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Tomorrow's Science Heroes?
An anonymous reader writes "As a kid I was (and still am) heavily influenced by Carl Sagan, and a little later by Stephen Hawking. Now as I have started a family with two kids, currently age 5 and 2, I am wondering who out there is popularizing science. Currently, my wife and I can get the kids excited about the world around them, but I'd like to find someone inspiring from outside the family as they get older. Sure, we'll always have 'Cosmos,' but are there any contemporaries who are trying to bring science into the public view in such a fun and intriguing way? Someone the kids can look up to and be inspired by? Where is the next Science Hero?"
No, it was an outright refusal to accept quantum physics as a anything but a curiosity - an interesting but ultimately fruitless dead end. Unto the day he died Einstein refused to accept that the quantum physics explanation of the sub atomic world was any more science than aether. He even coined the term "sooky action at a distance" before it was observed in an attempt to derride the ridiculousness of that particular consequence of the quantum model. While his extrapolation on the idea of entanglement and quantum teleportation were meant to demonstrate how ridiculous quantum theory was, it ended up being the basis for experiments that proved the theory valid. It was not a simple "lament" as Einstein never considered the non-quantum past of physics to be "the past." He was quite blinded by this refusal.
Dr. Tim Flannery is someone whose work I have introduced all of my young relatives too. He may not be as well recognised outside of Australian and I can honestly say I don't always share his viewpoint; but he conveys the points well and with great passion.
Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki has been doing a scientifically credible, entertaining and honest version of what the mythbuster's do on radio in Australia for donkeys years and is pure gold when it comes to making science fun and accessible.
err!
Jak.
I know he's not a scientist per se, but David Attenborough had a huge influence on me as a child, along with BBC nature as a whole. As a child I'd watch them over and over and that interest passed over to the other sciences as a whole. He's the perfect person to get your kids into science as a whole. (I teach physics now).
Tyson gets my vote, too, but my kids like: Bill Nye the Science Guy, Beakman (from Beakman's World), Alton Brown.
In addition to names of the people themselves, can anybody recommend any good science documentaries/talks/books? I'd recommend the following:
If anyone can add to this list, I'd appreciate it. It'd be nice to seek out more science shows and related things.
I'd also recommend the following on YouTube:
(And now I need to ramble on for ages because Slashdot's software claims I have too few characters per line... A curious requirement. Just ignore this paragraph, it contains absolutely no meaningful information at all. Seriously, though, check out the above YouTube clips if nothing else. Really, Cosmos and A Short History of Nearly Everything should be given to everyone at birth...)
[...] many eminent scientists have managed to reconcile their faith with their job. Einstein, for example. I sure you'd agree that he was capable of 'thought'...
Could we please put this myth to rest now? Einstein wasn't religious, at least not in a form most people would label as such:
"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal god and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."
There a plenty of religious scientists out there, they are capable of thought, why not use one of them as an example?