Ask A Genius 1461: Newton vs. Einstein vs. Feynman: Intelligence and Impact
Author(s): Rick Rosner and Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/07/15
Rick Rosner compares Newton, Einstein, and Feynman across intelligence and historical impact. He credits Newton with foundational science and coin reforms, Einstein with revolutionizing physics through relativity and quantum insights, and Feynman with quantum electrodynamics and practical brilliance. Einstein ranks highest for theoretical contributions; Newton for world-changing longevity and influence.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Who was more intelligent—and who was more impactful: Newton, Einstein, or Feynman?
Rick Rosner: It is hard to say definitively, because the context and scientific landscape were very different, especially between Newton and the other two. Newton worked in the 1600s, during the early stages of modern science’sdevelopment.
Science, as a systematic method, began to develop in places like the coffeehouses of London.
Explorers returned from the New World with goods like coffee. People started drinking it, and caffeine—a stimulant—got them mentally fired up. It was almost like the cocaine of its time. It led to all kinds of energetic discussions and new ideas.
In that environment, Newton developed revolutionary concepts. The idea that you could describe the physical world using mathematics was still relatively novel. Sure, there were predecessors—Galileo, for instance, had begun quantifying motion roughly 200 years earlier—but Newton brought everything together.
How many truly world-changing scientists were there before Newton? Very few. So he had a huge positional advantage, being one of the first.
However, Newton was undeniably brilliant. He co-discovered calculus independently alongside Leibniz. He formulated the law of universal gravitation. His Principia laid the groundwork for classical mechanics.
Then there is Einstein. In 1905—his annus mirabilis, or “miracle year”—he published four groundbreaking papers. One proved the existence of atoms through the phenomenon of Brownian motion. Another introduced special relativity. I believe the others included the photoelectric effect, which ultimately won him the Nobel Prize, and mass–energy equivalence (E = mc²).
Einstein’s impact was staggering. He fundamentally changed our understanding of time, space, and energy.
Then we come to Feynman, who developed quantum electrodynamics, known as QED. He created Feynman diagrams, which visually represent the interactions of particles. That work earned him a Nobel Prize.
However, in terms of raw, transformative contribution, Feynman is a step below Einstein.
Einstein also laid the groundwork for lasers through his work on stimulated emission, and ten years after special relativity, he introduced general relativity—a wholly new and more comprehensive theory of gravity.
Despite having similar names, special and general relativity are distinct in scope and complexity.
So, in terms of sheer output of world-changing theories, you have to go with Einstein.
In terms of changing the world, probably Newton. Moreover, Newton lived to be around 90 years old in a time when most people did not. That gave him a long life to accomplish a great deal.
Jacobsen: Although he mostly stopped doing math and physics after his early years, right?
Rosner: Right, as far as I know. Later in life, he focused on other pursuits—he was attempting to decode the Bible and also served as the director of the Royal Mint.
Jacobsen: Did he run it well?
Rosner: Yeah, he did. He was a hard-ass. However, he made fundamental contributions. One of the things he did was implement coin reeding—the ridged edges on coins.
Coins used to be made of gold or silver, and people would shave or file off the edges to collect the precious metal dust. Over time, coins would get smaller and lose value.
So Newton came up with the idea to press ridges into the sides of coins. If someone filed down a reeded coin, it would be obvious.
You can still see this on modern U.S. dimes and quarters—the edges look like little gears. It made tampering harder, even if not impossible. An excellent file could still remove metal between ridges, but it raised the difficulty.
As for Feynman, one of the great moments near the end of his life was when he figured out why the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded.
Others had suspicions, but Congress appointed Feynman to the Rogers Commission to investigate the disaster.
The solid rocket boosters used large rubber O-rings to seal joints. These O-rings are standard components used to prevent leaks, such as in faucets, but in this case, they were massive and used to contain highly pressurized fuel.
NASA launched the Challenger on a frigid morning, with temperatures near freezing. A NASA engineer warned against launching in that weather, saying they could not guarantee the performance of the O-rings when cold.
That engineer was right. Feynman spoke to engineers, gathered details, and during a hearing, he famously demonstrated the issue.
He brought O-rings and a glass of ice water, dipped the O-rings, and showed that they lost flexibility when cold—an intuitive, visual demonstration of a critical flaw.
That moment did not make him Einstein, but it demonstrated his sharpness and practical intelligence.
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