Let me play the part of devil's advocate, critic, and gadfly. On this one,
why General and not Special? Can you understand General without Special?
Are they one idea, or two?
> 2. Quantum field theory
Which one? QED? The Standard Model? Superstrings? Whose version?
Feynman? Schwinger? Tomonaga?
> 3. DNA and the genetic code (or: the "New Synthesis" of Mendel + Darwin,
> if this included the knowledge that genes are encoded in DNA)
Absolutely, and I agree that Darwin is 19th century.
> 4. Goedel's theorem -or- the concept of the Turing machine
This would be my first choice. At least it would save some poor soul from
repeating the pain of writing _Principia Mathematica_ again!
> 5. The neuron hypothesis - published by Ramon y Cajal (sp?) in 1900, I think!
> -or- the connectionist concept
>
> I am assuming that pre-20th century ideas like atomism and evolution will
> survive.
Clever about that. Fortunately, thermodynamics and electrondynamics survive,
too.
Atomism as an idea was around since the Greeks. It wasn't really PROVEN
until some unknown amateur did it in a paper in 1905, one of four that he
wrote that appeared in the same issue of the Physical Review. Name of
Einstein?
-- **************************************** C. David Noziglia Wellington, New Zealand noziglia@actrix.gen.nz
"Blessed are those who have no expectations, for they will never be disappointed." Kautiliya Shakhamuni Sidhartha Gautama Buddha
"Things are the way they are because they got that way."
***********************************