People who should be more famous than they are

[gumpzilla]

John Bardeen. Physicists (and probably a lot of EEs) would know him, but he's the only guy to have won two Nobel prizes in physics, and one of those was for the transistor, which seems like an easy winner for "most practical thing to come from quantum mechanics so far," and yet is quite unknown as far as really awesome scientists go. There's a biography of him out there, which I should read sometime soon. (EDIT: The other Nobel was for his work on the BCS theory of superconductivity.)

[solids]

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Keith Haring, probably one of my favorite artists and no one I talk to know who he is...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Haring

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Uhh, Keith Haring is one of the most famous artists of the last half century.

[smartalecc5]

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Hopefully this will go better than "what celebrity do you hate"

I'm sure there are a ton of people out there who have done awesome things, invented cool stuff, said stuff that stuck with you, etc etc. Please don't just name your favorite obscure musicians. Interesting stories!

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How about Joseph Rochefort? He cracked the Japanese naval encryption prior to the Battle of Midway which enabled the US to win and destroy the Japanese carrier fleet. It was the turning event in the Pacific in WWII and likely saved the US an even longer war. If the Japanese capture Midway, they have access to Pearl and force the US back to San Fran, Oregon and San Diego as primary Naval bases. He was holed up in a bunker deep under Pearl and made him and his team churn through code until they found it. Once they did, they sent out dummy messages to confirm that they had figured it out and Nimitz planned a surprise counterattack on the Japanese.

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My teacher once told me a story about this... she said that Midway sent out a message saying that their "salt refining plants had broken down." Soon after, the Japanese sent a message to "Bring more fresh water."

[Jeff W]

Speaking of dead physicists... James Clerk Maxwell. Right up there with Newton, Einstein, etc in terms of importance, but your average person probably hasn't heard of him.

[dasein]

Leo Szilard
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le%C3%B3_Szil%C3%A1rd

[wet work]

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I think this probably fits into the OPs request


The Funk Brothers, not to many people have heard of them, but everyone has heard a song that they did the instrumentals in, they have played on more number one records than the beatles, elvis, rolling stones and teh beach boys combined.

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I saw those guys when they were touring after the movie Standing in the Shadows of Motown came out. It was in a little club in Annapolis. Great show.

[divides_by_zero]

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Leo Szilard
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le%C3%B3_Szil%C3%A1rd

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Totally. It always bugged me when kids would do projects on Einstein's involvement with the Manhattan project when all he did was write a letter. Szilard was the real man who got the ball rolling.

[MtDon]

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Leo Szilard
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le%C3%B3_Szil%C3%A1rd

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Totally. It always bugged me when kids would do projects on Einstein's involvement with the Manhattan project when all he did was write a letter. Szilard was the real man who got the ball rolling.

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Not 100% certain, but didn't Eisnstein just sign the letter, which Szilard wrote?

[CallMeIshmael]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Kennedy

given the nature of the court, his opinion on A LOT of things becomes law.

[meleader2]