I can hear it now:
“what Division are we in?”
“Watt.”
“What division are we in??”
“Watt Division.”
“Yeah, what Division?!?!?”
“Who’s in our division?”
“That ONE Team”
“Which one?”
[ad nauseam]
So the everyone’s on the same page in this discussion: Frank Merrick, FRC Director
I doubt that FIRST would over-push undeserving females/minorities. I mean, is there really a good STEM reason that Sagan is more of a household name than Hopper? (In terms of scientific advancement–I love Cosmos as much as the next guy, his whole UFO thing not withstanding.)
Eames is interesting. Charles and Ray?
Here’s an outside-the-box thought: All of this effort on trying to find notable scientists / engineers plays right into the “Great Man” fallacy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory) - the idea that history is directed by single, powerful or brilliant men (or women, but mostly men in the fallacy). The truth is that we are all a product of the technology and culture we’re born into. Einstein wouldn’t have come up with the theory of relativity without the work of Hertz, Maxwell, Lorentz and even Newton before. Newton himself recognized how much he owed to the existing body of scientific knowledge when he said"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_on_the_shoulders_of_giants).
All of that is to say, maybe we should consider schools of thought, historical movements, or even organizations when naming new fields. Maybe “The Royal Society Field”, “The ISO Field”, “The Enlightenment Field”, or even “Universal Suffrage Field”. I’m sure there are better examples (or maybe we can’t live without heroes :o ).
Good point about the “Great Man Fallacy”. Certainly recognizing institutions would be a nod to the power of coopertition and GP. But I don’t think that is likely to happen any time soon.
A few possibilities that pop to mind that I haven’t seen yet in this thread…
Wright (as in brothers) and Bell (as in Sir Alexander Graham).
Both of them, however, fall short in that while they advanced technology, they didn’t change how we actually viewed the universe. Einstein, Newton, Galileo, Archimedes, and Curie didn’t just invent or create, they illuminated. They explained. They expanded not just our knowledge and abilities, but our understanding.
One scientist that hasn’t been mentioned yet (apologies if I missed it) is Darwin.
Charles Darwin did for the life sciences what our current field nominees did for the physical sciences. It would be a particularly powerful statement because of the fact that Darwin’s explanation of his observations continues to face the same kind of religious persecution that Galileo’s explanations faced in his day.
Or maybe Louis Pasteur. Not only did Pasteur illuminate the workings of pathology, but through his work on vaccinations probably did more to improve and preserve human life than the current field nominees put together. (“Where’s your field?” “Just Pasteur field.”)
John Snow? Only founded the entire science of epidemiology. (Northern teams might appreciate playing on a Snow Field.)
But if you work on the idea that “You get what you celebrate” then I think we’re already doing a pretty good job of celebrating European Male scientists. Not that they shouldn’t be celebrated, but that if we want a more diverse range of scientists going forward, then we would be well-served to seek out a more diverse group to celebrate. I’m sure Darwin, Pasteur and their pals will forgive us if we seek out those who not only had to overcome scientific, but also social challenges in their path to better explain how our universe works.
Jason
He knows nothing.
How about Edward Murphy? It would seem to be the “new Curie” division.
Joseph Fourier
Hopper and Lovelace Divisions sound perfect. We need more representation for women in STEM, and I think that starts with giving the inspirational ladies that came before us the recognition they deserve. I also would love to see the Tesla Division be instated.
I’d go with Abel and Galois, just for the mathematical humour of having an Abel Field (more aptly called the Abelian Field) and a Galois Field. Of course these fields would have to be “grouped” together.
Okay, I’m done.
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Nice
Dean often says something along the lines of “Ask a kid to name a famous person from Hollywood or professional sports and they will rattle them off all day. Ask them to name a famous currently active scientist or engineer and they give you a blank stare”.
With that, I’d love to see a yearly rotating division name. This division would be named after a new scientist every year. The names would be sampled from currently active scientists and engineers. It would be a great way to honor active scientists while also allowing the students to learn a bit more about current research topics.
Maxwell!! Maxwell’s equation are essential to physics and engineering!
This is a fantastic idea. Even better would be if that same scientist or engineer would come to speak and be recognized.
That would be really cool. You could even have that engineer/scientist of honor personally hand out the division championship banners/medals for their division.
This would be an awesome way to connect students with academic role models.
Not to nitpick, but for rings (and, by extension, fields) you use “commutative,” not “Abelian” (in fact, fields are all assumed to be commutative; if not, they’re called skew fields). 
I love the idea of that - especially a scientist, since I think FIRST often gets a bit too much into engineering and misses out on the “S.” It would be great if there were a life-scientist or something one year, as most of FIRST seems centered on physical sciences, and a lot of my team ended up in college for biology and the like.