The list below comes to mind as the most influential, and most far-thinking of the great minds who have lived.<br /><br />Each of these men has made great discoveries out of thin air. By this I mean that their discoveries were to a large extent, original creative thoughts which involved a huge leap of imagination and comprehension, as opposed to being more of a "derivative" type discovery.<br /><br />And every one of these men has had an immense influence on the development of science to the point of altering history.<br /><br />Albert Einstein<br />Linus Pauling<br />Josiah Willard Gibbs<br />Charles Darwin<br />James Clerk Maxwell<br />Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss<br />Isaac Newton<br />Abu Kamil Shuja <br />Archimedes<br /><br />+++++++++++++++<br />to answer your question,<br /><br />Einstein made the following groundbreaking discoveries, any of which individually should have merited him a Nobel prize:<br />explanation of Brownian motion<br />explanation of the photoelectric effect (Nobel for this)<br />explanation of viscosity (Stokes-Einstein equation)<br />special theory of relativity<br />general theory of relativity<br />the bending of light test for the GTR<br /><br />Hawkings list of discoveries, while very impressive, falls short of Einstein:<br />Hawking radiation<br />further development of understanding of large scale structures in space-time <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature" align="center"><em><font color="#0000ff">- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -</font></em> </div><div class="Discussion_UserSignature" align="center"><font color="#0000ff"><em>I really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function.</em></font> </div> </div>