Who is/are the most prominent physicist/s alive today...?

Question

oh i forgot to add, apart from steven hawking. everyone knows him.

Answer 1

Aside from Hawking, there are several other famous physicists.  Kip Thorne and Brain Greene are similar to Hawking, in that they are smart but primarily famous because they have books that are accessible to the general public.  And, of course, their fields of research are of interest to the general public.  I don't know that that is the best way to measure a physicist.

There are a lot of physicists that are amazing, but their fields are not generally applicable.  The reason the old masters are talked about so much is that what they discovered was generally useful.  But our knowledge of physics is so great at this point that the research has become much more specialized.  For example, the great discoveries in atomic physics never have application to high energy physics or vice versa.  So there is less need to become familiar with physics outside of your field.  On the other hand, mechanics, E&M, relativity, and quantum are generally useful, if not necessary, for all physics.

It's not that the quality of physicists have decreased, it's that the general physics has already been explored.  If you want a list of the best physicists today, I would start with the Nobel Laureates.  Once you get into graduate level physics, I'm sure you will know plenty of famous physicists in the field you are interested in.

Answer 2

The most prominent physicist alive today is probably Dr. Stephen W. Hawking. You haven't heard of him? Too bad. You should read his most famous book, A Brief History of Time. He did work in topics like black holes, alternate universes, and the Big Bang.