But Norbert Wiener, who spent his career at M.I.T., became one of the most significant scientists of his era, the founder of cybernetics and a pioneer in information theory.
Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell, president and vice-chancellor of the university, said: "His legacy will live on as one of the most significant scientists of his or any other generation".
Most significant for scientists and non-scientists alike is the paper's prediction that current carbon emissions targets will prove too high to prevent long-lasting, irreversible damage to the planet.
The pictures of birds in the air, showing their formations and mode of flying are the most significant for scientists, who can see flight mechanisms at work, and for their beauty.
In genetics, the results of a £180m decade-long study to create an encyclopedia of DNA elements, known as Encode, were published to wild acclaim in parts of the science media with this newspaper describing it as "the most significant shift in scientists' understanding of the way our DNA operates since the sequencing of the human genome".
Pedro Joseph-Nathan is one of the most important scientists in Mexico.
Sue Rosser, dean of Ivan Allen College at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta and former chief of women's programs at NSF, conducted a survey of 598 POWRE recipients to learn about "the most significant issues/challenges/opportunities facing women scientists today as they plan their careers" (2).
According to sports scientists, the most significant predictor of an athlete's skill is the time spent in practice.
The discovery, published in Nature ((Long, J.A. et al. (2008), "Live Birth in the Devonian" Nature, vol. 453, pp. 650 652)), is one of the most significant ever made by Australian scientists, making the fossil the world's oldest known vertebrate mother.
The original source code was altered in various ways to allow easier use of BioTorrents by scientists; the most significant being, that anyone can download torrents without signing up for an account.
While the authors present a painstakingly detailed account of interactions among the top leaders and their proxies in Beijing, and touch on some of the major events in the provinces, they leave many of the most significant questions for the sociologists, political scientists and the Chinese people themselves.
