Who is smarter between theoretical physicists and experimental physicists? - A personal take

So this was a question asked by someone on Quora, and I found it interesting enough to answer not because I am a theoretical or experimental physicist and I am butt-hurt or similar. But because  many outside of the scientific community seems to think there is some sort of rivalry between physicists of different approaches or fields. So this is my take on that. In the time, I will try to look for someone who has actually worked for more than a decade as a physicist, they would have a lot more to say than me. But to start...

I guess it really depends on what you mean by smart.

For instance, the usual definition of smart, is someone that is quick-witted, someone is quick to take decisions, but also intelligent, so a smart person is someone that has quick-witted intelligent. Just because you are intelligent, wouldn’t mean you are quick-witted and vice-versa. Now it is true, that in American english, smart is synonymous with intelligent, so I guess what you mean is who is more intelligent. And going by that, an intelligent person is someone who is able to acquire AND apply knowledge and skills. 

And we can assume both theoretical and experimental physicists would need to be able to acquire knowledge and apply such knowledges, for the sake of obtaining new knowledge. Now as for who is more intelligent, that depends on what you need, what knowledge or skill you are considering. Pure logical or mathematical reasoning may seem like the bulk of a theoretical physicist’s work, but they also need to be able to interpret new results obtained by an experimentalist, in order to either reject or change their previous theory. On that same note, an experimentalist would need to know how to obtain and analyze the results of an experiment, but also would to know enough about the theory to either dismiss the results as nonsense or an artifact, or to actually challenge the theory itself (or hypothesis, if the theory has yet to be established as such). And actually, many physicists end up working a certain time of their careers in both sides, so trying to say one is smarter than the other may be tough, with this mass flip-flopping around the pond.

But anyway, here are some famous physicists from both sides (Not including Einstein, because well, you know him)

Experimentalists:

• Michael Faraday (which is actually interesting, albeit not having formal education in physics, and being kinda sloppy in mathematics, actually was such a brilliant experimentalist that he was one of the forefathers of the classic theory of electromagnetism)
• Wilhem Roentgen - The first Nobel Prize in Physics, for the discovery of X-rays
• Ernest Rutherford, known as the father of nuclear physics, and the greatest experimentalist of his time, since Faraday. Also he discovered the nucleus, for which he was awarded a Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Also, he has an element with his name (Cool!)
• Enrico Fermi, creator of the world first nuclear reactor, and called by some as the “architect of the nuclear age” (or the atomic bomb). He is actually one of those physicists who are great both experimentally and theoretically, making advancements in quantum theory, nuclear and particle physics and statistical mechanics. Also a Nobel Prize winner.
• John Bardeen, also a physicist and electrical engineer, who has part of the trio who made the first transistor (which revolutionized the world, I mean, the entire modern computation can stem its hardware to that pivotal moment) with Shockley and Brattain, and also the guy who made the first formal theory of superconductivity (also known as BCS theory, for Bardeen, Cooper and Schrieffer). He is actually the ONLY physicist to have won two Nobel Prizes in Physics. (Marie Curie won one in Chemistry. Of course, she was a great experimentalist as well)

Theoretical Physicists (I tried to pick those who are not Nobel Prizes, so that you don’t think only Nobel physicists are great):

• Leonhard Euler (everyone knows him first as a mathematician or a god of mathematics, but did you know he was also a physicist? There are literally entire books with his achievements.)
• James Clerk Maxwell, a mathematical physicist (like Einstein). He is considered by many physicists as being as important as Einstein and Newton, due to his pivotal contributions. He was the second great unifier of physics, joining electricity, magnetism and light onto a single theory of electromagnetism. And his equations were pivotal enough that led to the formulation of the special relativity by Einstein, so you know he is a big deal. And his works were fundamental to the developments of fields like Special Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. Which is why he is held with such respect by the scientific community, albeit not the same by those outside of it.
• Georges Lemaitre, a physicist and catholic priest who was the first one to derive the theory of universe expansion, and the first proponent of the Big Bang Theory.
• Ettore Majorana (look about him. There’s a whole conspiracy theory surrounding him)
• Roger Penrose, the co-author of Penrose-Hawking Singularity theorem and a bunch of other things.

In truth, we can’t really say who is smarter, because as you can see we have plenty of great physicists on both sides. The core message I want to take is that both are instrumental for the advancement of physics and science as a whole.

And also, I will make sure to talk about Majorana more in the future, so sorry for the cliffhanger