i'll be tabulating votes with a multidimensional database. if we decide to allow individuals to be voted into multiple categories, then we can handle that. we can sort stuff any whicha way. as soon as we come up with some more solid rules on the voting system (the floor is open) then we'll decide...

I was hoping for a round robin tournament.

George W. Kenan!

boohab... very cool. Let's get in touch via e-mail to discuss the logistics.

One voting system would be via e-mail from a link on the page. I'm sure others will have more advanced suggestions and I look forward to hearing them.

Hey, the list compiled by FTC is missing my literature category nominee of T.S. Eliot.

FTC

The smart way to do the vote would be by single-transferable vote (STV).

PE:

FTC's list is only through Post #165 or so. Don't worry... Eliot will be included.

STV? explain.

Yes, some consideration needs to be given to voting procedures. I'm not naming any names, but otherwise, the game theorists in the group might be inclined to manipulate the procedure so John von Neumann is more likely to win.

Under single transferrable vote, voters submit a ranking of as many of the alternatives in a given category as they wish. They can submit only their top choice, they can rank all choices as they see fit, or somewhere in between.

Then a quota is calculated, which in our case, as we are looking to select one alternative from each category, is q = ((V/2) + 1) where V is the number of peolpe who vote. If q is not an integer, round down. This needs to be done for every category separately, of course.

Then, if any candidate receives at least q first place votes, s/he wins on the first ballot. If no candidate has q first place votes, find the candidate with the fewest first place votes and eliminate him/her. All the ballots ranking that candidate first then have their first place votes transferred to their second (or next, if this goes on for a couple rounds) choice. Now count all first place votes, including those receiving a first place vote by transfer--if any is greater than q, it's the winner. If not, repeat the elimination and transfer, and count again. Continue until a winner is found.

STV is good because in most of these categories, there are too many choices to make it worthwhile to figure out how to manipulate the voting. Simpler voting schemes--like assigning (n) points to one's top choice, (n-1) to the second choice, (n-2) to the third, etc. down to 1 point for the last, and then tallying the points and awarding the title to the alternative with the most points (called Borda voting)--are also simpler to manipulate (e.g., in Borda voting, you give only 1 point to your favorite option's closest rival).

It appears that John von Neumann is a viable candidate in at least science and technology. He should definitely win at least one of these.

* The de novo creation of the implosion lens for the A-bomb, and the mathematical underpinnings of the "gadget" were clearly instrumental in the advent of atomic power, as well as (in light of recent postings in NOD) the defining politico-military event of the century (though granted someone else would have been able to do a competent job on the math).

* His work on ENIAC, the fundamental principles of software, the logical nature of computation, the basic structure of the computer, makes him unparalelled among those on the list for his contributions both to the conduct of science and to technology. von Neumann first explained the concept of a stored program, and showed how a stored program computer could process information. The computer architecture we all use still bears his name. This is not just a matter of beating a rival to the punch; before von Neumann, it simply wasn't clear how this stuff would happen.

* The creation of game theory is monumental not only in understanding human society, but in understanding the foundations of pure mathematics as well--namely set theory. In a similar vein, he was one of the principle creators of the field of operations research.

* He stood alone among scientists in his generation in his ability to deal with politicians politicians--obviously of critical in seeing these types of projects to fruition. (Relatedly, he also was one of the early directors of the Atomic Energy Commission.)

* He even made some important contributions to quantum mechanics in the late '20s and early '30s.

Watson and Crick, on the other hand, probably would have had their discovery made by someone else, and before too long at that.

Well, I'm opposed to doing this by STV. I think a Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system would be much fairer.

Please explain, Socko. Everyone has a chance to present their voting system.

And then we'll, um, vote on the best system.

Or, better yet, let's use colored beads!

I am a little confused by the arbitrary selection of categories in the Fray Person of the Century page. Why are literature, drama, and architecture, and other cultural elements represented? Surely the influence of these is insignificant. Why are politics divided between good and evil? It seems to me that "most important or influential" speaks for itself.

But if Fraygrants insist on categories, I think we must acknolwedge that a lot of people have been influenced by childhood heroes. Heroes like Charles Lindberg, Neil Armstrong, and Pele did not personally change the world enough to rate Person of the Century, but their positive influence on the lives of millions (or billions) of children continues to be tremendous.

I believe a "Heroes" category is appropriate, and provides everything we could want in a Person of the Century.

DocBrown,

Would the most heroic person of the century be someone who does something more heroic than anyone else or do you mean their example had the greatest impact on the world in this century?

I don't care about the impact of a hero's accomplishments. If we did that then once again the top candidates would be a bunch of politicians and a few scientists & inventors.

The purpose of the Hero category is to acknowledge the way some people have influenced millions or billions of others just by being heroic, without having a political agenda. For example, Ghandi was a hero who influenced millions, but he was heroic because he had conviction in his political agenda. Ghandi stood up to an aggressive human enemy during a difficult period and emerged a hero.

Charles Lindberg, Amelia Earhardt, and Neil Armstrong also influenced millions with their bravery, the difference is they were heroic just because heroism was in their nature. They didn't stand around waiting for a human enemy to attack or oppress them, these heroes went out and challenged nature itself. They became role models for generations of children. Like Columbus, their influence on hero-hungry children may continue for centuries.

DocBrown:

The categories on the PotC page merely represent those proposed by fraygrants. There's no reason we can't add a "heroes" category.

Btw, it's G*A*N*D*H*I. This is one of my pet peeves, as anyone who has actually read this thread, and not just glanced at the last few posts, would know. Six simple letters... why do so many people have trouble spelling it?

Pedant!

Its almost as much of a problem as Chekhov

(just thought I would add that for Socko's benefit)

is that 'socko' or 'sokho'?

Stan Gorsian says it's Gandy...no wait, wasn't he the love boat purser?

IrivingSnotass ,

THank you for teachhing me how to spel 'Ghandi",! I nevere knew that befour,!

ADraine ; can-t you even spel "ghandi', ?

*sigh*

How do we know Stan's name is Gorsian given how he spells? It could be Gorians, or Gairson or who knows?

Gandy was a cartoon character wasn't he?

Socko,

I finally get back, only to see Message #647. sigh. It's so discouraging.

As I remember it, Gandy is creek in West Virginia, near Spruce Knob. It flows through one of my favorite caves.

I generally relate to you, Irving, but not on this issue. Anyone whose pet peeve involves spelling with our crummy alphabet really needs to switch to decaf. Life is too short to worry about the stupid English language, especially spelling.

Apparently most Fraygrants figured out who I meant, even though I misspelled the first name left off the first name. Must be a thread of geniuses. :-)

Anyway, Irv, I didn't mean for you to take my suggestion for a new category as a complaint. I just wanted to put in my two cents and stir up some conversation. I love the page.

Freud

"Life is too short to worry about the stupid English language, especially spelling."

Blasphemer!

I nominate DocBrown for Linguist of the Century.

All those in favor, say "apostate".

Has anyone named Edison yet? He died in 1931 so does he count? None of your computers would work without him. He also brought us the electric chair!

Re. 732 -

I mentioned Edison a ways back, but a good deal of his best research actually occurred before 1900.

I am trying to compile the names in this thread. It is more work than I had guessed.

Irv has started to convert this info to a web page. I will let him post the link when he thinks it's ready for viewing. He has my summary through post 165, so far. I have now worked my way through post 400.

In many cases, I have made very subjective judgements about the names listed. For example:

• I have excluded some that appear to be jokes.

• Some women named were clearly nominated for the special category "Woman of the Century", others clearly nominated for "Person of the Century" and many nominations were not clear.

• Some names were associated with a specific category, such as science, others just listed a name.

I have taken editorial license and assigned names according to my best judgement (no cracks, please)

Here's the rules:

• If you nominated a person, and want that person in a different category, or off the list, I will make the change.

• If you want the name off the list, but someone else wants it, it stays.

• If you nominated a person, and I missed it, or treated it as non-serious, let me know and I will add it.

I originally had a Politics(good) and a Politics(bad) category. There were only a few specific nominations for these categories, all of whom already make a different category, so I expunged those two categories.

I am combining Architecture, Dance, Theatre, Literature, Social Science and Visual Arts in with General Culture, renamed Culture and the Arts, but I kept Music as a separate category.

In particular:

Resonance Message #21

Did you want Planck, Watson, Crick, Fermi on the list?

How about the names in Message #104?

Joe Zan Message #64

Did you want Castro or Saddam on the list? Carter or Graham?

Philistine Message #79

Did you want Pritikin or Spock

(Salk was mentioned by someone else)

RobertDente Message #89

I can find lot's of references to Julia sets, but no mention of the first name. Can you tell me?

CoralReef Message #96

That didn't look like a serious nomination, but I'm not sure.

From Message #118 I added Capra and Eisenstein, but Rubble?

Wonkers Message #123 Is Blessing a serious nomination? I trust Madonna,Paula and Monica Message #129 were not.

coralreef

Good point re Gorsian spelling.

Forgive me if these are now duplicates, but:

Visual Arts - Henri Matisse

Architecture - Frank Gehry

Technology - George(?) Carrier, or whomever it was who made air conditioning a commercial reality

Marketing - Ray Kroc

Repeats of some of my earlier suggestions:

political figure (good) FDR

political figure (not good) Josef Stalin

entrepreneur: Ray Kroc

Rodent: Mickey Mouse

to which I'd like to add:

Feline: Felix the Cat

BTW-again on the theory but better late than never, it seems to me the most influential in terms of impact on world politics, good or bad, has to be Hitler (or a close toss-up with Stalin.) He acted, and with dramatic as well as dire effect, and the world reacted. Although I don't see Stalin as "innovative" as Hitler, certainly his impact in terms of the length of time the rest of the world had to react to him was much longer than Hitler's and with many of the same costs. As for good - seems to me it is FDR is a walkaway. Two major events under his belt - coping innovatively with the depression and leading the Allies in W.W. II. Churchill certainly had his moments and his wiles, but without FDR he would have ended up hanged by Hitler as a war criminal. All of this is imo, of course (!!!)

Feline: Toonces, the cat who can drive a car

Visual Arts: Henri Matisse

(hey! I agree with an NYC person about an artist! I must have *some* taste after all.)

DocBrown:

I wasn't complaining about your new category... I was supporting it. FTC will probably add it to his list.

FTC Message #724:

"Irv has started to convert this info to a web page. I will let him post the link when he thinks it's ready for viewing."

Have a look at Message #697.

Message #735 Rubble and Jelly Roll are not serious.

labarjare

Excellent call with Willis Haviland Carrier. See Message #131

"698. Stumbo - April 7, 1998 - 10:56 PM PST

My first suggestion is to alphabetize by *last* name.

699. IrvingSnodgrass - April 7, 1998 - 11:05 PM

PST

Good point, Stumbo. FTC - what were you thinking?"

I was thinking that when names are entered in the normal way, first name, then last name, I can click on the icon to sort them (which of course is first by first name). To sort them by last name, I either need to create separate columns for the first and last names, then reconstruct the names after sorting, or enter them as "Snodgrass, Irving" ( a bit stilted) or write a macro, or have some Fraygrant tell me an easier and clever way to sort by last name without creating too much work. (of course, perhaps if I didn't waste time counting PE and Elliot words, i'd have time enough to sort intelligently)

Doc , I thought I read all the posts before adding my post # 734, but I clearly did not (also explaining why I missed the link to the page)

I will add a heroes category.

FTC Message #735

Most interesting: Fidel Castro

Nicest: Jimmy Carter (whom I also nominate for "Best ex-prez")

How in the world, Doc Brown (Message #715), did you think up Lindberg, Armstrong and Pele? What real impact on the world was made by any of them? Let's, then, add all other single event glory seekers (nice guys, though they may be), pro athletes and other entertainers to the list. It will be a long list. Try to pick one person. You must admit that Josef Stalin gets the vote.Wasn't Pele a soccer player?

FTC:

Not sure which category he'd fit, and you don't hear much anymore regarding the impact he had on this country, but how about Will Rogers?

Watson, Crick, Planck, and Fermi are a go.

Margaret Mead should be on the list.

Vasily Leontieff,who brought us to the input-output systems society. Without Vasily,Intel & Microsoft would not exist, Fraygrants would be talking to the wall and the global economy would be only a dream.

OK, as long as Edison can be considered, I say he is *it*. The human lives on this earth that have not been impacted by his inventions or derivatives thereof are few and far between. If you don't believe me, if all electricity were turned off today forever, how many of us would still be alive in 3 months? Think about it. Think about how you get your food, your water, your heat and other necessities of life. Think back to the last time a storm knocked your power out and how dependent you were on those who still had power. For those of you old enough, think back to how paralyzed the NE was during the big blackout of the 60s.

Not only did he hold over 1,000 patents, but he created the only company that remains of the original Dow Jones. He also paved the way for combining basic R&D with applied R&D to focus technology on successful commercial innovation. He willingly put his own personal assets at risk to prove the value of his inventions, yet lived modestly despite his wealth. I'd say he had more impact on how people around the world live their day-to-day lives than any other person by far.

Quigby said in Message #747: "How in the world, Doc Brown (Message #715), did you think up Lindberg, Armstrong and Pele?"

I just didn't want a certain category of 20th century personalities to go unmentioned. These people change the world, not by their accomplishments, but by becoming inspirational role models to millions of children.

For example, I was born in the early 60s, and I know that a lot of my friends and I were inspired by Neil Armstrong. Obviously another astronaut could have done his job, but the guy who ended up with the admiration of millions of little kids around the world was Armstrong. That period of world history had a LOT of negative events. Armstrong gave us a real, honorable, universally loved hero who did nothing but good.

Besides, if I were going to pick one person it would be Hitler, not Stalin.

pMessage #752. thoughtful

>>OK, as long as Edison can be considered, I say he is *it*.

He may be in the top ten because he commercialized the inventing industry. But most of his patents were developed by underlings and not much of them involved true genius.

Along those lines other industrialists deserve consideration, I suppose, including Ford and those who politically made this a nation of automobile-dependent nomads.

Message #746 JoeZan -

>>Nicest: Jimmy Carter (whom I also nominate for "Best ex-prez")

Meaning best person to have around among ex's, not best president who got out of office alive?

Actually, seepydarn, Edison did do a lot of inventing himself, needing only catnaps, he frequently spent days on end in his lab working on his inventions. Yes, as he got richer and became more successful he did have genius-level inventors working for him, but he continued to show leadership in both the research and commercialization areas as well as putting his own personal funds at risk to achieve these ends. BTW, he was best buddies with both Ford and Firestone. The *only* reason why he wouldn't rank as person of the century would be because so much of his work was done in the 1800s. Besides, today, cars can't be manufactured, run or fueled without electricity, and many, many more people around the world have electricity than have cars.

Wexxford:

It's Wassily Leontief. While he was a Nobel Prize winning economist, it's bit much to say that Microsoft and Intel wouldn't exist without him. Input-output tables are a very clever way of keeping track of things and may very well reduce operation and decision making costs, but they're not integral in the world as we know it as, say, the computer or telephone are. And, as they are essentially Markov chains, it's very likely that somebody else would have come up with it before long. Obviously he was a great economist, but it's doubtful that anybody's life would be susbtantially different if he in particular had gone into some other line of work.

Message #756 thoughtful

>>Actually, seepydarn, Edison did do a lot of inventing himself, needing only catnaps,

I thought I said I'd put him the top ten. But, as for scientific breakthrough "inventions," what'd he do that somebody else wouldn't have done in another 10 years anyway?

Same can be said of Einstein, maybe. But it's on a higher level, I guess.

Someone a while ago mentioned the guy who assassinated Archduke Ferdinand, and Richard Cohen had the same idea. From his column in the Post:

" I suggest one name I did not see: Gavrilo Princip. He and his like have repeatedly changed the world.

Like Lindbergh, Princip did one thing once, only in his case he did not fly solo across the Atlantic, but pulled a trigger. On June 28, 1914, he assassinated the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and his consort, Sophie, Duchess von Hohenberg. Just those titles -- archduke, duchess -- suggest how utterly Princip changed the world. He triggered World War I, and when it was over the Austro-Hungarian empire was no more.

Neither was the Russian empire nor the German one. The Ottoman Empire was gone, too, and into these political vacuums streamed European colonial powers and, of course, all sorts of nationalists. Nations were created -- Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union -- Jews were promised Palestine and, in beer halls and shabby offices, the vanquished nursed their grievances and vowed revenge. World War II picked up where World War I left off.

Princip was a nobody, a Bosnian Serb and a member of the Serbian secret society known as the Black Hand. But for all his apparent insignificance, he represented the passionate marriage of technology with fanaticism -- the firearm with Serb nationalism, in his case -- and as such he is both a lesson and a warning."

Goes on to talk about assassins in general. But I thought getting the name was fun. Apologies if someone already posted it and I missed it.

Hmm...well, I didn't finish the article before I posted and it took a different turn. But it's still interesting. How Gavrilo Princip ended up:

"That is why Gavrilo Princip has always loomed large for me. He was a mere nobody, but he precipitated World War I and died of tuberculosis just four years later in a hospital near his prison at Theresienstadt. He changed everything -- even his prison.

Within two decades, Theresienstadt would become a Nazi concentration camp, a way station to Auschwitz."

Calgal, Princip does make an interesting choice.

I think Edison gets credit also for the breadth and depth of his inventions. But if the measure is changing peoples' lives, surely the commercialization of his inventions, including his setting up and wiring a whole town at his own personal expense to prove the usefulness of lighting to the general populace is a stand-out event. And like Princip, his actions led to a whole chain of subsequent events.

While concepts of the theory of relativity and physical phenomena like black holes are certainly fascinating and require an extraordinary amount of brain power, they tend not to be relevant to most people around the world as they pursue their daily activities.

You could make a good case for Kaiser Wilhelm. He more than any other head of state caused world war one, which led to collapsing empires and world war 2. [I now await being picked apart by a fray expert in history]

CalGal -

See Message #589

and apology accepted.

meta.

STV turns out to be a non-trivial method for my software, and in the sample cases i've created, all required a couple passes. my q was too high. STV seems good for winnowing down many candidates to a precious few, but i believe people will be more interested in seeing borda tallies.

at any rate there's no reason we can't do both, and the other method too. it's just that i know i can do borda real quick and dirty, and that seems to be the method used by imdb.com for their movie surveys.

HCaulfield Message #471

I'm going to ask you if you will reconsider Alfred Thayer Mahan.

To be sure, his influence extended into this century, but then, so did the influence of Thomas Jefferson.

His most important books, The

Influence of Sea Power upon History: 1660-1783 and The Influence of Sea Power upon the

French Revolution and Empire, 1793--1812 were both published in the early 1890's. I think he is clearly a man of the 19th century, but if you still want him, just say so.

coralreef,

Kaiser Wilhelm is all but forgotten today, but I agree with you in saying he started it all. Still, while I hate voting for Hitler, he and his legacy have so thoroughly penetrated our daily lives and consciousness that I think he might be person of the century. As an individual, it's Hitler, whether he deserve to or not, who has the name with the impact. However, perhaps I am confusing fame with importance. I'll give this more thought before casting my final vote. In light of CalGal's Message #759, I may lean away from Hitler. In fact, if I have another beer, I may vote for thomasd.

Meanwhile, looking at the list of nominees in the main category, I'd be inclined to start the elimination process before voting, beginning with Ayn Rand. How in the name of (anyone's) god did she get there? Andy Grove, Mussolini, Idi Amin, Louis Armstrong, Gorbachev, Pol Pot, REAGAN?

Boohab:

if STV is too big a pain, I agree it would be good to see the results of a couple different procedures (Borda, simple plurality, etc.). That would be a good way to see exactly how valid our collective choices really are, or whether they are sensitive to the procedure used.

i'm about ready to call the question and begin a vote. we could consider it a test run, a primary or just a poll to see how many folks are interested.

i need to test out my system for collecting votes by email and parsing them into my magnificent election machine. i also want to see if it is worthwhile to track voters in election results, or if i don't whether i am likely to make mistakes.

in the vote collection process, it probably makes sense to send the ballots to two parties for independent collection. that way we can insure the integrity of the email process. in the long run, an html form to cgi is a better idea...

FTC - I didn't intend to nominate anyone from the medical field, I merely wanted to encourage PsychProf to do so. That said, I think somebody else has nominated Spock more recently, and I agree that he should be under consideration (as an athelete! He did win a Gold Medal in the 1920 Olympics after all.) If Pritikin did anything besides proscribe a lowfat, marcobiotic, vegetarian diet I don't know what it is, so leave him off, unless someone else wants him on.

Re. 769 -

In the medical field, I think Jonas Salk, for his polio vaccine, would be a strong candidate.

Just saw the list and would like to nominate Isadora Duncan under Dancers and Thomas Dolby under I don't know what for giving us Surround Sound.

Two cents duly delivered, now I'm heading home.

Do you Edison groupies really think that had Thomas Edison never lived that we would still be reading by kerosene lamps. Hardly. If not Edison, someone else would have found a light bulb, or maybe something superior to it that would have resulted in the world progressing at a faster rate in science and comforts than it actually did. Once the light bulb was here further scientific efforts to improve illumination and transmission of energy stopped. All inventive ideas and efforts were channelled toward improving and expanding Tom's invention.Fresh thought was stymied. Edison was, you might say, a product of his times. Someone else would have done the same, or better. The times were not a product of Edison.

While I believe that Edison has the stature to be nominated 'man of the century' as an inventor, at least, much of his pioneering work, including the invention of the incandescent bulb, phonograph, the discovery of the 'Edison Effect' and early experiments in power grid distribution, actually occurred in the nineteenth century.

Edwin Armstrong is one of the last great pioneers in electronics, having developed the regeneration and superheterodyne principles used in radio transmission, as well as originating and developing the idea of frequency modulation of the signal for radio transmissions.

Perhaps John Von Neumann is even a stronger candidate, having built a solid framework for quantum mechanics, worked in game theory, was able to investigate spaces with continuously varying dimensions, and was one of the pioneers of computer science.

Claude Shannon, mathematician and developer of computer theory, was perhaps the foremost originator of communication theory.

That settles it. I hereby nominate thomasd.

BTW

If anyone is interested in more information about one of the nominees, check here: Biographies

For example:

Victoria Woodhull

POC trivia test. I have only found one person on our list not in the biography data base. Who is it?

(There may be more than one, but of the 20 or so I checked, only one failed to have an entry.)

FTC:

Thanx for the link - it's very helpful. However, when I clicked on "Jesus" to search what biographical books were available, it gave me a page which said "Your search turned up over 25 books on Marilyn Monroe"!

Well, I guess it could have been worse - it could have been Marilyn Manson...

boohab:

Let's wait until FTC completes his listing on nominations on my page. I will be adding the nominations up until post #600 shortly. Once nominations on the page are up to date, we can close the nominating period, or we can set a time... say the end of the day Friday.

If it hadn't been for Elvis we would all still be dancing to the big bands.Glenn Miller III would be President. Although we might not have drive-by shootings now, the King must be put on the list.

Greatest sports figure of all time : Mohammed Ali.He showed you can televise sports events even from the heart of darkest Africa ,still make truckloads of money for infotainment firms.Surely the view backward from the global market economy should list all the great wealth creators. I know everyone will nominate Citicorp Chairman Walter Wriston in banking-- and I agree with you all --he's an an absolute must in the pantheon of most influential folks .Had we followed Wally's 1980's advice,given early and often : " Go where the money is ." we'd have bought Citicorp stock and been at the yachtbuilder's yard right now.

i definitely second wriston. his early investment in computer technology basically paved the way and proved the case that 'back office' information technology could make business competitive and profitable. before wriston, relational database, unix and client/server technologies were largely ignored by the fortune 1000.

ironically, if it weren't for wriston, microsoft and apple might be even larger than they are today. innovation in larger scale computing would not have taken place, defaulted to ibm. companies like tandem, ncr, and sun microsystems wouldn't have had a headstart and business computing might have had to wait for the sophistication apple and microsoft are just now attaining.

Don't you love the irony? Mohammed Ali. He dodged the draft in the 60's as a conscientious objector. He didn't believe in killing, you know. But the boxing ring where boxers attempt to hit the opponent in the head hard enough to cripple them temporarily or permanently, however it turns out, is okay. And, of course, there is a slight chance that the punch could be fatal. How to explain? Private's pay vs. a champion's purse. Why not nominate Don King for the century's leader, too? He earned more.

Re. 781 -

Well, Ali was 'great', at least when considered in the context of his professional specialty, if you think about his relatively principled objection to the Vietnam War. (Perhaps he should have gone to England, and Clinton should have made little rocks out of big ones.) I can't think of any other boxers who really stood for much except for beating people up for money. Not that I'm against boxing, specifically. It's entertainment.

I have another nomination for woman of the century: Annie Besant. She may have been overlooked, since she ovelapped two centuries (she died in 1933), but in this century alone, she:

• helped found the institutions which became the Hindu University at Benares (India)

• became leader of the Theosophical Society

• was the leader of a ‘Home Rule for India League' in 1916

• became president of the Indian National Congress in 1918.

• was imprisoned in India for her views

• worked to identify the British Labour Party with Indian home rule

One source I've read lists her as "the last survivor of the small group of feminists who had wholesomely shocked the Victorian mind more than half a century before."

Another source says "George Bernard Shaw considered her Britain's and perhaps Europe's greatest orator."

A worthy nomination?

Message #781. quigbee -

If, as a boxer, Ali had a particular weakness, it was lack of the killer instinct. He could have had many more knockouts than he did.

Did anybody mention Thurgood Marshall? Not the greatest of legal minds, but the tenacity of his pursuit of integration through the courts has had huge historical impact. And of course, he established the black seat on the court that CT now demeans.

The Fray Person of the Century page has been updated, now through approximately post #600. We'll get there yet.

Feedback appreciated.

Why is jazz drummer Bob Moses listed under politics?

I didn't even think he was that influential in jazz, at least not yet.

Irv, Message #783:

I can't believe I forgot Annie Besant! (Creeping senility is my only explanation.)

In addition to the exploits you listed, she also:

Championed secularism and birth control (in 1874) and reprinted a banned pro-birth control pamphlet, "Fruits of Philosophy", for which she received a prison sentence which was later quashed.

Lectured for the Freethinkers, Theism and Fabian Socialism. George Bernard Shaw considered her Britain's and perhaps Europe's greatest orator.

Helped organize a strike for female match workers and exposed the cruelty of their working conditions to a Victorian society that preferred not to know. (in 1888)

Settled in India (in 1895) after abandoning her secularist beliefs due to the influence of Helena Blatavsky, founder of the Theosophical Institute.

She was a dynamo of a woman, and certainly deserves consideration.

Ariel:

That GBS quote must be a good one, since we both mentioned it. You must be visiting the same sites as me.

Torn between winston Churchill and Mahatma Ghandi. One would of hung the other, and he would have let him. What would have been the outcome of WWII without Churchill's leadership. Ghandi brought to the fore the non-violent approach to protest. (At least by one side.) I am sure every village, town, city, people, nation, philosophy can present a candidate.

Of course, to many who know me, I can muster an impressive bloc of votes in my area. No doubt many of you can do the same.

Perhaps the decision should be left to one who carries his donkey's dung home for fuel or fertilizer.

Gandhi is under frauds. Go figure.

How can "person of the Century" not include the name of Franklin D. Roosevelt? His leadership,

whether one approves or otherwise, dominated American politics in crucial times. His leadership led us kicking and screaming into WW2. He approved the development of a weapon of war that his successor. perforce, had to utilize. The New Deal and Social Security were his inventions. Medicare and the Great Society had roots in the 1930's.

Our current banking system grew its first roots in

the same period. Einstein may prove to be a man for the ages but Roosevelt was the PERSON of this

century.

Paul Robeson

Roosevelt is a good choice. However, it will be hard to get Repugs to vote for him.

For social science I would like to nominate John Nash, the Nobel Prize winning economist/mathematician.

Nash's fundamental insights in game theory have given social scientists a flexible, rigorous methodology for investigating strategic as well as cooperative interaction in very diverse situations, under widely varying institutional rules. Before Nash, it was not clear how to proceed in any but the simplest conceptual games (i.e., zero-sum, when players' interests are diametrically opposed). Of course most interesting social situations are not zero sum, and because of Nash the methodology exists to investigate them in a parsimonious, coherent fashion.

Keynes is a good choice whose ideas held sway for a very long time and still carry great weight, but it was really John Hicks' formalizations that made them amenable to analysis, and hence made it possible for economists to base so much policy advice on them.

Freud is overrated and Skinner's ideas have too narrow a range, IMO.

did nash come before or after von nuemann?

boohabian?

Nash was after von Neumann by a few years. von Neumann started the field and made some major theoretical advancements of course, including the "minimax theorem" and the equivalence of games and linear programming problems, and of course von Neumann-Morgenstern utility theory. But the question of non-zero sum games, most relevant from a social scientific standpoint, was unresolved until Nash.

The wide use of game theory in economics, for example, is primarily due to Nash's fundamental augmentation of von Neumann's vision.

Reefer Message #791:

Gandhi was nominated as a fraud by Socko. I nominate Socko as a fraud.

FTC:

You appear to have overlooked one of the most important nominations, in Message #371.

Irv, only six hours. You'll end up braindead like me. Nah.

Selamat Pagi.

back
next

home