Here's a question for all the ScienceBloggers in the house:
Which scientist (in your field or beyond) has been most seriously shafted? This could be taken two ways:
- Who deserves to be more recognized, revered and renowned today than he or she is?
- Who got passed over, ridiculed, etc. the most while he or she was alive?
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I'd love answers to either or both. I think in the long run (i.e., posthumously), mathematicians get the shortest end of the (multi-dimensional) stick. Gauss should probably be a household name, but who hears of the man before high school E&M? Lise Meitner might be my pick for "most shafted in her lifetime," for getting no Nobel love for her discovery of nuclear fission, while her collaborators basked in glory, but then again, there have been tons of should-be-Nobelists.
I'm sure there are plenty of others, but who are they? Who are these giants, shadowed by the men on their shoulders (oooh)? Does anyone think Hooke's name should be plastered on more than a spring law? Does anyone know of a research assistant who's adviser got all the credit? Who are the unsung heroes of science?
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