Here Are The Couples Of Science Rivals You May Not Know

In the history of humanity, we have witnessed a lot of pairs of outstanding rivalries in various fields, from politics, business, medicine, as well as science. These rivalries include Achilles vs. Hector, Tu Pac Shakur vs. Notorious B.I. G, Ali vs. Foreman, and more.

As per the scientific field, some greatest rivalries also made the whole world surprised with their battles. Now, take a quick look at some famous names:

1. Thomas Edison vs. Nikola Tesla

When considering the revolution of electricity, Thomas Edison and his rival, Nikola Tesla may be the two names that have made us admire the most in the world. Thomas Edison, also known as a renown businessman and inventor, promoted the development of Direct Current or DC while Tesla, his ex-worker, was famous for the discoveries of Alternating Current or AC.

Their fierce competition was called the Current Wars, of which the winner would gain a massive amount of money. Realizing that alternating current was more dominant, Edison applied a scorched-earth policy to beat Tesla’s current and electrocuted lost animals to emphasize the dangers this kind of current might bring to.

Edison’s efforts were not as successful as he wanted because Tesla still became the final winner. Since then, the alternating current has been always the US power transmission standards.

2. Richard Owen vs. Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin (left) and Richard Owen (right).

Charles Darwin published his discoveries in the work named On the Origins of Species many decades ago, after having taken a voyage on the HMS Beagle.

While conducting his work, Darwin often made discussions with Richard Owen, who served at the Natural History Collection at the British Museum. At that time, this English biologist was building an evolutionary theory for himself.

These two men kept fighting against each other to determine who was the author of this theory. And eventually, it was supposed to belong to Charles Darwin.

3. Gottfried Leibniz vs. Isaac Newton

Isaac Newton and his rival in science.

As we all know, Isaac Newton was among the most famous scientists ever in the world. His contribution has changed completely how we understood our universe.

However, in Newton’s research history, there was a name that might make him unforgettable. That was Gottfried Leibniz, a German polymath with a lesser reputation.

If Calculus is one of your subjects at school, you must hear something about Leibniz. If not, he was just a stranger to you. And that was what Newton was expecting.

In fact, Leibniz had his own calculus published about 20 years before Newton and his partners blamed him for plagiarizing, as well as did all possible things to ruin Leibniz’s reputation.

After a lot of centuries, his contributions were finally recognized; however, we can’t deny the importance of Issac Newton in the history of science.

4. Ignaz Semmelweis vs. Charles Meigs & Johann Klien

Semmelweis's idea could save a lot of infants but also made him lose his job.

In 1850, the death rate of infants who were born in the University of Vienna’s obstetric clinic reached up to 25-30 per cent. The major reasons hailed from puerperal infection.

Semmelweis’s idea was doctors should keep their hands clean after doing an autopsy as one of the education programs in a medical environment.

Unfortunately, Charles Meigs & Johann Klein, his two superiors, felt that he was offending to the doctors at the University of Vienna, so they finally forced him to resign.

Semmelweis said that the puerperal infection’s rates could be reduced by over 90 per cent if doctors kept their hands clean, but his efforts came to failure. What he said was only recognized when Louis Pasteur declared that bacteria were the major culprits causing the dangerous infections.

5. Gerta Keller vs. Luis Alvarez

The dinosaurs are often believed to come into extinction due to the impact of an asteroid hitting the Earth. However, something in the science textbooks we have currently used might have to be changed if the theory of Gerta Keller was applied.

According to the Professor of Geosciences, Gerta Keller, the giant creatures disappeared off the face of the earth after volcanoes had kept operating in millions of years.

As an American experimental physicist, Luis Alvarez, along with his team from US Berley, proposed a theory saying that an asteroid must be responsible for the extinction of dinosaurs 6.5 crores years ago.

These two theories were in conflict with each other and as a result, scientists at that time refused to recognize Keller’s discovery as a new record. They didn’t want to face another battle similar to the 17^th-century religious conflict called the Thirty Years’ War in Europe.

6. The United States vs. The Soviet Union

After World War II came to an end, the United States and the Soviet Union have become the two major forces in the world and kept competing with each other in every field, including science and arms.

In 1957, the Soviet Union took the world by surprise when launching the Sputnik 1 as the first artificial Earth satellite. The next story is nothing but an arms race. As a result, the Tsar Bomba was developed and created the most powerful nuclear weapon in human history. After that, in 1969, American Astronauts took the first step on the Moon.

The fight between these two nations has sparked the voyage of space exploration, as well as the development of mobile phones and space probes.

7. Willi Hennig Society vs. Anti-Parsimony Scientists

Similar to other fields, science has witnessed some conflicts that seem not to be related to the debate about knowledge. That was true with the case between Willi Hennig Society and anti-parsimony scientists.

On the behalf of Will Hennig Society, Cladistics, a bimonthly scientific journal, released an editorial saying that all submissions concerning “tree of life”, including family trees of the species on Earth, must make use of parsimony unless the submission’s author could offer the philosophical thesis to protect his or her work, instead of science.

The controversy exploded on the Instagram when scientists following the school of anti-parsimony called the Willi Hennig Society, who were the Cladistics’s publishers, something like a cult.

As per the Will Hennig Society, right after that, its member warned these scientists that they should “proceed [sic] at your f*cking peril!”

This fierce war seems not to have an ending yet!!!