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Compared to Feynman or Erdős or Tesla ;-)
by smanek 17y ago
Compared to Feynman or Erdős or Tesla ;-)
- michael_dorfman 17y agoFeynman and Erdős aren't modern? How about Hawking? I mean,"alive" would have to count for something in the "modern" department, right?
- Alex3917 17y agoIn the context of the article, I would consider modern to mean admitted into grad school later than 1985. It doesn't make sense to talk about people like Hawking because we're talking about the selection effects of school.
- michael_dorfman 17y agoSo, they don't really mean "modern", they mean "young". And they don't really measure a baseline of "dullness" for any preceding generation of young scientists. And of course it doesn't make sense to talk about Hawking, if he is a counter-example.
- jamesbritt 17y agoNit picker. :) I was watching the original version of The Day the Earth Stood Still, and there was one scene that stood out as marking this film as truly from another time. Klaatu is talking to the boy, asking him about who the famous scientists are. And the boy knows! And acts as if everyone in American knows! I gather there are many interesting contemporary scientists, but they simply get no attention in modern culture.
- smanek 17y agoI don't think it's a cultural thing - I just don't think modern scientists are as personally interesting (for the most part). Most people know of, say, Hawking or Perelman because of their personal stories. But even their lives aren't as near as compelling as the greats of the last generation. Not to mention the face that 50 years ago, the work being done was much more significant. I hate to say it, but no truly 'ground breaking' work has really been done in the last half century. There are still a lot of open questions - but we just haven't found the answer. We've just been refining our knowledge of the important work done before that. (Note: I don't mean to say no new work has been done, just nothing major. Name something done in the last 50 years that could compare to the fundamental work done in Quantum Mechanics, Relativity, Genetics, Computation Theory, etc. before that.)
- calambrac 17y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Model http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Model
- smanek 17y agoFine, you got me - that was 40 years ago, not 50 like I said ;-)
- calambrac 17y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Genome_Project http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Genome_Project (for the list of interesting contemporary scientists, I'll nominate Venter. That guy is a trip.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanning_tunneling_microscope http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanning_tunneling_microscope http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-key_cryptography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-key_cryptography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memristor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memristor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractals http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractals All since 1970, is that recent enough? And, ya know, sometimes it does actually take a little time for major achievements to be recognized as such.
- apu 17y agoAs well as the fact that sometimes entire new fields open up in very short periods of time -- for example, physicists thought at the end of the 19th century that they were basically just tying up loose ends, when relativity and quantum mechanics burst on the scene (in a relatively short time span).
- smanek 17y agoI don't know - Id on't consider those to be that significant. The Human Genome project was a fairly natural extension of the discovery of DNA 50+ years ago, the DARPA Grand Challenge is a pretty natural extension of Turing, Von Neumann, etc.'s works 50+ years ago. I'm not saying the things you list weren't hugely important, I'm just saying that they weren't as fundamental as the entirely new fields that were developed earlier (relativity, quantum mechanics, theory of computation, etc).
- smanek 17y agoWith all due respect to Hawking - I don't think he's anywhere near as interesting as Feynman or Erdos. Feynman traveled to Brazil to learn Bongo drums on whim, he worked in a Strip Club, mastered the art of the pickup, broke into TS safes at the Manhattan Project, was a well known painter under a pseudonym, etc. Erdos was basically homeless, and would show up at mathematician's doors unannounced looking for a roof - and while under their roof, would collaborate on some of the most ground breaking work of the century. He was a heavy drug user, active libertarian, etc. I'm sure Hawking can compete in terms of intellect or work (I have no idea - I'm not capable of judging), but he is nowhere near as interesting.
- Eliezer 17y agoOh, come on! Hawking's supposed to go mountain climbing or something? Guy's got a legitimate excuse.
- smanek 17y agoHawking's story is extraordinary - but you can fill books with entertaining anecdotes Feynman's exploits (in fact, they have). Hawkings probably 'wins' in terms of sheer impressiveness of what he has accomplished and what he has overcome. But I still stand by saying that Feynman was more entertaining.
- Zancarius 17y ago> But I still stand by saying that Feynman was more entertaining. I agree that Feynman is entertaining, and he's something of a legend. I do feel that Hawking is not just fascinating in his own right but he's AMAZINGLY inspirational. Given the adversity he has faced for much of his life, the fact that he still pursues his love of science should be a lesson to all of us. To call his story merely "extraordinary" is doing a grave disservice to such an incredible individual.
- calambrac 17y agoYou didn't say 'entertaining' before, you said 'interesting'.
- antiform 17y agoNo way. There are tons of people in the sciences with very interesting lives, they just don't have people knocking down their door to write popular biographies like Feynman, Erdös, or Tesla. I say that living mathematicians like John Nash Jr., Shing-tung Yau, and Alexander Grothendieck have much more interesting lives than the examples you mentioned.