From Slate (HT: Marginal Revolutions): The world of scientists remains distant and bizarre to most Americans. Only 18 percent of Americans know a scientist personally, according to a 2005 survey (subscription required), and when asked in 2007 to name scientific “role models,” the results were dismal. Forty-four percent of Americans couldn’t come up with a [...]
I don’t think there’s anyone who knows even the slightest bit about Richard Feynman who isn’t in awe not only at the guy’s sheer brilliance, but the crazy antics that he is said to have partook in. Case in point: Feynman was one of the scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project (responsible for producing [...]
Everyone knows Einstein is one of history’s most formidable geniuses. But, and this is something I just discovered, almost all of his seminal, scientific-revolution inspiring work was published in ONE YEAR (1905, today considered to be the Annus Mirabilis or the “Miracle Year”). And did he do this while working at a premier research institute? [...]