Asimov wrote on Newton in particular, as the greatest scientist of all time. All others compete for 2nd place. Optics, Physics, Calculus. Nobody holds a candle to that accomplishment. Also, he invented the doggy door, and milled edges on coins (to discourage filing, a common 18th-century way to steal precious metal)
Why is grace hopper on here? She was brilliant, but the gap between her and euler is immense. There were a ton of brilliant minds, but it doesn't make a ton of sense to throw her in.
"In the judgment of the most competent living mathematicians, Fräulein Noether was the most significant creative mathematical genius thus far produced since the higher education of women began. In the realm of algebra, in which the most gifted mathematicians have been busy for centuries, she discovered methods which have proved of enormous importance in the development of the present-day younger generation of mathematicians."
She's certainly far less well known than many of her contemporaries, but Noether's theorem is an incredibly important tool in theoretical physics, and has been described as "certainly one of the most important mathematical theorems ever proved in guiding the development of modern physics, possibly on a par with the Pythagorean theorem". [1]
she was involved in commutative algebra. she had a nice little section in my undergrad abstract algebra book. i'm not saying anything negative about her, just that if you are going to list the most brilliant/productive scientists of all time then shes not going to be on the list. she was brilliant of course.
She's also not well-known inside computer science. I certainly don't know her. Wikipedia isn't a reliable source, so I am not sure what she has done. It appears that she was part of a team that might have developed one of the early loaders/linkers.
I can guess at least one: Nikola Tesla. May I ask you what other names do you have in mind?