Human Accomplishment - Index Scores

Index Scores

Murray ranks the leading 4,000 innovators in several fields of human accomplishment from 800 BC to 1950. In each field Murray identifies a number of sources (leading encyclopedias, histories and surveys) providing information about the leading figures in the field. The rankings are made from information in these sources. A raw score is determined based on how many sources mention and on how much space in each source is devoted to a person. Then these raw scores are normalized so that the lowest score is 1 and the highest score is 100. The resulting scores are called "Index Scores".

The categories of human accomplishment where significant figures are ranked in the book are as follows: Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Earth Sciences, Physics, Mathematics, Medicine, Technology, Combined Sciences, Chinese Philosophy, Indian Philosophy, Western Philosophy, Western Music, Chinese Painting, Japanese Art, Western Art, Arabic Literature, Chinese Literature, Indian Literature, Japanese Literature, and Western Literature. The omission of several relative categories, including a broader Chinese art category or an Indian art category, are due to a lack of identifiable figures as most of the work is anonymous.

The following are some examples of the rankings found for individual categories.

Mathematics Index score
Euler 100
Newton 89
Euclid 83
Gauss 81
Fermat 72
Western philosophy Index score
Aristotle 100
Plato 87
Kant 74
Descartes 51
Hegel 46
Physics Index score
Newton 100
Einstein 100
Rutherford 88
Faraday 86
Galileo 83
Western music Index score
Beethoven 100
Mozart 100
Bach 87
Wagner 80
Haydn 56
Chinese literature Index score
Du Fu 100
Li Bai 87
Bai Juyi 86
Su Shi 83
Han Yu 80
Western art Index score
Michelangelo 100
Picasso 77
Raphael 73
da Vinci 61
Titian 60
Combined sciences Index score
Newton 100
Galileo 89
Aristotle 78
Kepler 53
Lavoisier 51
Western literature Index score
Shakespeare 100
Goethe 81
Dante 62
Virgil 55
Homer 54
Technology Index score
Watt 100
Edison 100
Leonardo da Vinci 60
Huygens 51
Archimedes 51

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Famous quotes containing the words index and/or scores:

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    —Nadine Gordimer (b. 1923)

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    What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?

    Whatever it is, it avails not—distance avails not, and
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    —Walt Whitman (1819–1892)