What Is A Scientist?
A scientist is a person who researches to advance knowledge in an area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engaged in the philosophical study of nature called natural philosophy, a precursor of natural science.
A scientist systematically gathers and uses research and evidence, to make hypotheses and test them, to gain and share understanding and knowledge. A scientist can be further defined by: how they go about this, for instance by use of statistics (statisticians) or data (data scientists).
What Are The Types Of Scientists?
Science is a broad career field with many specialties and areas of study. The three main branches of science are physical science, earth science, and life science, and they each have different career applications.
What Does Scientist Do?
The prominent role of a scientist is to explain the natural world using scientific methods. As a scientist, you make an observation and conduct a series of experiments to test the observations. If the results aren’t consistent with your hypothesis, you make the appropriate conclusion or present a new idea and test it.
Top Scientist In South Africa?
Mark Shuttleworth
Mark Shuttleworth is a South African-British entrepreneur. He is credited with founding Canonical, the company that developed the popular Linux-based Ubuntu operating system. Mark Shuttleworth became the first African from an independent country and the first South African to travel to space; he traveled as a space tourist in 2002.
Sydney Brenner
Sydney Brenner was a South African biologist who made important contributions to various areas of molecular biology, including the genetic code. Brenner shared the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Sir John E. Sulston and H. Robert Horvitz. Sydney Brenner is credited with founding the Molecular Sciences Institute, which is situated in the United States of America.
Seymour Papert
South African-born American mathematician and computer scientist Seymour Papert is best remembered for co-inventing the computer programming language Logo, which is also an educational tool. He was part of the faculty at MIT and was known for his pioneering research on children’s learning processes, the constructionist movement, and AI.
Michael Levitt
Michael Levitt is a biophysicist who has been serving as a Stanford University professor of structural biology since 1987. Along with Arieh Warshel and Martin Karplus, Levitt received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2013. He has also received several other awards, including the DeLano Award for Computational Biosciences, and was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences in 2002.
Theo de Raadt
Born to a South African mother and a Dutch father in Pretoria, Theo de Raadt later moved to Canada with his family. The software engineer founded the OpenBSD and OpenSSH operating system networks and also contributed to NetBSD. He has also formed the Internet Exchange YYCIX in Calgary.
Lewis Wolpert
Pioneering South African-born British developmental biologist Lewis Wolpert is known for introducing the French flag model of embryonic development. He was associated with King’s College London and University College London. A victim of depression and suicidal thoughts in his later years, he wrote about his condition in the book Malignant Sadness.
Allan McLeod Cormack
Nobel Prize-winning South African-born American physicist Allan McLeod Cormack is remembered for his research on X-ray computed tomography. He was associated with both Harvard and Tufts University. He later became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was also bestowed with the National Medal of Science.
Alexander du Toit
South African geologist Alexander du Toit was one of the most prominent supporters of Alfred Wegener’s continental drift theory. Moreover, he added on to Wegener’s hypothesis by suggesting two primordial continents: Laurasia and Gondwana, the former in the north and the latter in the south.
Athelstan Spilhaus
South African-American geophysicist, oceanographer, and meteorologist invented the bathythermograph to measure temperatures and depths of the sea. He also proposed the founding of the Sea Grant Colleges. Associated with the University of Minnesota, he planned the futuristic Minnesota Experimental City, though it never materialized.