Top 7 among those whom the author chose to compute his "Einstein index" for.
Something not accounted for by that illustration is age ~ proportion of realized potential. Maldacena is 47, Randall 53; no longer promising youngsters, but with decades of index-climbing potential left in them. Weinberg and Glashow are both 82, and owe the bulk of their index position to work done in the 60s and 70s. Witten is 64 and peaked in the 80s and early 90s. Polyakov is 69; for him it's 70s and 80s.
Hawking is 73. His index-driving contribution is black hole evaporation, from 1974. After that, he's mainly been a popularizer.
Something not accounted for by that illustration is age ~ proportion of realized potential. Maldacena is 47, Randall 53; no longer promising youngsters, but with decades of index-climbing potential left in them. Weinberg and Glashow are both 82, and owe the bulk of their index position to work done in the 60s and 70s. Witten is 64 and peaked in the 80s and early 90s. Polyakov is 69; for him it's 70s and 80s.
Hawking is 73. His index-driving contribution is black hole evaporation, from 1974. After that, he's mainly been a popularizer.