By Active Year

The individual scientists most active year is simply set as 2/3 of living age, e.g. George Gabriel Stokes was born in 1819 and died in 1903 aged 83. His active year is calculated to 1885. This way of calculating has, of course, its shortcomings, but it might give an indication.

Sorting by active year, we have found:

It seems that the renessaince and the enlightenment  have triggered scientific discoveries in Europe, and catched up with the Islamic world.

Moreover, it is remarkable that the huge investments in "research" during the past 70 years have yielded tiny remarkable discoveries.