THE CENTURY'S GREATEST MINDS
It's all well and good to look back with a special issue on the "most influential scientists, thinkers and inventors" of this century [TIME 100, March 29]. And, as you correctly note, there are no right answers. Still, you seemed to highlight the usual superstars of the physical and biological sciences while downplaying social, environmental and management-type thinkers. Much hard science is done collectively today, and soft science offers only bits of the whole, rather than knock-your-socks-off schemes that are widely accepted. But ideas from the late 20th century are what will get us through the next...