The Digital Footprints of 10 of the World’s Top Physicists

What is PeekScore?: PeekScore is a rank from 1 to 10, assigned to every person. The higher someone’s score, the “more important” they are on the web. In calculating your PeekScore and updating it often, PeekYou takes into account your known presence and activity on the Internet, including but not limited to; your blogging, participation in social networks, the number of your friends, followers, or readers, the amount of web content you create, and your prominence in the news.

Rest assured, you have read this entry’s title correctly. We’re not going to lie to you, this entry exists most of all because we felt it was time to class up this joint a little bit. We’ve done lists of models, and lists related to tawdry, headline grabbing scandals. We’ve written about athletes, and politicians, and even professsional wrestlers. While we apologize for none of that, we nonetheless felt that it was time to at least pretend to, momentarily, aspire to something greater. It is our sincere hope that merely by association, this entry will make the PeekScore blog appear deep.

You needn’t even speculate over who topped the list, as you likely guessed upon seeing this entry existed at all. He is the most famous physicist on Earth. Beyond him, however, we are featuring many staggering minds; only a couple of whom have any sort of social networking presence. This comes as no surprise, of course. They do, though, nearly all have homepages – however slight – associated with their universities, and many of them have quite a few citations, quotes, and articles strewn throughout cyberspace. While fairly matched against one another, and therefore reasonably competitive, it is a list of modest PeekScores for the most part.

Who are some of your favorite physicists? Don’t be shy. Share with us your feelings on the holographic principle, supersymmetry, superstrings, and so forth. You’re among friends here.

Rank Picture Name Bio PeekScore
1

Stephen Hawking A theoretical physics populist – aiding in making some big ideas, in even the most vague sense, comprehensible to we plebs – best known for his A Brief History of Time. 8.65 / 10
2

Lisa Randall A fairly well-known string theorist, as these things go. 8.05 / 10
3

Steven Weinberg Nobel Prize winner for his contributions to the electroweak interaction theory. 8.00 / 10
4

Edward Witten Best known as the creator of M-theory. 7.61 / 10
5

Sheldon Glashow Shared the Nobel Prize with Steven Weinberg for his contributions to the electroweak interaction theory . 7.11/ 10
6

Kenneth G. Wilson Was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1982 for his “constructive theory of the renormalization group.” 7.02 / 10
7

Steven Gubser A prominent string theorist, concerned largely with gauge-string duality. 6.83 / 10
8

Alexander Markovich Polyakov Russian string theorist, currently at Princeton University. 6.10 / 10
9

Igor Klebanov Another string theorist, working out of Princeton. 5.33 / 10
10

Juan Martín Maldacena Best known for his discovery of what’s sometimes called the “Maldacena duality,” or AdS/CFT correspondence. 5.33/ 10

The 15 Most Powerful Venture Capitalists on the East Coast

Are you a hardworking, entrepreneurial visionary, with a big, fat crazy idea? Do you think that this fancy idea of yours – this strange and forward thinking contraption, this unlikely service, or this bold, new business model – could make a boatload of money for a lucky investor? Well, calm down, Mr./Ms. Crazy Visionary. We’re not the sorts from whom you should be seeking help for that kind of thing. But you know who are? Venture capitalists – those fearless, moneyed folks, forever seeking to become more so, by investing in high-risk startups which they view as having great potential. Recently, Business Insider ran a list of those they considered to be The 15 Most Powerful Venture Capitalists on the East Coast. We thought it might be fun to see how Business Insider’s estimation of power compared to the PeekScores (the truer measure of power, in our view) of these gentlemen.

Picture Name Bio PeekScore


Fred Wilson #2 on the Business Insider List. Of Union Square Ventures. His blog, A VC, receives more than 50,000 visits weekly.


David Skok #6 on the Business Insider List. General partner at Matrix Partners. Focuses on SaaS software, open source, Cloud Computing, etc.


Jeremy Levine #4 on the Business Insider List. A partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, Levine is one of the earliest investors in Yelp! Inc.


Harry Weller #5 on the Business Insider List. Focusing on technology and renewable energy investments, Weller is a general partner at New Enterprise Associates.


Sean Dalton #8 on the Business Insider List. An electrical engineer, and partner at Highland Capital Partners.


Joel Cutler #9 on the Business Insider List. Co-founder and Managing Director at General Catalyst Partners.


Terry McGuire #7 on the Business Insider List. Co-founder and general partner at Polaris Venture Partners.


Josh Kopelman #3 on the Business Insider List. With the money he made from selling Half.com, which he founded, he began his first investments, and formed First Round Capital.


Sunil Dhaliwal #11 on the Business Insider List. Partner at Battery Ventures. Focuses on IT infrastructure and financial services.


Peter Barris #1 on the Business Insider List. Managing General Partner at NEA, Barris was a leading investor in Groupon, as well as numerous other successful companies.


Neeraj Agrawal #12 on the Business Insider List. Partner at Battery Ventures, he helped start BladeLogic.


Bob Goodman #10 on the Business Insider List. Founding partner of Bessemer Venture Partners. Also founded Celcore and Boatphone.


Brian Paul #14 on the Business Insider List. Co-founded Tenaya Capital.


Richard Levandov #13 on the Business Insider List. Managing Director of Avalon Ventures.


J. Michael Cline #15 on the Business Insider List. Cline founded both Accretive Health and Fandango. He sold the latter to Comcast in 2007.

2011 NFL Combine: Top College Quarterbacks

It’s that time of the year. Bleacher Report came out with their rankings for the 2011 NFL Combine invitees. We’ve ranked the invitees by their PeekScore. Now plenty of you are probably rolling your eyes that Cam Newton is at the top of the list, but Jake Locker from Washington is a sleeper that many wouldn’t expect at a number two spot. Remember…these rankings are based on these kids’ internet footprint and presence online; not their ability to throw a ball down the field to their star receiver in the waning seconds of a BCS Championship game. That being said, who do you think (out of the quarterbacks below) will be picked first in the draft? Better yet, will Cam live up to all of the hype, both on the field AND online?

Image Player Team PeekScore

Cam Newton Auburn

Jake Locker Washington

Greg McElroy Alabama

Colin Kaepernick Nevada

Ryan Mallett Arkansas

Blaine Gabbert Missouri

Andy Dalton TCU

Pat Devlin Delaware

Christian Ponder Florida State

TJ Yates North Carolina