Discuss the choices | Nominate An Innovator | Poll  
change. Once novels were things on paper. Now — blink — they're online. The "marginal" characters — blacks, Asians, gays, Latinos — have moved to center stage. Even reality has become another story. What is Survivor if not Cast Away with more people and no volleyball?

The impulse to hear stories and tell them will always be with us. It's as prehistoric as that ape-man. Life, after all, is a story. It provides us with an instinctive appetite for all the other stories we come upon or create, from the fairy tales at the beginning of our days to the obituary at the end. Children always plead, "Tell it to me again." Here are six people who do just that, in ways you never imagined.

 


Will the 21st century produce more important innovations than the last? Who will be the top inventors? Tell us if you agree with TIME's choices.


Which of the following breakthroughs do you think will come first?

The ability to clone humans
A cure for cancer
Extending the average life past 100
Other


Do you know the next Einstein? Is your neighbor working on the next great health breakthrough? If so, e-mail us the name of your nominee, explaining in 50 words or less why we should choose him or her.

Go to the Time 100

About the Series

PHOTOS: Petraglyphs by MACDUFF EVERTON/CORBIS
Mark Amerika by JEFFREY LOWE FOR TIME
Helen DeWitt by CATRINA GENOVESE FOR TIME
David Gordon Green by MELANIE DUNEA/CPI FOR TIME
Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez by MOJGAN B. AZIMI FOR TIME
Suzan-Lori Parks by JONATHAN SAUNDERS FOR TIME
Copyright © 2001 Time Inc. All rights reserved.
Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.
Privacy Policy