Preacher's Piece

Who is considered the most important person in history? To answer that question, computer scientist Steven Skiena and Google engineer Charles Ward got together and developed a system that ranks historical figures in order of significance. Their research produced a book called Who’s Bigger? Where Historical Figures Really Rank.

To establish their “significance” ranking, they assessed more than 800,000 names, calculated achievement and celebrity and gravitas, and then factored in how long, and how long ago, someone lived.

According to Skiena and Ward, the top ten most in...