Einstein Has Left the Building

Ant writes to tell us of an interesting editorial by John Horgan that is being run by the New York Times asking "will there ever be another Einstein?". The author looks at why Einstein holds such a hallowed position in public opinion and why it will be so hard for any one physicist to attain the same level of fame today. From the article: "The paradoxical answer, Gleick suggested, is that there are so many brilliant physicists alive today that it has become harder for any individual to stand apart from the pack. In other words, our perception of Einstein as a towering figure is, well, relative."

Comments

Re:Exactly! I think thats the point.

[Mycroft_VIII]

"...or that dude who created Frankenstein..."

That would be his parents.
Frankenstien WAS the (mad)scientist. His 'creation' was named Adam and is sometimes called "Frankenstiens monster".
    Just taking my turn with picking nits. No harmfull/mean intent here.

Mycroft

Re:strange viewpoint

[Jim_Callahan]

Everyone always brings up Franklin when talking about DNA. Why? Wow, she was a crystallographer that collected data. You know what? Wow! She wasn't part of the group that finally pieced together the interpretation that earned the nobel prize. Not part of the interpretation, no credit for you.

This is how it works in the world of research. The grad student sent by the professor to take the photos of the fungus or whatever doesn't get his name on the paper unless he also came up with the ideas that form the core of the paper. I'm not exactly a fan of Crick and his drinking buddy, but it's because I think their discovery wasn't that impressive in the first place (the award should have gone to the guys that figured out that DNA was the primary genetic material, not the guys that figured out the structure: the structure wasn't that hard, and in fact Crick + Watson barely finished modeling it before half a dozen other labs). However, to claim that Franklin should recieve credit for the interpretation of a set of data just because she supplied a subset of the data is kind of ridiculous.

I really just don't get it. I guess I just never really caught on to the revisionist "everything important was actually done by a woman(gasp)" meme that's alternated with the revisionist "everyone that ever did anything noteworthy was actually homosexual(gasp)" meme throughout my gradeschool education. I think that they melded in my head at some point with the "white people never made a positive contribution to the society of the world" and "the american civil war was all about wether some dark-colored losers could vote" memes to form the giant killer-robot "historians are full of bullshit and starved for attention" meme that's stuck with me ever since.

Ok, I'm done wandering way the hell off topic. Going to go refill my gin+tonic and complain about politics to the wall mirror now.