As usual the skepticism raised here over the poll about who you regard as the worlds greatest scientist draws parallel to cynical, ambiguous Nepali culture, which is contributing to our unique heterogeneity. But I wouldn't call the attempt of distinguished scholars of the Royal Society as useless. There can be poll to determine the worlds greatest sportsman/politicians/entertainers; beautiful /sexy woman and handsome man etc than why not about the greatest scientist? I mean its just a curiosity about how the world percieve science and scientific achievements. I can't find any fault in recognizing who is regarded a greater scientist between the two. Now, Newton derived the laws of motion, gravitation which paved the way for Einstein to formulate the theory of relativity and for other scientists to work on statics and dynamics. But then Newton was not the first scientist to work on the subject. There was Coppernicus, albeit proven wrong, hundreds of years earlier and there was Kepler and Gallileo as well. So we can't give all the credits to Newton for modernising science. Ofcourse his works can't be undermined but his idea came by watching nature. He deduced his calculations from simple existing natural phenomena. But look at what Einstein did. His works are truly out of the world. Defining time and space and light and packing everything of the universe within a single theory is something special. With Newtons laws of motion, see the scientific achievement between the 17th and 19th century. And with Einsteins theory of relativity, see the achievements in the 20th century. While Newton was a genius, Einstein was a super genius. I have already voted for Einstein anyways.