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Internet poll ranks Emeagwali world's best scientist
By Uduma Kalu
A NIGERIAN scientist resident in the United States
(U.S), Dr. Philip Emeagwali, has emerged world's top scientist on the Internet, having become the most searched-for
contemporary scientist alive.
Described as "Father of the Internet" by former President Bill Clinton, and as
"Super Brain" by Time magazine, Emeagwali
is also voted "the best known African scientist of all time".
An informal survey in allfrica.com
also showed that Emeagwali who won the Gordon Bell Prize, seen as a Nobel prize version for technology, is the
most talked about scientist in Africa.
According to the report, 99 per cent of Internet searches are conducted outside Africa. "Therefore,
this survey is essentially who is hot in the western world," the statement said.
Emeagwali's website is also number three in Webmaster's Most-Linked Scientists in the world.
The survey was prompted by a controversy, which started in 2002 when a British Mensa society
voted Emeagwali as the "smartest man alive".
Many in the media, (especially in Sunday Herald, Glasgow, May 5, 2002) were reported to have asked, "Who is Emeagwali
- How come he is not famous
- Is it Britain's most famous physicist Stephen Hawkings
- Is it America's most famous scientist Stephen Jay Gould
- Is it computer pioneer and Nobel laureate Jack Kilby
- The answer is: None of the above''.
The researchers then used the list of 100 greatest scientists and inventors of the 20th century
to determine the result. "We used google.com to determine the most popular website for each scientist. Then
Link Popularity was used to determine the number of links," it went on.
The rankings, according to its report, reflect all terms entered into the Overture search
engine by users between February 1 and February 28, 2003.
Some of the terms used are that "Scientist's claim to fame must be a discovery or invention,
a definition that excludes astronauts, medical doctors and popular writers like Carl Sagan. Scientists that died
50 years earlier i.e. Albert Einstein, George Washington Carver and Marie
Curie are not included in the ranking of scientists. Top scientists include only
contemporary figures (people still living in 2000).
"All spellings and search variations are included in these totals: for instance, searches
for Emeagwali and Philip Emeagwali are counted as searches for Philip Emeagwali. Data from Nielsen ratings were
used to extrapolate to obtain the total Internet searches.
The team also did a survey of most prominent Africans and Nigerians on the Internet. For
the Africans, the group used the 75 names listed in the book African Biography published by Gale Research while the Nigerians were drawn from a list of 100
Nigerians of the Millennium complied by the Nigerian Internet community.
Out of top 12 Africans listed, Nigeria produced three. And they are Prof. Chinua Achebe,
Emeagwali and Hakeem Olajuwon. Achebe also tops the chart on the most searched for Nigerians on the Internet.
But the result of the world's most searched for scientist on the Internet has revealed that
Emeagwali is the world number one.`****okay
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