> The best scientists probably won't be recognized during their lifetimes. The scientists you do recognize while they're alive, are probably not the best at "sc

> The best scientists probably won't be recognized during their lifetimes. The scientists you do recognize while they're alive, are probably not the best at "science". Hard disagree, unless what you mean by recognition is popular fame of the sort Stephen Hawking enjoys. Within their fields, scientists are typically recognized well before they die. Feynman was extremely well known to physicists, but he’s still basically unknown compared to Neil Degrasse Tyson. Alan Turing and Claude Shannon were renowned. Terence Tao, Ed Witten and Andrew Wiles are probably in the top percentile of mathematicians in the world, and they’re heaped with awards despite still being alive. But ask random passerby on the street about any of these people and you’ll get a vague guess at best. Frankly, if anything I feel Einstein’s legacy has enjoyed outsized fame compared to his actual contributions. I think his work was the best of the field in the 20th century, but I’m not sure it’s realistically possible to become as recognized in modern science.