Opinion Sir Winston Churchill And The Greatest Britons Of All-Time

[MVelsor]

TL;DR: Nordic-American Anglophile Nerding The Fuck Out

The world owes the Anglo.

So as I was seeing the news and reading articles earlier this week about one of old boy's monuments getting tagged up, pissed on and wrapped in some kind of diaper-thing (bit monkey-brained tbh, bar a couple of exceptions) during a #BlackLivesMatter protest, I couldn't help but recall one of the most absurd, disgraceful, laughable, shambolic "things" ever concocted. The 100 Greatest Britons television series that was broadcast by the BBC in 2002 to determine who the British people at the time considered the greatest Britons in history. You can have a laugh and see the full list for yourself here:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_Greatest_Britons

As said in various recent threads, I've always found it kind of bemusing to look at world history - at least in relation to the nation-state power structure and global economy - without a noted separation of pre/post scientific and industrial revolution. This is just based on the fact that prior to them, economic progress was linear and stagnant, proportional to population size and growth with human productivity and corresponding standards of living essentially unchanged, for thousands of years on end.

Three mass movements in physical science...

* Mechanics (forces, masses, and accelerations)
* Electromagnetism (fields, charges and potentials)
* Quantum Mechanics (propagating waves of probability)

...invariably followed by three industrial revolutions...

* Water & Steam Power
* Practical Electricity & Mass Production
* Semiconductors, Computers & Cyber-Phys Systems

...Produced This:

Thanks. Boiled Down: Great Britain = GOAT.

These are the actual top five... humans? IMO.

01. Isaac Newton (1642-1737) [BBC Ranking: 6th]

The greatest and most profound genius to ever walk the planet. He independently co-developed an indispensable branch of mathematics and established the scientific field of physics. It wouldn't be any kind of stretch to call him the father of modern science itself. That's not to say there weren't stray inroads and loose ends on which he built from, but more due to the fact that the Newtonian Synthesis carried humanity across the frontier and forever altered the trajectory of the species. His influence as a historical figure is larger than Prophet Muhammad and Jesus Christ. He's in your life and it's not optional.

 

[MVelsor]

Continued...

02. Charles Darwin (1809-1882) [BBC Ranking: 4th]

Evolution is the unifying theme for the whole of biology and Darwin's 19th century achievement there was two-fold: 1) establishing the fact of evolution with common descent as the pattern of change through various lines of observational evidence and 2) developing a scientific theory - natural selection - to explain the mechanism of adaptation and speciation. It's ubiquitous in life science and was reconciled with Gregor Mendel's work on heredity genetics with the Modern Synthesis of the 1940s.

From a sociocultural historical perspective, his work further opened the human mind to pursuing scientific inquiry unimpaired by any supernatural prejudices and all but sent the church into full-time retreat, wielding irrevocable impact on the outlook and progression of western civilization on the whole. He's viewed as an iconoclastic, paradigm-shifting figure of towering historical relevance and often mentioned in the same breath as Isaac Newton for good reason.

03. Michael Faraday (1791-1876) [BBC Ranking: 22nd]

Here's a bloke who grew up in poverty, received no formal education beyond the age of 13, was largely self-taught, knew no mathematics beyond basic algebra and was made to travel outside of the main coach and dine with servants once he finally got on as a Humphry Davy research assistant.

Well, guess what? He made the most important experimental physics discovery in the history of the world (electromagnetic induction). The principle that serves as the foundation for all practical use of electric power regardless of energy source being used. He also pretty much allowed for everything Nikola Tesla ever did.

He was responsible for inventing the first forms of the electric motor, generator and transformer, then turned down a knighthood over a century before it became popular to do so and - being a highly accomplished chemist as well - told the British government to go fuck themselves when they wanted assistance into chemical weapons research.

04. James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) [BBC Ranking: 91st]

Directly following on Faraday's experimental discoveries, his primary work on electromagnetism underpins virtually all electric, radio and optical technology in the world, he dropped arguably the greatest 'mission statement' in the history of science and ushered in modern theoretical physics.

He conducted the first effective scientific thought experiment (Maxwell's demon), took the world's first colour photograph, laid the foundations of control theory and cybernetics, introduced statistical methods into physics, showed how polarized light can be used to reveal strain patterns in a structure and was the first to suggest using a centrifuge to separate gases. He died at 48.

James Clerk Maxwell FRSE FRS (13 June 1831 – 5 November 1879) was a Scottish scientist in the field of mathematical physics. His most notable achievement was to formulate the theory of electromagnetic radiation, bringing together for the first time electricity, magnetism, and light as different manifestations of the same phenomenon. Maxwell's Equations for electromagnetism have been called the "second great unification in physics" after the first one realised by Isaac Newton.

His discoveries helped usher in the era of modern physics, laying the foundation for such fields as Special Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. His contributions to science are considered by many to be of the same magnitude as those of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein. In the millennium poll survey of the 100 most prominent physicists, he was voted the third greatest physicist of all time behind only Newton and Einstein. On the centenary of his birthday, Einstein described Maxwell's work as the "most profound and fruitful that physics has experienced since the time of Newton".

"The 91st Greatest Briton"



05. Alan Turing (1912-1954) (BBC Ranking: 21st)

An admittedly "biased" choice here, but definitely not without merit. If nothing else, it's difficult to fathom the UK government's mindset of taking out such an invaluable national asset at peak fluid intelligence. He was an elite mathematician, computer scientist, cryptanalyst and theoretical biologist; a pioneer in the study of artificial intelligence and World War II hero.

As the father of theoretical computer science, the Turing Machine provided a formalisation of the concepts of algorithm and computation, which serves as a model of a general-purpose computer. His work at the National Physics Laboratory after cracking Nazi codes in World War II produced the Automatic Computing Engine, one of the first detailed designs for a stored-program electronic computer.

If that isn't enough, this almost feels casual.

In October 1950, he presented the seminal work "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" on artificial intelligence. The paper, published in Mind, was the first to introduce the concept of what later became known as the Turing Test to the general public.

He then turned to theoretical biology, publishing "The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis" in 1952. He was interested in the development of patterns and shapes in biological organisms, theorising that a reaction-diffusion system could account for the main phenomena of morphogenesis.

Although published before the structure and role of DNA was even understood, Turing's research remains relevant today. An experiment published in 2012 found that in mice, removal of Hox genes causes an increase in the number of digits without an increase in the overall size of the limb, demonstrating that they control digit formation by tuning the wavelength of a Turing-type mechanism.

Who Deserves To Round Out The Top 10?

 

[Bald1]

John Locke.

If for no other reason than his ideas of consent of the governed and natural rights. Oh, and his not insignificant influence in the American revolutionaries. His ideas helped the founding fathers flesh out Declaration of Independence. As a staunch secularist I'm not a fan of his ideas on atheism though.

Oddly enough I mentioned this guy more in the last week than in my previous 15 years on Sherdog.

Edit: completely agree with that @The ScorpioN quote.

 

[OhBam]

I can't imagine Oliver Cromwell is in the mix.

 

[Fox by the Sea]

Edward I Longshanks
Isaac Newton
Joe Strummer

 

[The ScorpioN]

Charles Babbage
Lemmy Kilmister
Gypsy king Fury

 

[TheTimeIsNotNow]

Ed Sheeran

 

[calavera2]

Hard to argue many of these Brits are not P4P goats. But yhea having Princess Diana is pretty laughable compared to many of these geniuses

 

[MMABrooklyn]

So many of you people live in such a bubble. So much of the world talent been stifle:

 

[Goonerview]

Alexander Fleming

Although, I think his discovery of penicillin was actually an accident, lol.

 

[Goonerview]

Hard to argue many of these Brits are not P4P goats. But yhea having Princess Diana is pretty laughable compared to many of these geniuses

I agree.

I think this list was actually voted for by the public. Diana had died just a few years before and her death was still fresh in the collective memory.

Even with that said, I don’t think she did enough to warrant a top 10 ranking.

 

[ElKarlo]

For all of his faults, if it weren't for him Germany would have won. Same with Lincoln, any other president would have let the south walk away at some point in the war.
Churchill took the tough part and was able to get the UK and the US to follow it.

 

[Sketch]

That quote by 'The Scorpion' at the start of the OP is spot on.

 

[ElKarlo]

I can't imagine Oliver Cromwell is in the mix.

They executed his body. Dude was like Mussolini popular at first, and by the end no one liked him

 

[Milan]

Churchill was a passionate critic of Marxist ideology.
This is why he must be erased from history.
period.

 

[Headkicktoleg]

George Washington

 

[Deleted member 159002]

John Winston Lennon

 

[Long Dark Blues]

LOL @ "Boy George, androgynous pop singer" as well as him being ranked higher than both Freddie Mercury and George Harrison.

For me, Aldous Huxley has to be up there.

William Penn as well, who was one of the earliest proponents of the unification of the 13 colonies as well as his framing of the PA government serving as inspiration for the Constitution. He was born, lived most of his life, and died in England.

 

[tonni]

Charles Bronson

 

[Billy no mates]

I agree.

I think this list was actually voted for by the public. Diana had died just a few years before and her death was still fresh in the collective memory.

Even with that said, I don’t think she did enough to warrant a top 10 ranking.

If it was rerun today I think the Patron Saint of the emotionally incontinent would still be depressingly high .