmaster of chess).
      I know they are both scientists but they each came up with ideas based on research by previous scientists.
      Isaac Newton said “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”

    • Photo: Carl Peter Robinson

      Carl Peter Robinson answered on 21 Jan 2024:


      I don’t think you can directly compare Einstein and Hawking. They both had such an impact on scientific progress that the last thing we should do is play Top Trumps with their credentials.

      As a side note, I will say that one of my favourite quotes is from Einstein: “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you anywhere.” There is significance to this in that while it is important to have the knowledge and understanding of a topic, it’s just as important to have creativity and open-mindedness in your thinking. This will better enable you to spot that missing link or new approach when working on a problem, which perhaps no-one else has seen yet.

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