A netizen asked: Why are physicists generally more famous than chemists and biologists?

This is indeed the case. Generally speaking, the popularity of physicists is significantly higher than that of biologists, chemists, etc. The reason has something to do with the special status of physics.

When we look at the history of science, we will find that physicists account for the vast majority of some familiar scientists, such as Galileo, Einstein, Newton, Maxwell, Faraday, Yang Zhenning, etc.

However, celebrities in other disciplines are not as influential as the above-mentioned ones, such as Mendeleev (inventor of the periodic table of elements), Lavoisier (the father of modern chemistry), biology, etc. Fleming (inventing penicillin), Watson and Crick (discovering the double helix structure of DNA). Of course, if you have a lot of contact with the fields of biology and chemistry, these people can be heard, but the general public may not necessarily Got it, but they must have heard of Einstein and Newton.

The reason is still related to the special status of physics. Among scientific disciplines, physics is in a basic position. Although mathematics is more basic than physics, mathematics is just a tool. Tools of science.

For example, there is a saying: Just saying that Newton was a mathematician would simply belittle Newton's status.

The calculus invented by Newton is certainly important, but Newton’s greatest contribution to mankind is mainly in physics. Newton established classical mechanics, and then established science and technology on top of classical mechanics to realize human civilization. From this perspective, breakthroughs in physics seem to be more important than other disciplines.

Another example is that Leibniz and Newton invented calculus at almost the same time, and Leibniz’s calculus was more advanced, but history evaluated Newton much more highly than Leib. Nitz, the main reason is that Newton's achievements in physics are unparalleled.

In addition, in terms of the popularity of subjects, mathematics, as the most basic subject, has a higher popularity rate than physics. After all, we start to come into contact with mathematics from the first grade of primary school or even earlier. Between mathematics and physics, In terms of learning, we will find that people who are good at mathematics may not necessarily be good at physics, but people who are good at physics are definitely very good at mathematics.

There is also a popular joke about physicists and mathematicians:

The engineer’s house caught fire, and he took out a fire extinguisher and finally put out the fire.

The physicist's house caught fire, and he spent half a day researching a new type of fire extinguisher to put out the fire.

The mathematician’s house caught fire, and the mathematician died unfortunately. The next day, people found the notebook he left behind, which said, I found a wonderful way to put out the fire, but it’s a pity that the house is too small. Unable to implement.

Other scientific disciplines are essentially an extension of physics. For example, chemistry is a discipline based on physics, and biology is a discipline based on chemistry. There are even overlaps, such as chemical kinetics, molecular biology, etc., which destined physics to have a more prominent position.