I don't get this Brian May thing at all; he completed work for a PhD (in some suitably obscure topic) and then what...? Surely there has to be a body of work stretching over many years, including some major "high point"?
I'm sticking with the name I submitted on the website; Alan Turing.
- He produced a body of first-class work over his (short) life time.
- His work contributed directly to the defeat of Hitler and the freedom of our country.
- The way he was treated after the war can never be fully re-addressed, no matter how many computing centres are named after him.
I suspect that if Hawking had not been ill, and if he had not needed the voice box, his celebrity would have been greatly diminished and his status would not have been so great.
Someone else with a possible claim;
Sir Fred Hoyle, who first postulated stellar nucleosynthesis (the heavier elements in
your body were formed in the core of a long-dead star)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hoyle. Born in Bingley, West Yorkshire, his term "Big Bang" is used a million times a day, and will be for the rest of time...even if he hadn't intended it that way
.
B