Emeagwali

April 7, 2003 9:43 a.m. Source: Donita Brown (NEW YORK, NY) -- When a British mensa society voted Emeagwali as the "smartest man alive," many in the media asked: Who is Emeagwali? How come he is not famous? (Sunday Herald, Glasgow, May 5, 2002) To settle this question, we asked: Who is the world's top scientist? 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." Just as The New York Times Best Seller List tells us what people are reading, the 300 million daily searches tells us what people are searching online. The number of searches conducted on a person is a deep and democratic poll of how much the individual is in demand or interesting. It provides an objective measure of who's hot and who's not. Given that only one percent of Africans are online, this survey reveals who is popular at the grassroots level in the United States and Europe. Yet, it is a clear and unbiased picture of who captured the public's attention in the Western world. Because of our human nature, we incorporate our bias when asked to guess who is the most searched-for scientist. As they say, numbers do not lie. Let's leave it to the search engines to determine which celebrity is most searched-for. Below are the numbers extracted from Yahoo, MSN, Lycos and Altavista which revealed the ten most "searched for" contemporary scientists for the month of February 2003. See any surprises? Emeagwali #1 in Top Most Searched-For Scientists Top 10 Scientists Overall / Month Ending: March 1, 2003 Position Searches Scientist & Claim to Fame 1 85140 Philip EMEAGWALI - supercomputer and Internet pioneer 2 84450 David SUZUKI - Canada's most famous scientist 3 84420 Tim Berners LEE - inventor of the World Wide Web 4 81690 Alan TURING - computer science icon 5 80280 Richard FEYNMAN - iconoclastic physicist, Nobel laureate 6 58620 John von NEUMANN - a mathematician's mathematician 7 58614 Linus TORVALDS - father of Linux operating system 8 54630 Stephen HAWKINGS - Britain's most famous scientist 9 50880 Stephen Jay GOULD - America's most famous scientist 10 30780 Jack KILBY - computer scientist and Nobel Laureate The above results raises an interesting question: Why do a search on Emeagwali instead of typing emeagwali.com? That's what 55,676 visitors do each week. Emeagwali #3 in Webmaster's Most-Linked Scientists Webmaster's Top 10 Scientists Overall / Month Ending: March 1, 2003 Position Links Scientist & Claim to Fame 1 2912 Alan TURING - computer science icon 2 2581 Tim Berners LEE - inventor of the World Wide Web 3 2501 Philip EMEAGWALI - supercomputer and Internet pioneer 4 1321 Stephen HAWKINGS - Britain's most famous scientist 5 459 Linus TORVALDS - father of Linux operating system 6 356 Richard FEYNMAN - iconoclastic physicist, Nobel laureate 7 336 John von NEUMANN - a mathematician's mathematician 8 101 Jack KILBY - computer scientist and Nobel Laureate 9 97 Stephen Jay GOULD - America's most famous scientist 10 17 David SUZUKI - Canada's most famous scientist About EMEAGWALI.COM Emeagwali.com is the first personal site on the Internet. Each year, it serves 8 million pages to 2.6 million people. Half of our visitors are students writing school reports. The other half visit to read materials on a wide range of subjects. Emeagwali #2 in Top Most Searched-For Nigerians 30 Most Fascinating Nigerians / Month Ending: March 1, 2003 Position Searches Name & Claim to Fame 1 153420 Chinua ACHEBE - author of "Things Fall Apart" 2 85140 Philip EMEAGWALI - supercomputer and internet pioneer 3 85020 Hakeem OLAJUWON - basketball superstar 4 40590 Wole SOYINKA - writer, Nobel laureate 5 35850 Fela KUTI - king of afro-beat music 6 33210 Amina LAWAL - persecuted for bearing a child outside marriage 7 18180 Chris OFILI - controversial artist 8 17640 Femi KUTI - afro-beat superstar 9 16650 Sani ABACHA - maximum ruler 10 15570 Ken SARO-WIWA - murdered writer/activist 11 13560 Ben OKRI - writer 12 13200 Buchi EMECHETA - writer 13 11430 Onweagba OLUCHI - model 14 9120 Queen AMINA - 16th century Hausa warrior 15 8250 Sunny ADE - juju musician 16 8070 Kanu NWANKWO - soccer superstar 17 7680 Olusegun OBASANJO - president of Nigeria 18 7500 Agbani DAREGO - former Miss World 19 4590 Nnamdi AZIKIWE - former president 20 2490 Obafemi AWOLOWO - Yoruba leader 21 2190 Ibrahim BABANGIDA - former military dictator 22 2070 Odumegwu OJUKWU - rebel leader 23 1980 Moshood ABIOLA - political leader 24 1950 Dick TIGER - boxing champion 25 1440 Muhammadu BUHARI - military dictator 26 1170 John FASHANU - soccer superstar 27 1110 Chike OBI - mathematician 28 (tie) 900 Mohammed MURTALA - military dictator 28 (tie) 900 Yakubu GOWON - military dictator 30 810 Francis ARINZE - touted as potential pope Emeagwali #8 in Top Most Searched-For Africans Top 12 Persons / Month Ending: March 1, 2003 Position Searches Name & Claim to Fame 1 1532850 Nelson MANDELA - anti-apartheid activist, Nobel laureate 2 333960 Kofi Annan - United Nations leader, Nobel laureate 3 171300 Shaka ZULU - Zulu leader 4 167970 Desmond TUTU - anti-apartheid activist, Nobel laureate 5 164160 Idi AMIN - brutal Ugandan dictator 6 153420 Chinua ACHEBE - author of "Things Fall Apart" 7 108390 Haile SELASSIE - emperor of Ethiopia 8 85140 Philip EMEAGWALI - supercomputer and internet pioneer 9 85020 Hakeem OLAJUWON - basketball superstar 10 67680 Winnie MANDELA - anti-apartheid crusader 11 66000 Nadine GORDIMER - writer, Nobel laureate 12 61650 Anwar SADAT - Egyptian leader, Nobel laureate Although the above lists tell us what users are searching now, they can be used to predict who will be hot in the future. They are valuable to journalists compiling a list of people to watch. OBJECTIVITY The number of searches were counted by a software tools provided by overture.com (now acquired by Yahoo.com). An independent survey showed that Emeagwali is the best known African scientist of all time. An informal survey in allfrica.com shows that he is the most talked about scientist in Africa. Ninety-nine percent of Internet searches are conducted outside Africa. Therefore, this survey is essentially who is hot in the western world. Web's Most Wanted Notes These rankings reflect all terms entered into the Ocverture search engine by users between February 1 and February 28, 2003. 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 scientist 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 Phillip Emegwali are counted as searches for Philip Emeagwali. Data from Nielsen ratings were used to extrapolate to obtain the total Internet searches (shown in parentheses). HOW THE NAMES WERE COMPILED SCIENTISTS: We used the list of 100 greatest scientists and inventors of the 20th century. NIGERIANS: We used the list of 100 Nigerians of the Millennium complied by the Nigerian Internet community. AFRICANS: We used the 75 names listed in the book "African Biography" published by Gale Research. WEBSITES: We used google.com to determine the most popular website for each scientist. Then Link Popularity was used to determine the number of links. UPDATES - September 2004 A new people-based poll conducted by New African magazine reconfirmed the key findings from our Internet poll. The magazine ranked Emeagwali as (1) the greatest living African scientist, (2) the 6th greatest Nigerian, and (3) the 35th greatest person of African descent of all time. Emeagwali (third from bottom right) ranked 35th and greatest living African scientist (from pages 16, 18, 20, 22). Click for more information: