[Rabbiter]

who are some the top world-renowned leading figures in physics, currently

[TheOnlyMaster]

silly question really.

There are many. You ever heard of a guy called Stephen Hawking? I heard he's pretty good.

[ajb]

Probably the most influential theoretical/mathematical physicist today is Edward Witten. He has over 300 papers and a lot of citations. Almost every subtopic in quantum field theory and string theory Witten has said something about. He is most famous for his use of quantum field theory ideas in topology and geometry. He has an amazing ability to see physics in the mathematics and vice versa.

[MigL]

Sheldon Cooper, and if you don't know who he is, you don't watch enough TV.

But Freeman Dyson has a really cool name.

And other than Sir Isaac Newton and Enrico Fermi, I cannot think of any other current or past physicists who excel at both the theoretical and experimental aspects of physics.

This post has been edited by MigL: 11 January 2012 - 11:30 AM

[kepler94]

Brian Greene. He's mostly about string theory. He's on TV docs and stuff a lot. Michio Kaku is a popular communicator of science, too. These are the last two I can think of that these guys haven't covered. Oh and Brian Cox, who actually works at the LHC.

[ajb]

kepler94, on 16 January 2012 - 06:53 AM, said:

Brian Greene. He's mostly about string theory. He's on TV docs and stuff a lot. Michio Kaku is a popular communicator of science, too. These are the last two I can think of that these guys haven't covered. Oh and Brian Cox, who actually works at the LHC.

There are definitely very important people when it comes to the popularisation of physics. I am not sure what influence they have had on working physicists.

Brian Greene has made contributions to mirror symmetry from the string theory perspective. His highest cited paper (according to SPIRES) is Duality In Calabi-Yau Moduli Space, Nucl.Phys.B338:15-37,1990, which is co-authored with M.R. Plesser.

Michio Kaku is one of the originators of string field theory. See The Field Theory of Relativistic Strings, Pt. 1. Trees, Phys.Rev.D10:1110,1974 and The Field Theory of Relativistic Strings. 2. Loops and Pomerons, Phys.Rev.D10:1823-1843,1974. Both these are co-authored by Kaku and Kikkawa.

Brian Cox, I am not sure what he as done. He is listed as a collaborator on the ATLAS project in their latest papers.