Sciencey Heroes For Young Children?

An anonymous reader writes "Unhappy that all his friends have heroes he knows nothing about (they've all chosen hockey players — actually a hockey player: Sidney Crosby), my eight-year-old son asked me if I would find him a 'cool hero.' When pressed to define 'cool,' he very earnestly gave me this list of acceptable professions: 'Astronauts, explorers, divers, scientists, and pilots.' A second and only slightly less worthy tier of occupations includes 'inventors, meteorologists, and airplane designers.' To be eligible for hero status, an individual must be (1) accomplished in one of these fields, (2) reasonably young (it pains me to report that Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger, NASA's youngest astronaut and now just 31, barely makes the cut), and, critically to my naive son's way of thinking, (3) respected by third graders nationwide. Ignoring that last criterion, or not, what heroes would you suggest from the sciences as people whose lives and accomplishments would be compelling to an eight-year-old mind?"

Comments

Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger is 35...

[King InuYasha]

Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger is 35 as of this year, not 31....

Re:Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger is 35...

[WrongSizeGlass]

Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger is 35 as of this year, not 31....

To be fair, I don't believe math was a requirement listed by his son.

Re:Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger is 35...

[sumdumass]

His kid probably asked the question 4 and a half years ago and it took this long to get published on slashdot. His math is probably good.

Re:Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger is 35...

[c0mpliant]

Except the fact that the poster who you replied to is not anonymous and you simply chose to troll this person randomly.
You constantly create different accounts using the same name and then troll for all your worth.

In relation to Dottie, she would be a good candidate but she isn't "respected by third graders nationwide". I'm afraid that you wont find anyone who fits your requirements if you limit yourself to that particular demographic

Re:Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger is 35...

[robthebloke]

Joe Kitinger's jump from space always impressed me. There are a couple of people attempting to break the record in the next year or two. Those people may qualify as 'heros', or lunatics, depending on your point of view....

Of course, there's always Bloodhound SSC......

Re:Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger is 35...

[sumdumass]

Have problems with humor and reality much? Oh Well, I guess it's a good thing I never quite thought highly of you either.

Re:Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger is 35...

[MichaelKristopeit191]

facts aren't always humorous.

Re:Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger is 35...

[sumdumass]

they're not always as you see them either.

get over yourself

Outreach

[j1m 5n0w]

wwwxkcd.com/585

Re:Outreach

[arbitraryaardvark]

i was thinking more http://xkcd.com/695/ (might not be safe for work; some people cry when reading this)

Re:Outreach

[j1m 5n0w]

I also find that one very sad.

Re:Outreach

[FrameRotBlues]

Luckily, someone did a rewrite.

http://imgs.xkcd.com/blag/spirit_rewrite_unknown_author.png

Re:Outreach

[Jarik C-Bol]

you're right, that one is way better.

Re:Outreach

[klossner]

To make that comic safe for work, always include this variant. Besides being upbeat, it's a better reflection of what's really going on -- the stationary rover was just involved in finding evidence of subsurface water.

Re:Outreach

[GameboyRMH]

Hahaha, yes much better (and more accurate as well).

Here's a few

[mknewman]

Mythbusters Adam and Jamie, Dean Kamin, and even Mike Rowe come to mind.

Re:Here's a few

[Anonymous Coward]

No Kari? Sacrilege!!!

Re:Here's a few

[AnonymousClown]

They're TV performers - none of them studied science academically - what? Russian Lit and no college for the other one?

Neil DeGrasse Tyson would be my best suggestion.

Re:Here's a few

[l3ert]

She's more of a sidekick.

Re:Here's a few

[Anonymous Coward]

XKCD Zombie Feynman says, "so what?" They've got the spirit of it, if not the formalism and rigor.

This is even more the case since we're looking at examples for young children who need the showmanship and wouldn't appreciate the difference anyway.

Re:Here's a few

[spinkham]

Brian Cox, aslo known as the "rock star of Physics". Works on the Large Hadron Collider, has his own TV series on the solar system, was in the 2009 "sexiest men alive" issue of People, and played the keys for some semi-famous 90's bands. Not too shabby.

Re:Here's a few

[jordanjay29]

Aren't they too old? I believe Adam is in his 40s and Jamie's gotta be almost 50 by now if he isn't already.

Re:Here's a few

[jordanjay29]

They have done quite a bit to advance the public's thinking of science, and without passing through years of deadlocked science conferences, unread magazine articles and academic review.

Then again, they've done this without those kinds of checks, which means that their science could be (and has been proved to be, on revisits of myths) incorrect.

Re:Here's a few

[Martin Blank]

The willingness to revisit myths is a hallmark of the scientific process, though. They have a hypothesis -- the myth -- and collect initial evidence to determine a certain level of plausibility. They then move to large-scale experiments. In some cases, their experiments disprove the hypothesis. However, upon peer review (using the term loosely), problems with their experiments may be pointed out, and they revise and rerun the experiment. Sometimes the original results are overturned, and they can, to some degree, form a theory.

The Mythbusters are the first to claim that what they do is more entertainment than science. You just don't often hear things like "Jamie wants big boom" coming from real scientists. But normal people learn from their abbreviated process anyway, as you said, and that's what is important right now.

Re:Here's a few

[Skal Tura]

Who said you got to STUDY to be a scientist? ...

That's just moronic to say "If you didn't goto uni to be a scientist, you can't do any science". Plenty of good science is done without any major degrees etc.

Infact, there are many with just high school under their belt or less that do science. Like it or not, but there is uneducated people doing research by the scientific method.

Re:Here's a few

[Joce640k]

I grudgingly agree. I'm not sure I like him personally but he's cool, hip and has plenty of TV programs to collect.

While you're at it though, make sure he has a copy of Carl Sagan's cosmos. Every kid should own that.

And maybe James Burke's "connections", too...though I'm showing my age there.

Re:Here's a few

[Chaseshaw]

awesome. exactly agree 100%.

Re:Here's a few

[bertoelcon]

Aren't they too old? I believe Adam is in his 40s and Jamie's gotta be almost 50 by now if he isn't already.

Then say Grant, Tory, and Kari?

Re:Here's a few

[Frosty Piss]

Mike Rowe is a middle-aged woman fantasy, and the other three are creepy.

Re:Here's a few

[jordanjay29]

That explains the walrus mustache. No respectable late-20th century man would wear such a thing. Oh, and the beret.

Re:Here's a few

[c6gunner]

Then say Grant, Tory, and Kari?

40, 40, and 36.

Yeah, I know, I was surprised too.

Re:Here's a few

[syousef]

They're TV performers - none of them studied science academically - what? Russian Lit and no college for the other one?

I don't think that is offtopic at all, and I wish people would stop voting based on how much they like Mythbusters. Mythbusters makes a mockery of the scientific method. I'd be fine if it was recognised as entertainment touching on science, but too many people learn all their science technique from the show instead of using it as an example of how to abuse the scientific method and pay attention to it only when it's an excuse to blow something up or build something wacky.

Re:Here's a few

[syousef]

People also learn how not to be rigorous and how to be lazy (not look for holes in their hypotheses or experimental technique then just dismiss these shortcomings). I think mythbusters is dangerous precisely because it presents such laziness as reasonable science for laymen.

Re:Here's a few

[Miseph]

I'd also add that their "research" is hardly ground-breaking or important. Important research into string theory or medical technology warrants an altogether different level of seriousness and scientific rigor than does testing the plausibility of urban legends.

Re:Here's a few

[bonkeroo buzzeye]

Where's his comic book? Buckaroo Banzai had a comic book.

Re:Here's a few

[Anonymous Coward]

The average layman won't be affected by any of this "research". They merely demonstrate the scientific process in a shortened form. Why is that so deplorable to all of you? They didn't say "I ate a bagel today and don't have cancer. BAGELS CURE CANCER!!!!!" They're testing wives' tales. If they teach people the basics in "think of a question/topic, make a reasoned hypothesis as to what happens, find a way to test it, get some results, OH WAIT someone pointed out an error ==> retest it, have a conclusion" that's what's important. Get off your high horse.

Re:Here's a few

[SLOviper]

Don't forget:
Kari Byron - Mythbusters, Head Rush (new science show for kids)
Grant Imahara - Mysthbusters, BattleBots (what kid doesn't like killer robots?)
Tori Belleci - Mythbusters and special effects work on popular movies (Star Wars, Matrix, etc.)

Re:Here's a few

[mr_mischief]

I'm glad to see someone mentioned "Connections". The only show I've seen lately that comes close to the kind of cross-borders and cross-discipline thinking of that show is "The History of Money". Despite the name and major theme, there's a lot more to it than people might think until they see a couple of episodes.

Re:Here's a few

[ShakaUVM]

>>Mythbusters Adam and Jamie, Dean Kamin, and even Mike Rowe come to mind.

How about some women? Everyone knows about Marie Curie, but few people know about Lise Meitner, who was like Anne Frank - a Jew who fled to the Netherlands to avoid Nazis - but also discovered nuclear fission.

Some fun excerpts from her life involve using the Physicist Underground Railroad (I shit you not) to escape from Germany, including several of her physicist friends running interference when an Evil Nazi Physicist was trying to rat her out, and who published papers that would be used to develop the nuclear bomb (Chain Reaction + E=mc^2 = Boom) anonymously... while living in mortal fear for her life.

For her accomplishments, her partner was awarded the Nobel Prize.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lise_Meitner

Re:Here's a few

[Darinbob]

AKA, Buckaroo Bonzai?

Re:Here's a few

[Cwix]

That explains so much.

Re:Here's a few

[Anonymous Coward]

You just don't often hear things like "Jamie wants big boom" coming from real scientists.

Thus proving that you dont actually know any real scientists.

Re:Here's a few

[sjames]

They shouldn't feel so bad about that. Issac Newton has also been proven incorrect when his "myths" were revisited. It hardly diminishes his contribution to science.

More to the point, they're as much or more entertainment than science by design. After all, they'd like for people to watch the show. While they do lack the rigor of hard science, they make up for it in approachability. While we can't expect everyone to know and apply graduate level physics, the high school level physics they frequently employ and demonstrate on the show are well within the realm of possibility for just about everyone (and quite useful to know).

People won't learn all they need to know to be a scientist watching them (that's what universities are for), but they WILL learn to think in terms of hypothesis, experiment, observation, and conclusion. That's a big step up from where public education leaves most people.

With any luck, people will apply that in their lives, especially when voting.

Re:Here's a few

[mangu]

People also learn how not to be rigorous and how to be lazy (not look for holes in their hypotheses or experimental technique then just dismiss these shortcomings)

You have never actually watched a Mythbusters episode, have you?

They are always looking for hole in their hypotheses, any demonstration they do present alternative theories and the checks they do to verify them. It's only that the time they have on air for each one is limited, so they need to have priorities.

Re:Here's a few

[Boomerang Fish]

I'd have to agree with this on the level of likely media awareness of a young child... if you're looking for heroes he won't have to explain, then these are probably the most scientific... not rigorous in the sense of a University Physics lab, but a heck of a lot more rigorous than most anything else that gets wide media attention... identify what to test (myth), give initial hypothesis (explanation), identify how to test, revise if necessary, test, scale up, come to conclusion, revise in later shows, re-test, etc.

Other "heroes" to consider might be internet entrepreneurs, who while not being scientific themselves, managed to take new technology in directions not grasped before... Facebook, Google, Netscape... might be more commercially oriented than you want, but still, it's an area your son and his friends will know well soon, if he doesn't already.

Unfortunately true scientific or mathematical skill comes with a lot of background work and most don't get the credit they deserve, even when older, but definitely not while they're still learning.

I told my daughter (now 17) that true skill takes time, and the flashiness of athletes and movie stars almost always dies quickly... a few make it, but thousands don't. I tried to teach her (I hope successfully, and her math and science grades suggest I might have succeeded at least a little bit...) that a hero is one who sticks to her guns, as long as the evidence supports her, and isn't afraid to admit when they were wrong and change their theories. The hero is one true to the search, not the result... cause it only takes one bad result to take you down.

Hope this helps in some small way :-)

--
I drank what?

Re:Here's a few

[gl4ss]

it would be good if they could stay as heroes when they grow up, it's hard on your psyche if your heros turn out as douches. imagine if you had pushed succesfully the cold fusion guys as heros for your kid.

a quick fix idol is no good, especially when you don't know yet if they were a villain or a hero - von braun could have been both. it would just be better to teach history to the kids, truth shall make them free.

if they want mathematical/logic heros, go for carmack, linus etc. but even they're too old "now".

Re:Here's a few

[stiggle]

Einstein was a patent clerk.
Da Vinci was a painter.
Priestley was clergy (he discovered oxygen, & invented carbonated drinks).
Since when was a lack of university education & a job in the field a requirement to be a scientist - all you need is the ability and interest to investigate the subject. Even better if you can encourage the next generation to become interested too.

Studying science academically just means you're taught what everyone else already knows and your thinking is moulded by your lecturers.

To make decent and safe explosions, you need to be a physicist as well as a chemist, and I'm sure most pyrotechnicians don't have either of those to degree level.
 

Re:Here's a few

[alecclews]

Talking of rock stars, Brian May of Queen is also an astrophysicist

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_May

Re:Here's a few

[stiggle]

Their research is the most important possible for the kids of this generation.

No kid is going to get excited about science and go "yay, I want to be a scientist and study string theory". They are more likely to want to play with focusing mirrors to make fire, to use high pressure water hose to make jetpacks.

Mythbusters shows that you can make cool & interesting stuff at home which will get kids interested in becoming the next generation of scientists and engineers.

Re:Here's a few

[jedidiah]

You might want to confirm this with a little science of your own. The answer will probably surprise you.

Re:Here's a few

[Chelloveck]

You just don't often hear things like "Jamie wants big boom" coming from real scientists.

You obviously don't hang out with many real scientists!

Re:Here's a few

[DuckDodgers]

Mythbusters is closer to real peer-reviewed science then most of the political, religious, economic, and health beliefs held by large portions of the world population. I'll take a large but flawed step in the right direction over the status quo, thank you very much.

Re:Here's a few

[syousef]

You have never actually watched a Mythbusters episode, have you?

They are always looking for hole in their hypotheses, any demonstration they do present alternative theories and the checks they do to verify them. It's only that the time they have on air for each one is limited, so they need to have priorities.

I have watched a lot of Mythbusters episodes and am constantly appauled by the obvious tests that they miss (presumably because they don't involve an explosion), and the way they jump to definite conclusions by taking a specific case they've demonstrated and assuming that it represents the more general case. Air time has nothing to do with it. How exciting an explosion they can make excuses for is all they care about. BOOM = Exciting. Science = Tedious. Ugh.

Re:Here's a few

[syousef]

Mythbusters is closer to real peer-reviewed science then most of the political, religious, economic, and health beliefs held by large portions of the world population. I'll take a large but flawed step in the right direction over the status quo, thank you very much.

First of all lots of worse science doesn't make Mythbusters good. Secondly the fact that you think what they do even compares to real peer-reviewed science is exactly why I dislike the show. It's misleading, dangerous, and doesn't even touch on the true beauty that is scientific discovery and scientific method.

Re:Here's a few

[syousef]

There's no high horse here. Blowing shit up isn't science. Testing one hypothesis and generalising based on a specific example isn't science either.

Re:Here's a few

[rjstanford]

Yet another obXKCD...

Re:Here's a few

[Talderas]

Einstein got a degree from the Zurich Polytechnic in physics. His attitude just made it very hard for him to get his doctorate or even a position in academia.

Re:Here's a few

[MonsterTrimble]

I think everyone is missing the point here with Mythbusters. Is there science dicey at times? Absolutely. Is the scientific method rigorous? Not even close. Is it entertaining? You bet your ass. I would much rather sit down with my son and watch episodes of Mythbusters over almost anything else on TV. Why? First and foremost, nobody dies or raped or anything like that. Second, it gives them an entertaining package and at the same time maybe they learn something from it. Teaching is 25% knowledge and 75% theatrics. If my child gets hooked on doing experiments or tinkering with electronics and machines from watching Mythbusters, mission fucking accomplished.

Re:Here's a few

[SoupGuru]

You know what would get kids interested in science again? Making them read research papers.

Re:Here's a few

[elrous0]

Tyson is almost twice the specified age limit. You read specs like a Microsoft engineer.

Re:Here's a few

[Martin Blank]

I did say, "often." I do know a couple of people involved in research, and they do get excited about experiments, but most of them don't involve explosives and there's a lot of data review and paper writing in between.

Once in a while, though...

Re:Here's a few

[DavidTC]

Dude, the layman has no idea how science works at all.

Almost no one in this country can even give an brief summary of the scientific method. Almost no one knows how science works at all, in any manner. They can't give any explanation of what scientists actually do or how they do it.

Complaining about the Mythbuster's lack of rigor is like complaining about how teaching Maxwell's equations ignores quantum effects.

And I'll point out that science doesn't require rigor. Or, more specifically, it requires as much rigor as the field requires. As the Mythbusters are operating in their own field of 'urban legend', perhaps that field has exactly as much rigor as that field wants.

You want more rigor, you start doing scientific research in that field and start complaining about their lack of rigor, until then, shut up...you don't get to define how much rigor is needed for random field of science. Different fields have different accepted standards. Until some distinguished 'urban legend' institutions start criticizing their lack of rigor, and stops using their results, they have enough.

Re:Here's a few

[cowscows]

Yeah, the reality of science (like the reality of just about any other field you can choose for a profession) is that 95% of what you do is completely boring. Almost every job in the history of the world is like that, and will continue to be so until those lazy ass computer scientists finally figure out Artificial Intelligence and we can truly have machines do all of the mundane tasks.

Real science takes lots of dull repetitive work. Good, useful results have to be weaseled out of mounds of noisy data and dead ends. That kind of work is not fun to watch, and is certainly not going to appeal to kids or get them interested in science. For every touchdown that Drew Brees throws, he's spent hours watching film, running drills, and working out in the gym, yet for some reason the NFL doesn't try to make us watch all those hours of boring work. They show the good stuff, and that's what keeps people interested in football. The Mythbusters sort of do the same thing for general science.

Re:Here's a few

[plcurechax]

You just don't often hear things like "Jamie wants big boom" coming from real scientists.

You obviously don't hang out with many real scientists!

We just try not to be recorded saying that.

Actaully we'd say, AC wants massive exothermic reaction

Re:Here's a few

[story645]

But they generalize back to the hypothesis that they were testing in the first place: basically they have a situation, they try to recreate the situation, they make a statement about the situation based on the results they get: hey that sounds like just about any academic paper I've ever read that's not a meta analysis.

Re:Here's a few

[DavidTC]

too many people learn all their science technique from the show

In other words, too many people have no knowledge of the scientific method at all, and you're complaining that they learn it from a place that doesn't take itself very seriously or worry about publishing results.

Instead, you would rather they have no idea how science work at all.

Re:Here's a few

[Dachannien]

I believe Tory spells it with a "y" on the end. But if he did spell it with an "i", I'm sure he'd dot it with a little heart.

Re:Here's a few

[GameboyRMH]

Mod parent Informative!

Re:Here's a few

[GameboyRMH]

Holy crap, are you sure you didn't accidentally add 10 anywhere?

Re:Here's a few

[Relic of the Future]

Second on Tyson. He's great with kids (actually, he's great for any age). Just don't tell your son that he's over 50.

Re:Here's a few

[Coren22]

As I recall, and don't feel like reading wikipedia to verify, Einstein didn't even finish high school.

Re:Here's a few

[Coren22]

But, he's 42, he's sooo OLD! (joke, I am 30 and would hardly consider that old)

Re:Here's a few

[magictiger]

Before Mythbusters, people thought of science as boring. Some nerdy guy with glasses and a white lab coat looking at some complex thing setup on a table and marking notes on paper. Boy, what kid WOULDN'T want to get in on THAT action! Man, I bet that guy gets all the chicks.

Enter Mythbusters. It's not great science, but it's helping change society's idea of what science is. When science is fun and exciting, it's a lot easier to catch the attention of children and bring more people into the field.

Scientific discovery and use of the scientific method may be beautiful, but it's dull. Nobody will watch a show where the premise is as boring to the average person as real science. With Mythbusters, I know I'm probably getting an explosion out of it, America is entertained by what they consider science, and I'm ok with that.

Re:Here's a few

[syousef]

They flap their lips and use words like hypothesis and test, but it's only an excuse to blow shit up. Obvious tests are missed. Conclusions are drawn on insufficient data. It is about as much like real science as caracature painting is like fine art.

Re:Here's a few

[syousef]

Before Mythbusters, people thought of science as boring.

Now your crediting Mythbusters with the popularisation of science? You're ignoring everything else from space exploration and the manned space race, to aerospace engineering, to nuclear physics, to environmentalism. My god man, you're dellusional!

I agree with you about one thing. Mythbusters isn't great science. It's great special effects. That's what they're trained in after all. People have always wanted to see things go boom.

Re:Here's a few

[syousef]

You're doing a great disservice to your son sheltering him instead of guiding him through what can sometimes be a horrid world, and teaching him that learning is only interesting when it's theatrical. All the truely great science was 99% sweat, not things going boom in the most exciting way. You should be teaching your son to be excited about the discovery, not the theatrics.

Re:Here's a few

[peslick]

I know! Its such a burden to be so much smarter than lay-people. I'm pretty sure that, for the most part, the members of the general public have a reasonably good idea of how science works.

Re:Here's a few

[DavidTC]

I'm pretty sure that, for the most part, the members of the general public have a reasonably good idea of how science works.

You can 'be sure' of that all you want, but that doesn't make it true.

Perhaps you should test your hypothesis by asking people if they can describe either what scientists do in general (and, no, 'experiments' doesn't count.) or the scientific method.

And I don't mean getting it exactly how it's phrased in some book, I mean they can't get it at all. They can't explain 'Come up with a theory about something or take someone else's, figure out a way to test that, actually test it, see and tell people what the test said and modify their theory if the test didn't say what they said it would, repeat'.

The average person knows that scientists are running experiments, and measuring them, and just generally supposes that's it, without the slightest hint there's anything else, that all of science is about predicting things and testing the predictions.

Which is why the Mythbusters are so important. They take someone else's theory about how the world works (Aka, the myth.), explain what they think would happen, run the experiment, draw conclusions, and do it again. It's as clear a demonstration of the scientific method as possible.

Yes, they have almost no rigor, but considering the experiment they're 'repeating' had no fucking rigor to start with, and was just people repeating stories to each other without any proof they happened at all, much less that they happened under controled circumstances...the Mythbusters win the 'rigor' contest.

If someone is asserting that wooden things fall up, without an actual experiment behind them, you don't really need rigor in your experiment to disprove them. 'I shall let go of this piece of wood that can move up or down...I observe it's on the ground' is good enough.

Re:Here's a few

[peslick]

Its really easy to make judgements about the "average person." I'm genuinely annoyed by this sentiment that the general public are a bunch of uneducated slobs. A lot of scientists act like they're almost burdened with their vast superiority. Keeping in mind, of course, that I am a scientist and these judgements I making are primarily about the people I work with. Also, I openly admit that my statements have not been rigorously tested or confirmed.

Re:Here's a few

[Mr. Slippery]

They're TV performers - none of them studied science academically - what?

Science doesn't care whether you study it academically, it cares that you study it experimentally.

Faraday had little formal education, but discovered electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism, the laws of electrolysis, the fact that magnetism can effect light, and laid the foundation for the development of the electric motor and dynamo. And he invented the Faraday cage. Oh, he also discovered benzene and invented an early form of the Bunsen burner, synthesized the first chorlocarbon compounds, and was the first to report on nanoparticles. Some historians rank him as the best experimentalist, ever.

Age is a Problem

[TheWanderingHermit]

His friends are all looking at sports heroes and you're looking at people with long careers. There's a big difference.

Athletes only have a few decades in which they'll do well, then they retire. So it's easy to find a younger athlete as a hero: as they get older, they lose it.

But almost all the other professions take time to get experienced in. They require learning and years of experience to excel, other than something like astronaut, which can include younger people.

Too bad you can't include people like Chuck Yeager or Wiley Post.

Re:Age is a Problem

[Brucelet]

What on Earth (or off it) makes you say that being an astronaut doesn't take years of training and experience?

Re:Age is a Problem

[TheWanderingHermit]

It takes less training (in terms of time and years) than it does to make a name in other fields.

Physical shape is an issue in space flight, just like in sports, so age is, again, a factor.

Re:Age is a Problem

[sumdumass]

By the years training and experience, I think he was meaning something in context with being the best scientists or something verses becoming a stellar athlete above others in the same field. You can be an astronaut in about the same amount of time it takes to go from a rookie not well known to a famous sports player. In the other fields, it takes decades of applied knowledge and the ability to use that knowledge to become known on the same level.

This is probably because of media exposure involved in it. In sports and being an astronaut, you get a lot more media coverage then someone working in a lab to figure out way to build stronger bridges using less material or someone who notices something new in the sky at night. The opportunities to shine and become famous/well known/a hero are simply more often for astronauts then most of the other professions mentioned.

Re:Age is a Problem

[Will.Woodhull]

Jacques Cousteau.

He was a young man when he was involved in developing scuba gear. Before even then, he had made a name for himself in exploring reefs by free diving. He lived, in a very literal way, by applying his knowledge of fluid dynamics, the physics of gases under pressure, and human biology to what was until then an alien environment.

As a fringe benefit, much of his story is documented with wonderful photography. As a second fringe benefit, he continued to be on the forefront of oceanography for his entire life.

Too bad he doesn't fit the criteria, because he'd be a great choice for a scientific hero. But he is way too old. And he is dead.

Re:Age is a Problem

[mrzaph0d]

I would say Yeager fits because of the age he was when he became famous. In addition to breaking the sound barrier at 24, he was also the first commandant of the USAF Aerospace Research Pilot School at 39.

Re:Age is a Problem

[pla]

But almost all the other professions take time to get experienced in. They require learning and years of experience to excel, other than something like astronaut, which can include younger people.

Actually, you have that backward. Astronauts require YEARS of training, which usually doesn't even start until they've had a reasonable distinguished early military career.

Most of the "rock stars" of science made their contributions while still quite young... Einstein published on special Relativity at 24, James Watson (of Watson & Crick) published on the structure of DNA (which he later admitted to "discovering" while trippin' balls) at 25. Alan Turing published his On Computable Numbers... at 24 and built the world's first real computer at 32.

I could go on.

Re:Age is a Problem

[TheWanderingHermit]

A) You're also talking the much rarer cases, ones that don't come along but every so often.

B) Name one of these that was considered cool or looked up to by 3rd graders.

Re:Age is a Problem

[pla]

You're also talking the much rarer cases, ones that don't come along but every so often.

Fair point, but we don't generally pick the typical Joe Scientist as our heroes...


Name one of these that was considered cool or looked up to by 3rd graders.

Well, I looked up to them as a 3rd grader... :D

Re:Age is a Problem

[TheWanderingHermit]

I did, too. And I think excluding the dead or those who are older but kicked ass when they were younger isn't fair, either. But, then again, we're talking 3rd grader logic here -- and I really do sympathize for the kid. I remember what it was like when I was in third grade, back about 1970 or so and I thought Captain Kirk was cooler than Keith Partridge.

SCUBA

[hipp5]

Jacques Cousteau is pretty damn cool. He kinda fails #2 though. Perhaps one of the younger Cousteaus?

Re:Peter Parker?

[Culture20]

Back in the day, real photographers were all chemists. Thus the photography link with a chemistry kit (and web fluid).

Carl

[hyperion2010]

So what if he's dead. ;_;

Adventurer / Surgeon / Rock Star

[Culture20]

Buckaroo Banzai

Re:Adventurer / Surgeon / Rock Star

[jockeys]

oh hell yes!

Wherever you go, there you are.

Re:Adventurer / Surgeon / Rock Star

[hawkfish]

Buckaroo Banzai

Note to mods: this is a movie character... Not a bad choice, though ;-)

Adam Savage

[celtica]

from Mythbusters

Re:Adam Savage

[morari]

Thank you! Mythbusters is just a bunch of guys goofing around. The scientific method rarely plays a part in their form of entertainment. Besides, am I the only one who thinks the main guys' personalities (especially the one without the beret) are annoying as heck?

Re:Adam Savage

[AnonGCB]

http://xkcd.com/397/

Re:Adam Savage

[sconeu]

Damn, I'd forgotten about that one. There's an XKCD for anything, isn't there?

Re:Adam Savage

[Creepy]

Well they certainly use scientific method to prove or disprove myths. I had a massive argument with a gamemaster for Traveller about explosive decompression - I said it just wouldn't happen with a small hole like a gunshot hole (simply because the hole isn't big enough), he said it would. This guy was working on a doctorate in physics - and mythbusters proved him wrong - too bad it was 10 years too late.

Re:Adam Savage

[jordanjay29]

There really is.

Re:Adam Savage

[Skal Tura]

Sounds to me like you haven't watched Mythbusters really at all.
There's actually a shitload of science going on, wrapped in an entertaining package of explosions and overkill.

Not knowing the name of Adam Savage "the one without the beret" just proofs you've never watched it really.

Sure sometimes the science is not successfull, but then again most science isn't successfull. I know myself quite a few times when they failed to recreate the end result, does not mean they did bad science, but that they found out ways not to get something happen and that there's something not as clearly visible in play. They often do go back and try again when fans point out that they got to be wrong, so in effect they are the most reviewed scientists in this little rock called earth.

Just because it's entertaining doesn't mean it's not science.

Re:Adam Savage

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like how stuck up fart sniffing art/music/literature snobs claim any artistic works/songs/books that are popular have no artistic merit, it seems some people feel that anything scientific that is also popular must not be real science. In both cases, they generate some sense of superiority by isolating themselves from things everyone else likes. They'll deny this to the end of course.

Obligatory xkcd.

Re:Adam Savage

[Joce640k]

C'mon, the "science" is barely visible and they make plenty of mistakes.

A whole program trying to deflect bullets with magnets. Aren't they made of lead?

No scientist would even bother trying to curve a bullet by flicking his wrist, or trying to swing 360 degrees. You don't need experiments to know that's not going to work.

Jet powered Chevy: "let's put the rockets at the back for stability, that's where NASA puts them". Um, NASA rockets are mounted on swivels and have guidance mechanisms to aim them...

I could go on and on and on. They're good at building stuff and some things can only be tried experimentally so fair enough, but "science" isn't their major...

Re:Adam Savage

[guyminuslife]

You don't need experiments to know that's not going to work.

If you have a good theory that's been tested to death and says otherwise, no, you don't. Newtonian physics is pretty good about ruling out the bullet-curving idea. On the other hand, in real science, you need to collect data. Otherwise we'd probably still be trying to determine the theoretical properties of aether. (Hint: it doesn't exist.) Sure, that episode didn't exactly break new ground and produce a publishable paper, but there's nothing unscientific about exhaustiveness. On the other hand, a disdain for collecting empirical evidence is pretty fucking unscientific.

Re:Adam Savage

[mr_mischief]

Well, not all bullets are made of lead, and those that contain lead are not always completely lead. have you ever heard of a jacketed bullet, as in "full metal jacket" (a term which was chosen as an inspired title for a pretty damn good film)? A jacketed round uses a potentially lighter but higher-strength metal like a steel alloy to allow the projectile to leave the chamber at higher velocities.

Also, every type of atom and molecule from hydrogen on up reacts to a magnetic field of high enough strength. Did you think the magnets in particle accelerators were just to hold the screwdrivers in place for the maintenance crews?

Re:Adam Savage

[Cwix]

Shhh... Careful.. positive talk about the mythbusters around here is kinda like saying something nice about Microsoft.

Roving bands of Uber-Nerds who are upset that someone made a TV show that can prove or disprove difficult to answer questions with trial and experiment. Of course its entertaining too, so there are many people out there, who dont qualify as "nerds" enjoying this pesudo science.

Positive talk of the mythbusters causes what could be analogous to a full moon to the werewolf to these Uber-nerds. They hike their britches up to their arm pits, ask for some cheese (dont give them any!!) and attack Adam and Jamie's supporters as unfit to enjoy science. If confronted by these Uber-Nerds puff out your chest, wave your arms, and threaten loudly to give them a wedgie or a swirly. If you have a calculator, or old cell phone, throw it in one direction and run in the other. Uber-nerds cant move fast with their pants so high.

Im a nerd, and I approve of Mythbusters. Anything that helps to pull the rest of the worlds collective head out of its collective ass is a good thing. It may not be true scientific method, but at least its based on reasoning and facts rather then mysterious sky daddies.

Re:Adam Savage

[steelyeyedmissileman]

Technically magnets work on particle accelerators because the atoms are ionized. Aside from that, your argument has merit.

Re:Adam Savage

[Coren22]

A whole program trying to deflect bullets with magnets. Aren't they made of lead?

No scientist would even bother trying to curve a bullet by flicking his wrist, or trying to swing 360 degrees. You don't need experiments to know that's not going to work.

Um, that is the basis of the Scientific Method.

Observe
Hypothesis
Predict Results
Test
Correct Hypothesis based on evidence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

Re:Adam Savage

[SleazyRidr]

A lot of it isn't science in the sense of testing theories. It is demonstrations of what actually happens. Sure you can look at a textbook, do some equations and then work it out, but that doesn't make very good TV.

Does it count as science when I crystallize a supersaturated solution. I know full well what's going to happen, and some of the children I show it to have an idea as well, but actually seeing it happen - that's where the magic of science happens.

Re:Adam Savage

[Joce640k]

When enough science has been done in the past you don't need to re-test everyday things unless you're trying to explain a completely weird observation.

In both those cases we're talking about Newton's laws and they seem to work well enough.

Re:Adam Savage

[Joce640k]

Even if you give them iron jackets they're not going to 'deflect'. A magnet only attracts non-magnetized objects - hardly a desirable property when you're trying to use a magnetic field to avoid bullets.

Re:Adam Savage

[mr_mischief]

Not exactly.

magnetic fields basics

short answer about deflecting both electrons and protons in a magnetic field

Magnetic deflection is used quite regularly on very small things (electron beams in a CRT for instance, or protons in the massive Van Allen radiation belts around Earth). Anything with a charge, though, is a magnet. Any conductor can have a current and therefore an electric field induced in it by a magnet. If you have a strong enough magnet positioned just right and time the movements just right, you can induce a current into a metal and then repel the metal rather than attract it.

There are then the diamagnetic solids, of which lead is one. In a diamagnetic object, the induced magnetic fields actually repel the object from the magnet rather than attract it. All materials are to some extent diamagnetic, but most are also to some extent ferromagnetic or paramagnetic, and are classified by their net overall effect. The velocity of a bullet fired from a pistol or rifle would be much higher than you could readily produce via diamagnetism, since diamagnetism is a pretty weak force. Given a powerful enough magnet, though, you could theoretically repel lead, copper, or a few other materials in their solid state. Good luck overcoming chemical explosives for velocity, though.

Carl Sagan

[Ninja Programmer]

There is no other.

Re:Carl Sagan

[syousef]

There is no other.

Be careful with role models. By all accounts he was a brilliant science popularizer and a better than average scientist. But he was also petty and arrogant and thought a lot of himself and treated women badly. Read one of the biographies. I think that is what you should teach kids - that even their heroes and role models may be exemplary in one or more areas of life without being perfect or even acceptably good in other areas. Therefore only emulate the good, and don't be disheartened when you learn about the bad.

That said every child should watch COSMOS at least once and read a few of his books. Pale Blue Dot and Demon Haunted World would be my recommendations (though I'm sure some of the more religious types will disagree with the latter).

Re:Carl Sagan

[Greyfox]

Wasn't he a giant asshole though? I seem to recall that he was a giant asshole! It's no fun finding out that your science hero was a giant asshole. I'm keeping my eye on Hawking. He seems reasonably cool but when you have a brain that big it's not too hard to slip into total douchiness.

How about Captain Sullenberger? Remember that fellow who landed a plane in the Hudson? He did a book tour and it seems like he's pure unadulterated awesome sauce.

Re:Carl Sagan

[houghi]

But he was also petty and arrogant and thought a lot of himself and treated women badly.

Sounds like he is on par with the current sports heroes.

Re:Carl Sagan

[ideonexus]

"Demon Haunted World" was an iconoclastic book for me. I bought it looking for religion-bashing, and was instead served up a healthy dose of alien abduction bashing--something I believed in during my youth. "Pale Blue Dot" is great, but I really think "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors" takes the prize for his best book (Cosmic Carl seemed to think so too).

Re:Carl Sagan

[TheTyrannyOfForcedRe]

But he was also petty and arrogant and thought a lot of himself and treated women badly.

Sounds like he is on par with the current sports heroes.

+1 Arrogance and treating women badly are both prime alpha male traits. Nothing turns women on like a bad boy with an ego.

"Treat'em mean; keep'em keen" as the old saying goes.

Behold, Captain Entropy!

[Ikronix]

...the superhero with the power to wait patiently while supervillains expend too much energy, returning them to an inert and nonthreatening state!

Re:Behold, Captain Entropy!

[sharkey]

Any relation to Captain Hindsight?

That scientist guy, Fargo,

[Qubit]

in Eureka.

He's pretty young. Who cares if he's not real. Heroes are larger than life, anyhow, right?

Re:That scientist guy, Fargo,

[c6gunner]

Ugh. Seriously? You couldn't have picked a more unscientific show if you tried. Maybe "Fringe", although it's really hard to judge.

Disregarding your criteria...

[SanityInAnarchy]

AronRa. It's possible I'm old and out of touch, but I have to think your son would find him cool.

He fails most of your criteria -- he's still a student (in his spare time) though he certainly seems to know his stuff, he's a scientist/biker (and definitely looks the 'biker' part), he's likely not young enough -- but I'd encourage your son to look at the man before passing judgment (I hope I look that good at that age), and if third-graders nationwide knew anything about him, I have to imagine they'd feel the same way.

Space!

[wetlandjack]

Werner von Braun, Hermann Oberth, Robert H. Goddard, Yuri Gagarin. -Space nut, out.

Re:Space!

[CasualFriday]

Werner von Braun.

I don't know about you, but when I was in third grade I didn't have any heroes that knowingly used Jewish slave labor.

Re:Space!

[sumdumass]

This is the new age where all that is forgotten.

what's that saying? Oh yea, don't hate the player, hate the game.

Re:Space!

[hairyfeet]

Riiiight. Did you not READ what happened when he dared to try to speak up? One did NOT fuck with the SS buddy. My grandfather may he rest in peace, fought in WWII and even had a wall dropped on him at the end of the war by one of the fanatical Werewulf squads. He said "Those people looked at Nazism as their religion, and Hitler as their God. They saw NO problem with killing ANYONE...men, women, kids, babies...all because their "God" said so." So yeah, if I was Von Braun I would have STFU too. As one of them said in the very article you linked to "I have no doubt they would have simply shot him on the spot"

As for TFA, it really is a shame there isn't a show like Beakman's World or Bill Nye The Science Guy for kids anymore. Both were funny (I especially loved the "lab rat" on Beakman) but at the same time actually showed kids cool things about the world using science. Maybe you should load up on old eps of Beakman and Bill Nye. Hell if nothing else it would be a good chance to sit with him and both actually enjoy a show together.

Re:Space!

[drewhk]

Erdos Pal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erdos_Pal (I cannot reproduce Hungarian umlaut in slashdot)

Although an amphetamine taking mathematician is maybe not the best hero for an 8 year old :)

Re:Space!

[rainer_d]

Wernher von Braun is maybe not exactly a "hero".
His work in wartime-Germany laid the foundation that allowed the US to send a man to the moon.
Due to his involvement in the German missile program, his role in science is highly controversial.
It didn't help that, after the war, the US basically gave him a "get out of jail free"-card (and US citizenship) - a fact that even today annoys a lot of Brits who would liked to have him punished for launching what would be ICBMs today on London.

What he is a good example for is that to reach a seemingly impossible goal, you have to go further than anybody else, stop at nothing and allow no obstacles standing in the way.
WW2 was an "ideal" time for people like von Braun - at the right position, nearly unlimited resources were available to achieve their goals.
Of course, at that time, it also meant unlimited exploitation of slave-labor in a way that was without example in the history of mankind.

I'm not sure if it's good to expose a kid to this kind of stuff. Life will get complicated for them soon enough ;-)

Re:Space!

[colinrichardday]

According to The Rocket and the Reich, only about 5,000 Allied civilians were killed by rocket attacks, which is about half the number of people who died making rockets. Also, the rocket programs diverted funding from other areas.

The Doctor

[Anonymous Coward]

Although, he might be too old. It really depends on your scale.

Re:The Doctor

[Tamran]

The Doctor? Doctor Who?

Who needs a hero?

[Anonymous Coward]

You kid seems smart. Maybe ask why he feels the need to have a hero? And why this hero needs to pass some sort of test of being 'accepted by your kids peers' ?
I understand the need for kids to fit in somehow, but maybe he can transcend this.

Re:Who needs a hero?

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

> Maybe ask why he feels the need to have a hero?

Isn't that kind of like asking why you need to visit the moon?

Heroes inspire us to make ourselves better than we are.

Re:Who needs a hero?

[TheDarkMaster]

Maybe not a "Hero" like the action films. But a example? Oh yes. As example, Nikola Tesla is my biggest "hero", the best example for someone who is curious about how things work.

Re:Who needs a hero?

[Tekfactory]

Because our brains are pattern matching engines and we need to see patterns in order to recognize and or emulate them.

The fitting in part is a necessary part of growing up and we don't have a better way to do it yet.

Why has nobody mentioned Michio Kaku yet? I know he's too old, but he's the only one on TV right now with the old Carl Sagan vibe.

Also Phil Platt for Bad Universe if there were more episodes.

Re:Who needs a hero?

[Geminii]

Because the kid's smart enough to read playground politics and schoolyard psychology and not only figure out how to surf that wave, but to try and turn it to educational purposes?

Jeri Ellsworth

[Okian Warrior]

Jeri Ellsworth, AKA "Lady Ada"

Read some of her articles on hackaday.

Brilliant, clever, and resourceful. Definitely hero material.

Re:Jeri Ellsworth

[pelrun]

Actually, Ladyada is Limor Fried.

But both of them are absolutely hero material.

Re:Jeri Ellsworth

[notionalTenacity]

I think you are mixing her up with someone else? http://www.ladyada.net/bio/index.html

Re:Jeri Ellsworth

[Anonymous Coward]

Bunnie the PHD that hacked the original Xbox is a better role model.

http://www.bunniestudios.com/

Re:Jeri Ellsworth

[PhotonSphere]

Limor Fried is also known as Lady Ada, not Jeri Ellsworth.

http://lifehacker.com/5481197/macgyver-of-the-day-limor-ladyada-fried

Re:Jeri Ellsworth

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS]

Jeri Ellsworth is known as 'Jeri Ellsworth'.

http://www.youtube.com/JeriEllsworth

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeri_Ellsworth

http://www.jeriellsworth.com/

Race cars, pinball, electronics...

http://www.google.com/search?q=racecars+pinballs+electronics+c64

Re:Jeri Ellsworth

[Coren22]

I don't know about my kids, but she is my hero now, how do I friend her on Slashdot?

First Robotics competetion

[drjohnretired]

How about a whole team of heros. See http://www.usfirst.org/ While I do not like everything about the program, the students really do catch some of the excitement of science and engineering.

On TV quite a bit

[eclectus]

He's not terribly young, but Michio Kaku would be a good choice after watching some of his shows.

physicist!

[Anonymous Coward]

Richard Feynman!

Re:physicist!

[anaesthetica]

I was given Surely You're Joking... as a graduation gift (by my Spanish teacher, oddly enough) after finishing the 8th grade. This book is a life-changer. It teaches you how human and fun a public figure can be, especially in a field as ostensibly esoteric and abstract as theoretical physics. Playing jokes at Los Alamos while building the nuclear bomb, playing bongos in a samba band, taking up nude portraiture, learning how to pick up women in bars--the stories are enough to convince anyone that being a scientist isn't going to be boring.

Game the system

[heptapod]

Nikola Tesla is accomplished in his field. In fact he laid the foundation for the world we live in with radio, alternating current and fluorescent lights relegating Edison to the dustbin of history as a quaint artifact of science but a paragon of hucksterism.
Tesla accomplished a lot in his first thirty years i.e. left his home country, worked for Edison, developed the tesla coil and founded his own company. Plus he's a hell of a lot more interesting than some sports figure or musical artist.

Re:Game the system

[Subverted]

Yes! Teach the kid how the world really works... You do all the work, your name is destroyed, you die alone(at least this was by choice)...then *after* you are dead people realize you were a genius... Tesla is a hero of mine, but just depressing.

Re:Game the system

[AK Marc]

He also was insane and committed massive fraud. I'd stick with Einstein before pushing nutters like Tesla.

Re:Game the system

[Skal Tura]

Just proofs he was a genius.

Pretty much all geniuses are more less crazy/insane/loco, simply quirked or otherwise odd in the bunch to the degree that a psychologist might say they have some kind of mental problems.

That's the price you pay for being genius, you perceive the world differently and therefore people think you are crazy (even if not) simply because they cannot comprehend your ideas and that leads to even more quirked nature. Sometimes you just need to be a bit crazy to be genius (to see the non-obvious)

Re:Game the system

[c6gunner]

Pretty much all geniuses are more less crazy/insane/loco, simply quirked or otherwise odd in the bunch to the degree that a psychologist might say they have some kind of mental problems.

Dumb generalization is dumb.

I see this claim made all the time, with absolutely zero evidence to support it. When pressed on the issue, most people can come up with the names of 3 or 4 geniuses who were "crazy/insane/loco", before grinding to a halt. Even the examples they do manage to give are usually pretty shitty - eg. Einstein being "crazy" because of his hair. The reality is that while individuals with extremely high IQ's might have a slightly higher incidence of mental disorders, the vast majority are just normal human beings with an abnormal propensity for solving problems.

Re:Game the system

[dargaud]

He also was insane and committed massive fraud. I'd stick with Einstein before pushing nutters like Tesla.

I'm surprised you are the only one who've pushed the great Albert so far. During his great year, when he was only 25, he published 3 papers which changed how the world sees space, time, and matter. Each one of them should have earned him a Nobel: the photoelectric effect (launched quantum mechanics), Brownian motion (relaunched thermodynamics) and the special theory of relativity. Guess which one did.

Re:Game the system

[Internetuser1248]

The reality is that while individuals with extremely high IQ's might have a slightly higher incidence of mental disorders, the vast majority are just normal human beings with an abnormal propensity for solving problems.

The reality is, closed mindedness and anti intellectualism combined with absurdly wide definitions for mental illness to create jobs in the mental health industry mean that in most people's minds those exact traits that define genius are a form of insanity.

Re:Game the system

[AK Marc]

Albert Einstein wasn't crazy. And I'd assert he was more of a genius. Tesla is the one the current-day nutters like because they like to think that being crazy makes them a genius. But it doesn't work that way...

Two words

[kaoshin]

Gordon Freeman.

Re:Two words

[AnonymousClown]

He's fictional.

The kid needs someone who's real. Fictional characters usually have some sort of "super human" characteristic that no real human could ever measure up to - it could be a super human mastery of many things that normal people would spend many years to get one of thing mastered, like James Bond being excellent at: skiing, marksmanship, fighting, flying, etc...

Re:Two words

[notionalTenacity]

Or even Tony Stark, in the recent Iron Man movies. I mean, he was pretty sciencey, in a made up way. If it has to be real people, Richard Feynman would make a damn good hero.

Re:Two words

[kaoshin]

I thought this was about heroes, not role models.

Re:Two words

[CyberDragon777]

He's fictional.

http://pw0nd.com/2008/09/10/half-life/

Oh really?

Re:Two words

[GameboyRMH]

Yeah he's fictional but there's absolutely nothing superhuman about Gordon Freeman, other than the super-healing that's standard for all video game characters outside of early Tom Clancy games.

Popular Science...

[Anonymous Coward]

Popular Science regularly runs features on some of the brightest young minds having an impact in science and as inventors. Perhaps check out some back issues to get some ideas (seem to recall there was an article in the past few months).

Kudos to your kid for picking a true contributor to humanity rather than yet another sports star/model/rock star/etc... (not that there's anything wrong with that... ;)

Waste of time...

[Dogbertius]

You're attempting to fit a loosely defined term (heck, "hero" can be grossly misinterpreted with respect to discussions about war, rebellion, whistle-blowing, etc), to a petty, narrow-minded, and arbitrary set of conditions.

If you want fictional characters, take a pick from the marvel universe (ie: spiderman (chemist, biologist, engineer[chemical, bio, mechanical]), Mr. Fantastic (physicist), Iron Man (engineer), ), the list goes on. As for real-life heroes - the average kid isn't going to know squat on the subject. I considered Louis Pasteur as one back in grade 4, but I read a lot more than my, ahem, "peers".

Realistically, you might consider finding something that your kid's peer group would appreciate, and picking a scientist/engineer to whom that discovery/invention/idea is attributed. Chances are, it'll still end up being someone inconsequential or a pseudo-scientist who invented something popular. (Insert pun here).

If you find a way to have more than 3% of kids in elementary school (heck, even high school) to take a sincere interest in science and appreciate those who contribute to it, bravo!

Any of these guys

[actionbastard]

1. Neil Armstrong
2. Buzz Aldrin
3. Pete Conrad
4. Alan Bean
5. Alan Shepard
6. Edgar Mitchell
7. David Scott
8. James Irwin
9. John W. Young
10. Charles Duke
11. Eugene Cernan
12. Harrison Schmit

Re:Any of these guys

[pookemon]

I really don't think you could count any of them as "reasonably young". Unless, perhaps, if you add Methuselah to your list.

Re:Any of these guys

[FatLittleMonkey]

Poor Mike Collins, always the bridesmaid...

Re:Any of these guys

[CrimsonAvenger]

They didn't fit the age limit back when the were doing things. Armstrong was in the late 30's when he set foot on the Moon. Astronauts tend to be older than you might think.

Burt Rutan

[Praseodymn]

I know he's not young, but he sure does span many of those categories and is doing something quite heroic.

When I was young, my hero was Nikolai Tesla..

Re:Burt Rutan

[Digital Mage]

I second this nomination, he might not be young in age but he is definitely has done a lot of cool stuff.

Re:Burt Rutan

[Anonymous Freak]

Thirded.

And he's very down-to-earth. I had a chance to mingle with him back when his brother (and Jeana Yeager) flew Voyager around the world. He was more than happy to let his brother take the lime light; but I was an Aerospace Engineering student, so I pestered him more than his brother. :-P

Re:Burt Rutan

[gr8_phk]

Great choice. Mike is a good one too - first "normal" guy to fly stick and rudder into space. OTOH, if you can have a dead hero you back up to the Wright brothers (they were younger too).

Lets start showing reruns

[btlyger]

Bill Nye the Science guy was the only educational show that was actually cool to watch. Lets get another season of Bill Nye and teach these kids how to make volcanoes.

Re:Lets start showing reruns

[greenbobb]

Heck yeah. I think Bill Nye is still my hero...

Re:Lets start showing reruns

[kaoshin]

Or Don Herbert?

Re:Lets start showing reruns

[CraftyJack]

Bill Nye the Science guy was the only educational show that was actually cool to watch.

Mr. Wizard.

Re:Lets start showing reruns

[serialband]

Beakman's World was a bit wackier, but just as educational as Bill Nye.

Phil Plait

[Colonel Korn]

AKA The Bad Astronomer. Read Death from the Skies with your kid - it's quite entertaining and has a persistent message that rational thought is superior to sensationalism.

Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist

[Allyoop]

Neil deGrasse Tyson I wish I read his book "The Universe Down to Earth" when I was in grade 9. I think it would have greatly shaped my school pathway for a 'real' science career. http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/

Re:Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist

[saxoholic]

I concur. He should definitely devote his hero worship to Neil DeGrasse Tyson. He does great stuff when he's not ruining pluto, and he really gets how to explain science to laymen/kids.

Re:Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist

[Mr2cents]

Even when he's ruining Pluto, he does a great job explaning why it makes a lot of sense. It's a very important lesson, learning the distinction between facts and catergorisations, and learning that categories can be fluid and always have fuzzy borders. You can also use that to explain why racism is so stupid (how white do you have to be)?

what?

[X_Bones]

no love for the safe-crackin', bongo-playin', Challenger-investigatin' Richard Feynman?

Re:what?

[Warshadow]

He's my hero, does that count? (I'm 31 though).

For a slightly younger person, perhaps Garrett Lisi? He's older than what #2 seems to require, but he's still quite young at 42 and is doing some interesting work. He's also a surf bum :D

Re:what?

[RyoShin]

So wish I had mod points. I had only heard of Feynman once or twice in college; last year I found his "random occurrences" autobiography online (Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!), and he is basically awesome. He is probably what every geek with a social desire seeks to be. He beds a decent amount of ladies, discovers useful math for the wobbling of plates that is later used to describe particle movement (IIRC), and does nude drawings. I wish I had even 1/10th the charisma, interest, and genius that Feynman did.

He is certainly one of my personal heroes\rolemodels (joining the ranks of other greats such as Bob Barker and Ben Franklin).

Re:what?

[syousef]

no love for the safe-crackin', bongo-playin', Challenger-investigatin' Richard Feynman?

You forgot womanising, alcohol-drinking, and cigarette smoking.

That's the trouble with roll models. They're human. Some stuff they do is cool and worthy of aspiring to or emulating. Some stuff not so much.

Re:what?

[FrootLoops]

Bob Barker?

Re:what?

[Idarubicin]

no love for the safe-crackin', bongo-playin', Challenger-investigatin' Richard Feynman?

I'm pretty sure that - while absolutely cool - Feynman fails on the established criterion (2) reasonably young. Now deceased, he was last 'reasonably young' during World War II. Sidney Crosby (our reference non-science 'hero') was only six months old when Feynmann passed away.

Re:what?

[Blue23]

Richard Feynman is my favorite scientist, but I don't think passes the young, and known to 3rd grades tests.

But yeah, if they knew him, he'd win. :)

Re:what?

[Tarsir]

When you say womanising, do you mean that he had affairs, or just that he was, as a previous post put it, a ladies man? Furthermore, alcohol-drinking and cigarette smoking? Really? If those are two of his three worst flaws, he must be a paragon of good behaviour.

Re:what?

[syousef]

When you say womanising, do you mean that he had affairs, or just that he was, as a previous post put it, a ladies man? Furthermore, alcohol-drinking and cigarette smoking? Really? If those are two of his three worst flaws, he must be a paragon of good behaviour.

Sure, a great role model, if you want to teach your child to treat the opposite sex like dirt, and kill themselves with destructive habbits.

Re:what?

[bcrowell]

The whole bongo thing was just part of the media-created, mass-produced "beatnik" phenomenon. It was a trivialized and mass-marketed version of the Beat movement.

Re:what?

[badkarmadayaccount]

What's the issue with the aforementioned traits?

Find a hero for me, daddy?

[Nutria]

Find your own hero, kid.

I just asked my 12yo son, and -- as I will ever be thankful -- it would never cross his mind to ask me to find him a hero. (I even asked him if he would have when he was 8. Nope.)

Re:Find a hero for me, daddy?

[Skidborg]

I thought it was a parent's job to hunt around for acceptable role models for their kids.

Re:Find a hero for me, daddy?

[Nutria]

No.

It's the parent's job to put him in an environment where he will (hopefully) choose parentally-acceptable role models.

(This means no /Family Guy/ and /Southpark/ for 8 year olds!!!!! Or 15 year olds, for that matter.)

Then, if he chooses a "bad" hero/role-model, you talk it over with him.

Mainly, though, a parent just has to accept that unless you home-school him, you have a lot less influence over him than you wish you would.

Re:Find a hero for me, daddy?

[camperdave]

I thought it was a parent's job to hunt around for acceptable role models for their kids.

Gee! I always thought it was a parent's job to *BE* an acceptable role model for their kids.

Re:Find a hero for me, daddy?

[QRDeNameland]

Find your own hero, kid.

Better yet, if you think your kid has a love for science, tell him that both "coolness" and "hero worship" are antithetical to real science. Science is not a popularity contest, nor is science made great because it is done by a great scientist. Good science stands because it withstands further scientific challenge, and the personal characteristics of the scientist do not matter one bit.

Then past that, remember that no matter how things may appear, as a parent *you* are always going to be your child's most significant role model and whatever sports stars/rock stars/entertainers "heroes" your kid cycles through growing up will be largely irrelevant to how s/he fares in life.

Re:Find a hero for me, daddy?

[Almost-Retired]

All I can add to that is a +1000. You sir, hit it precisely. You as a parent, should be your child's first hero, by never lying to him/her, and knowing where to quickly get your child a knowledgeable answer for the questions he/she may ask that are beyond your sphere of knowledge.

A side excursion here: That was one of the things my own mother was good at 70 years ago when I asked her to explain what gravity was. The next trip to town hit the library, bringing high school physics books home for a 6 year old to try and understand, and in many cases we learned together. Gravity as a force is of course characterized to about 3000 decimal places these days, but 70 years later we still don't really know what it is. Who knows, maybe the LHC will find that particle even if it doesn't find the Higgs Boson.

Do that, establishing a reputation for usually being correct, and you will be your child's hero.

That doesn't mean running out and buying him everything he asks for either, a truthfully explained but firm no is still a valid answer. There is no "too early" age to let the child know that there are budget, moral, or legal problems with what it is they are wanting.

Re:Find a hero for me, daddy?

[rjstanford]

Better yet, if you think your kid has a love for science, tell him that both "coolness" and "hero worship" are antithetical to real science.

They are not, however, antithetical to real scientists, especially considering that many of the best managed to have a lot of "non-science-based" hobbies, know lots of friends, and go to some pretty wild parties. Being a scientist doesn't have to mean that you do all science all the time - in fact, that attitude won't help your budding scientist grow into a well-rounded adult, and may discourage your well-rounded kid from pursuing a lifetime of science.

Just sayin'.

Re:Find a hero for me, daddy?

[QRDeNameland]

Fair enough, but I didn't say that scientists shouldn't have heroes or "be cool", nor did I say a parent should necessarily discourage that.

My point was that the very nature of science doesn't make it prone to producing "heroes", because unlike sports, music and entertainment, it is not about the individual's achievement but the achievement itself. Most of modern science great achievements are never tied to anyone's name, but you never hear "modern football has finally achieved the 300 yard rushing game" without someone being lionized for it.

Re:Find a hero for me, daddy?

[sclod13]

I thought it was a parent's job to hunt around for acceptable role models for their kids.

Gee! I always thought it was a parent's job to *BE* an acceptable role model for their kids.

I agree at 8 my hero was my father...Come to think of it now at 24 he still is.

Tom Swift || Tintin

[johnrpenner]

i remember reading hardy boys, narnia and tom swift novels when i was a kid - the tom swift stories always emphasized science, invention, and technology - great books. the tintin books are also science positive. :-D

all the best
john p

Re:Tom Swift || Tintin

[Bosconian]

I shall latch on to your groundbreaking post and handily suggest:

Danny Dunn - That one with the flying robot camera dragonfly, just wow.

Adam Strange - Interdimensional Man About Space, Scientist from Earth--he even comes back to earth every now and again.

And for real people, but larger than life, check out Jack Horkheimer, R.I.P., an amazing and enthusiastic unapologetic total nerd who definitely found his niche.

Re:Tom Swift || Tintin

[Nugoo]

I definitely agree with Tintin (I haven't read the others), and if you're considering fictional characters, I'd have to recommend Dexter from Dexter's Lab. That show and Bill Nye were probably the biggest influences on me before puberty.

Mark Zuckerberg

[firefly42]

Aged 26, created Facebook

Re:Mark Zuckerberg

[aevan]

He wanted heroes, not super villains.

Re:Mark Zuckerberg

[EnsilZah]

What's his superpower, transmuting money into douche?

Youres or his?

[icegreentea]

Is this list for him, or is really for you? =P

Joking aside, tell him about Joseph Kittenger and Felix Baumgartner. Kittenger was the pilot/sky diver involved in Project Excelsior. The highest/longest sky dive in history. 15 minutes of free fall. Felix Baumgartner is a dare-devil currently trying to break that record. He's being sponsered/supported by Red Bull (come on, thats instant cool), and Kittenger is consulting on the whole thing. If all goes to plan Baumgartner will break the sound barrier. With his body.

If he wants famous aircraft designers, two giants that come to mind are Ben Rich and Kelly Johnson, both of Lockheed Skunkworks fame. Unfortunately, they're both gone from this world... the days of airplanes being a single person's brain child is quickly faming (if not gone). If you wants some famous pilots, probably the single most important pilot would be John Boyd. One of the best fighter pilots ever, he also went ahead and pushed an entire generation of air force fighters into service, developed an entire engineering metric on comparing the performance of fighters, and then went ahead and revolutionized the way we fight wars (look up Maneuver warfare... all of the official doctrines of the armed services are based on his ideas).

Re:Youres or his?

[oldhack]

It sure sounds like "this guy I know has this problem..."

Re:Youres or his?

[SneakyMishkin]

I believe that Kittenger broke the the sound barrier in the sense that he was falling faster than the speed of sound. The atmosphere at the altitude he jumped from is so thin that it allowed him to obtain supersonic speeds. He returned to subsonic levels once he reached lower altitude and normal atmospheric pressure.
I guess I could look this up to confirm but I think I will be lazy and just post right away.

Google founders

[korsmana]

Larry Page and Sergey Brin, often dubbed the "Google Guys" . You have to give it to them; they changed how we search for anything, do work, research,etc. They came from no where in 1998 and now google is now a verb. You don't "Microsoft, Oracle, IBM," ... but everyone does google something.. AK

Wile E. Coyote

[martin-boundary]

My science hero is Wile E. Coyote. He's the reason I became a scientist in the first place. As a kid, I had always been very impressed by how even the simplest scientific approach would always allow Wile E. to capture all those pesky Road Runners with ease.

I can honestly say that without him as a role model, I would never have become a physicist or discovered how to paint the dimensional portal which brought me to this world years ago.

Unfortunately, the rules of physics seem to be slightly different here for some reason, and I have been stranded ever since. Oh well...

Re:Wile E. Coyote

[SteveFoerster]

I can honestly say that without him as a role model, I would never have become a physicist or discovered how to paint the dimensional portal which brought me to this world years ago.

So what you're saying is that you're from Cool World?

Okay, but seriously, you'd probably like Phineas and Ferb, as would the kid in question. Not being real I guess they don't qualify as role models, but they're definitely worth watching until a real world role model shows up.

Re:Wile E. Coyote

[PolygamousRanchKid]

When I applied to MIT anno 1980, part of the application process was to write an essay titled, "What is my favorite cartoon character and why." So this was essentially a "Who's your hero" question. I chose Wile E. Coyote. The focus was about his persistence: despite that all his ingenious attempts to catch the Roadrunner with cockamamie contraptions failed, he never gave up. He always came up with something new to try.

The admissions folks loved it, and I got a call from the local MIT rep to come by for a chat. I was accepted, but chose Princeton instead. The application essays for Princeton were more difficult. I had to write a "Personal Statement" and an "Engineering Statement." No topics were given; "just write something about something." This was a more subtle way of saying, "find the hero in yourself." How children choose their heroes is determined by the values that they have developed under the guidance of their parents. If the parents are big hockey fans, a hockey player will probably be a hero for their children. If the parents take their children to science museums, a scientist will probably be a hero.

At any rate, don't underestimate the potential of writing about Wile E. Coyote.

Oh, and in defense of engineers, I took 300 and 400 literature classes at Princeton. After I submitted my first essay for one coure, the Preceptor called my aside after the class. She asked me point blank, "You're engineering student, aren't you?" She went on to say that engineering students wrote the most comprehensible essays, which were always structured very well. She complained that the literature majors' essays were more insightful, but tended to meander to the point of confusion.

Re:Wile E. Coyote

[MukiMuki]

At least the physics model in this world is fair. You'll never have a trap fail on your quarry and then release when you go to test it.

Re:Wile E. Coyote

[Gravitron 5000]

Are you familiar with the teachings of Rube Goldberg? His method, while fundamentally similar, may shed some light on your problems.

Re:This should be obvious to all

[MachDelta]

I believe that's supposed to be written...

"Cap-tin Jean-Luc-Pic-ard ofthe U-S-S En-ter-prise" /technobeat

The guy behind copenhagen suborbitals

[Anonymous Coward]

Copenhagen Suborbitals, group of danish guys who got bored after building their own submarines and decided to make a space capsule and launch themselves into space. some of them worked for Nasa and or JPL. I cant remember their names but they are rocket scientists doing it on the side.

NIKOLA TESLA

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject-line...

APK

P.S.=> He's a PRIME EXAMPLE of that "once in a generation mind"... apk

Re:NIKOLA TESLA

[Urza9814]

EXACTLY what I was here to say. He doesn't quite fit the criteria, but what 8 year old _wouldn't_ love him? He's _CLASSIC_ mad scientist! Only problem is that you'd have to spend some time explaining who he is. But seriously - the world as we know it would not exist without him...and this is the same man who was thinking of death rays, worldwide free wireless electricity, global communications - he damn near thought of the internet before we even had electricity!

Re:NIKOLA TESLA

[Internetuser1248]

you forgot to say "in 1908" no rant about the wonders of Tesla is complete without those 6(7?) characters. Of course it doesn't have to be exactly that year. It is just that talking about a mad scientist with death rays and wireless electricity is much more impressive to people who don't know him if they are aware he was doing it back when steam engines were still considered state of the art technology.

Re:NIKOLA TESLA

[Spinlock_1977]

Couldn't agree more. He was my science-hero when I was a kid. Besides, he threw LIGHTNING BOLTS!

clever nick name

[arbitraryaardvark]

i dont know an obvious answer. i'm kind of out of touch with 8 year olds, but they havent heard of carmack or musk and think that tesla's a band.
wil wheaton isn't famous enough, oh i dunno maybe he is do kids these days watch next generation reruns on spike?
he pops up on eureka and csi and that one with the nerds... now and then. i guess 8 year olds dont watch the guild. or know who randall munroe is.
hey how about richard branson? a lot of 8 year olds are virgins these days.

Re:clever nick name

[nametaken]

Big bang theory. And Leverage to name another.

My 2 cents

[bradgoodman]

I don't have many idols, but I really idolize Howard Hughes (That's the pre-insane Howard Hughes).

The dude was a pilot and all - but he went on to really design and build these planes. He was such a "hands-on" guy, a real genius and innovator. I never knew any of that about him before watching some movie about him. I'd recommend the same.

My 8 year old daughter's idol is Buzz Aldran. I totally respect the guy too. Aside from obviously being the second guy on the moon - he was (I think) #1 in his class at MIT after doing his thesis on Orbital Docking manuvers - before any such thing was actually done.

Aside from just "flying the spaceship" and "walking on the moon" - even today, he continues to innovate in the area of space travel. He has a web site where you can see not just some of his old stuff, but new stuff as well. He's not just part of history, he's really part of the present.

Re:My 2 cents

[dargaud]

My 8 year old daughter's idol is Buzz Aldran. I totally respect the guy too. Aside from obviously being the second guy on the moon - he was (I think) #1 in his class at MIT after doing his thesis on Orbital Docking manuvers - before any such thing was actually done.

And he punches idiots in the face at 80 !!!

Re:My 2 cents

[jedidiah]

As long as you don't call him a liar, I suppose Buzz won't mind.

Re:My 2 cents

[j-beda]

I recently saw the very good documentary on the Apollo missions that had extensive interviews with a lot of the astronauts. I think it was "In the Shadow of the Moon"

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/In_the_Shadow_of_the_Moon

In any case, I came away from it with a whole bunch of respect for Michael Collins (they guy who stayed in the command module while Neil and Buzz when down to land). He really comes across as a great guy.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Michael_Collins_(astronaut)

A Pilot? How About Captain Sully?

[damn_registrars]

Of course, he doesn't really meet many people's idea of "young", but he did save a plane full of people by keeping his cool under pressure. Plenty of lesser men would have ended up crashing the plane and losing everyone. Even though he doesn't think himself a hero, I'd say he is worthy of consideration at least.

Re:young einstein?

[CyberDragon777]

Young Einstein?

You mean the guy who invented bubbling beer by splitting the beer atom?
Now that is an accomplishment!

Willy Messerschmitt

[germansausage]

Airplane Designer Hero - got to be Willy Messerschmitt!

explorer/diver

[tloh]

Robert Ballard

Re:Jesus Christ is my #1 Science Hero!

[jordanjay29]

Sorry, but he's too old. If Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger barely cuts it at about age thirty, then Jesus fails miserably at about age two thousand.

Grant Imahara

[Anonymous Coward]

He's a Mythbuster, has an EE degree, success in BattleBots. He is 40...but he *looks* much younger.

Re:Grant Imahara

[gazil]

Show the kid Grant's Battlebot robot in action that should clinch it.

Also...

[bradgoodman]

Steve Wozniack - aka Woz. Obviously he's "the guy who invented the Apple" - but if you read iWoz, or learned about him - that is all just the culmination of who and what is is.

I would say Steve Jobs too - reluctantly.

On the upside - he's incredible. Most people who are killer successfuly in business do it once. He's done it several times. Most people that come up with killer products do it once. He's done it many times. Even when he's ousted, he comes back, proves he was right - and flips everything back around 180-degres.

On the downside, he is an evil, narsastictic flaming egotistacal asshole, and oppotomizes everything that he built his career fighting against. (Yes, the "1984" thing).

So with him, you could go either way...

Airplane (Spaceship) Designer

[NonSenseAgency]

Burt Rutan, spaceships have got to be waaay cool to an 8 year old.

Re:Airplane (Spaceship) Designer

[confused one]

I second this one. He doesn't fit the age criteria but he's been at it for a long time and built some very neat machines. His current projects are, as the parent said, spaceships of a sort. Gen III of the White Knight and SpaceShip may be capable of reaching orbit.

If space is his thing, a second option might be Elon Musk whose also building space ships and wants to go to Mars. The fact he owns a company that builds fast electric cars just adds to the geeky quotient.

FWIW, In my opinion Heroes don't have to be real or infallible. My fictional hero was Scotty (Montgomery Scott).

Nikola Tesla

[argux]

Nikola Tesla: Rockstar Scientist

Red Baron?

[Nidi62]

Manfred von Richtofen had 80 confirmed kills in World War I and was a pioneering fighter pilot, probably the most well known fighter pilot in the world at this point. The Allied pilot that shot him down arranged a full military burial, and his pall bearers were all of the rank of Captain. he died at 27

Re:Red Baron?

[SteveFoerster]

Manfred von Richtofen had 80 confirmed kills in World War I

That's your idea of a role model for kids, relative to, say, the Wright Brothers, who demonstrated admirable persistence in inventing the airplane in the first place and even managed not to kill anyone?

Re:Red Baron?

[camperdave]

The Red Baron was killed by Australian anti-aircraft machine gun fire from the ground, not from the Canadian pilot Roy Brown who is officially credited with his death. Major David Blake, who was in command of a different squadron than Brown, did organize a full military funeral for Freiherr Richtofen.

Re:the youngest billionaire in the world of course

[jordanjay29]

I don't think 8 year olds are allowed on Facebook. It's 13 and above, last I checked. Larry Page or Sergey Brin would be more worthy heroes, I'm sure the kid uses Google at least once a week, versus using Facebook never.

One more thought....

[bradgoodman]

I understand you're desire to find someone who is "young", unfortunately, I think that it is a somewhat misguided direction.

*Many* people who have great fame, wealth, or success at a very young age due it to a great extent out of *luck*. It usually takes some time to really see if lightning can strike twice - or three times, or more. Was their success due to brilliance? Character? Ingenuity? Or was it just "dumb-luck" - or being at the right place at the right time - or being lucky enough to be "chosen" into something.

Case in point - Homer Simpson: "Tatoos help you immortalize things that you love..." (Looking the tatoo on his arm) "'Starland Vocal Band', they suck!"

Re:Peter Parker?

[zuzulo]

Really? A fictional guy when there are so many more unbelievable real folks to choose from? Maybe Leonardo da Vinci? I mean, he was so cool he had a cartoon superhero named after *him*. Ok, so it was a mutant turtle, but still ... ;-)

Fails #2 but...

[mbenzi]

Sylvia Earle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Earle should be a hero to all 3rd graders
Watch her TED Talk http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/467 , it's fascinating.

Re:Peter Parker?

[Skal Tura]

or watch Stan Lee's superhumans.

One of the first eps featured a diver who can lower his oxygen consumption insanely low. Also featured was a Finnish sauna competition champion, who was capable of managing his surface blood flow to the extreme (He got badly injured lately tho).

Re:A Pilot? How About Captain Sully?

[brokeninside]

I would second Captain Sully.

And add Bear Grylls.

Saul Griffith

[banjo D]

He may be slightly too old to fit your criteria, and probably no 3rd graders have heard of him, but Saul Griffith is a certified Genius (so says the MacArthur Foundation, anyway) and does interesting and inspiring work.

Thomas Edison

[slapout]

Do they have to be alive? When I was 8, I liked Thomas Edison and Michael Faraday.

Re:Thomas Edison

[GameboyRMH]

Edison? Come on, he was too evil.

But yeah I can see why he would be a hero to someone who's heard the "sanitized" version of his history...

Elon Musk

[Nadaka]

Under 40, entrepreneur, inventor, engineer, businessman, pilot, potential future astronaut.

Elon Musk

[francium de neobie]

PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla... you can literally change the world with technology, and get reasonably rich doing that.

Re:Elon Musk

[Nadaka]

I was somehow mixing Elon Musk and Burt Rutan together there. oops.

Re:Elon Musk

[francium de neobie]

Oops, you ninja-d me by just one minute :P

Ok...

[geminidomino]

Admit it... that was a major "proud papa" moment.

Re:Ok...

[geminidomino]

On slashdot? Pfft.

Rocketman - Visa Parviainen

[czmax]

This guy looks like a young accomplished pilot (and scientist?) of experimental rockets that he straps onto himself and then flies around with. He may not be widely known to 8yr olds but they'll dig the youtube videos. There are other crazy birdsuit base jumpers out there you could point to. Start here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HMdioj6kng

In a similar vein there are people like Dean Potter or any of the extremel rock climber slacklining nutters out there.

What these have in common is that they involve physical prowess in addition to mental abilities. Frankly I just don't see an 8yr getting excited about a boring hero that is really good at doing homework. But there is no reason the sport has to be a boring one.

 

Seriously?

[shaun]

What on earth did you do to that kid to make him not like Sidney Crosby?

He's only 8 - there may be time to undo the damage...

P.S.
Meteorologist? Seriously? He does know that means weatherman, right?

Dr. Tae: Your Skateboarding Physics Professor

[gratuitous_arp]

Dr. Tae: Your Skateboarding Physics Professor

http://drtae.org/

Dr. Tae rocks. If you haven't seen him, go to his site and watch his videos right now.

And whoever suggested Buckaroo Bonzai should be +5 modded. I think his name was John.

Mark Zuckerberg?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg

Meets the age range.

Has a move about him: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Social_Network

Re:This should be obvious to all

[Thinboy00]

Captain Jean-Luc Picard, of the starship U.S.S. Enterprise.

RTFS "reasonably young".

YES, Picard IS epic-awesome, but he doesn't fit the criteria.

Thor Hyerdahl and the Kon-Tiki crew were my heroes

[dbIII]

Not only did they test out a migration theory by sailing across the Pacific on a balsa wood raft, half of them were extreme badass commandos that blew up a Nazi nuclear facility in WWII.
Then there's the Easter Island stuff. While crappy TV shows say "who knows why these roads go into the sea" Thor put on the scuba gear and found they were boat ramps. When the crappy TV show said "who knows how the statues were erected" Thor asked the locals, put on a huge BBQ for them and they showed him how it was done.
Then of course there are plenty of other examples of people in science doing things kids will find heroic - vulcanologists in rubber boats on acid lakes, polar explorers and many others.

Another Brian

[Anonymous Coward]

How about another Brian, a bona fide rock star (i.e. older than most people on /.) and also astrophysicist. Took a detour from his PhD work to play lead guitar for the British rock band Queen. Finally finished his PhD in 2007. Is one step from away from knighthood.

Re:Another Brian

[mcvos]

He's not terribly young anymore, though. Brian Cox is also too old, but still quite a bit younger than Brian May.

Really, young and famous seems to be pretty rare in science. It's so much easier in music or sports!

Re:Another Brian

[Pteraspidomorphi]

He probably doesn't meet the age requirement, even though he otherwise kicks ass.

Re:Another Brian

[alanw]

Brian May has an Erdös Number of 7, a Bacon number of no more than 3, and a Sabbath number of 1, thus putting him squarely at the centre of the universe.

http://rosschurchley.com/2009/10/18/brian-mays-erdos-bacon-number/
http://www.timeblimp.com/?q=erdos.html

October Sky

[vanyel]

Have him watch October Sky; Homer may not be young any more now, but what he did was pretty inspiring and he was young when he did it...

Ray Kurzweil

[BlueMonk]

He's an inventor, scientist, author, futurist, musician and probably plenty more I don't even know about. And he's still alive... and hopes to be alive forever due to evolving technology.

Re:Ray Kurzweil

[Anonymous Coward]

Kurzweil is a 7-layer fruitcake who happens to be an inventor. He doesn't deserve a tenth of the adulation he gets.

Impossible

[Jiro]

First of all, doing good things in science takes a lot of time and experience, so most good ones will be older. It's not like being an athlete.

Second, most scientists do things whose significance is hard to explain to kids. We're long past the point where someone could invent the electric lightbulb or the airplane. Nor does the scientist have millions of dollars or his own TV show. (Someone suggested the Mythbusters, who do have their own TV show, but they're only marginally scientists. But at least some third graders will respect them.)

Third, scientists tend to work with others. There's no single scientist responsible for many things--there isn't one person who invented, say, the cell phone. That makes them much less famous unless you've got an Einstein.

Fourth, being an athlete or an entertainer inherently means being a larger than life personality who is publicized to lots of people. Science and related professions aren't like that. Finding scientists that kids can appreciate will therefore be hard.

Barring unusual coincidences (i.e. the street you live on just happens to be named after someone famous, or your kid had an operation which saved his life and was invented by one person), I don't think it's possible. The best you can do is find out what the kid already is interested in with respect to science and pick someone who is famous in that exact area, but that won't be someone who's important in the big picture. And he certainly won't be respected by third graders nationwide.

(And I didn't even know that kids still respect astronauts. What exactly do astronauts do nowadays that makes them famous? There's no first man in space, first man in orbit, first man on the moon, etc. any more., and they certainly don't make the news much.)

Kid's too damn picky.

[dr2chase]

Sylvia Earle, except she's about as old as my dad, and I'm 50 (she went to high school with my dad, I think she was even romantically involved with his best friend, Wallace, for some high school definition of "romance"). Deep sea exploration, Jim suits. Cool stuff.

Failing that, Ross Evans and Kipchoge Spencer. They're younger. They want to save the world with cargo bicycles. Get one of their bikes, you don't need a car.

Re:Kid's too damn picky.

[dr2chase]

ALSO: Because I just bleeping love his videos, Danny MacAskill. Except, you don't want your eight-year-old to even look at this stuff, he might try to imitate it.

How about the guy who drank heliobacter pylori to prove it causes ulcers? He got a Nobel Prize, even.

Ada Lovelace

[cuckundu]

Should be everyone's hero...

Re:Elon Musk

[Idiomatick]

>.> he's my 'hero'... role model? embodiment of aspiration?

Which is funny because I never had any 'heroes' as a kid. The only people I looked up to at all that I didn't know in real life were fictional. Apparently they don't count.

Spaceflight!

[Eosha]

Burt Rutan - Airplane Designer, general badass,
Richard Branson - Explorer, businessman, etc.
Steve Fossett - Explorer!

Hell, any of these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_private_spaceflight_companies

Re:Spaceflight!

[koala_dude]

Yes, another vote for Burt Rutan, from his ground-breaking work with experimental aircraft designs like the wood Vari-Viggen and the innovative composite use of the futuristic Vari-eze and Long-eze homebuilts, to planes like Voyager (round-the-world nonstop), the Boomerang, and now Spaceship One and Spaceship Two, along with their motherships. This is someone who's still the l'enfant terrible of the aviation world, breaking new ground with every project. Also, a very inspiring and exciting speaker.

He's currently strayed from aviation to focus on climate change, but even that has an object lesson: he's at least looking at research and trying to draw his own conclusions.

Other aircraft designers whom I admired growing up:

• Barnes Wallis, UK aircraft designer and inventor (best know for his "Bouncing Bomb", but a wide-ranging intellect)
• R.J. Mitchell, lead designer of the Supermarine Spitfire
• Jiro Horikoshi, lead designer of the A6M Zero-sen fighter and other aircraft
• Rheinhold Platz (designer with Fokker)
• Kelly Johnson (Lockheed Skunkworks, P-38, etc.)

Other people I admired or who were influences (focusing on science / tech heroes):

• E.O. Wilson (Sociobiology)
• Robert Goddard (pioneering rocket designer)
• Jane Jacobs (The Death and Life of Great American Cities)
• Werner von Braun (OK, this was before everyone talked about the slave labor stuff)
• Willy Ley (for me, it was the sense that explained rocketry to a young audience so well...I like good teachers)
• Rear Admiral Grace Hopper (first compiler, first bug, etc.)
• Ada Lovelace / Charles Babbage
• Sir Isaac Newton
• Nikola Tesla
• Thomas Edison
• John Wheeler (physicist)
• Richard Trevithick (pioneering steam engineer)
• Watson and Crick
• Jonas Salk
• Richard Feynman (phsysicist)
• Erdos (mathematician)
• John von Neumann
• Alan Turing
• Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak (oddly, I've never had an Apple computer, but the mythos of their startup was inspiring growing up)

And, of course, if we're going to talk about Heroes...

• Hero of Alexandria (ancient inventor, aka "Heron")

Finally, I would say that your son needs to remember these are, above all, human beings. Find the parts to admire, to emulate, but realize they all have feet of clay.

These people might have accomplished great things, but they're not perfect. Some were great public figures but private jackasses, some had political or religious beliefs that might be offensive to some people, and so on. People get jealous and vindictive, have affairs with wives or husbands, and hold grudges. Nonetheless, they contributed to the betterment of all...understand everyone has some flaws, so don't toss someone aside when you find out they're not perfect.

Re:Spaceflight!

[koala_dude]

*facepalm* Oh, great...I got wrapped up in writing this and totally forgot about his stringent requirements. Back to lurking.

Beakman?

[lopaka1998]

Ever heard of Beakman's world? It's a science kid's show and I used to love it's humor. If you've got netflix, you can stream an ep and check it out. The star isn't young, though. But it is hilarious. Think Bill Nye on steroids.

Re:A Pilot? How About Captain Sully?

[Anonymous Freak]

Sorry, but there are plenty of airline pilots of equal caliber, and Sully is a partisan hack. (I know nothing of his personal politics, other than he testified at a hearing against a friend of mine, when Sully had no personal involvement in the case at all. It was a union dispute. Long story short: Smaller but more successful airline bought larger but failing airline, saving the larger airline from certain death. When it came time for contract renewal, pilots from the larger/failing half basically wanted to dominate the pilots from the smaller/successful half. Pilots from the larger half created a new union for the sole purpose of getting around an agreement that was negative to their side. Sully, who had done his heroics then retired, testified on behalf of the larger half, even though he wasn't personally affected by the issue at hand at all, and was already retired.)

Funny timing for this

[c0y]

Earlier today Al Gore led an online Town Hall meeting with students about Math and Science called Connect a Million Minds. He came right out and blamed Britney Spears for the decline in U.S. STEM leadership.

This was a great idea in that he looked to the kids for the actual answers. The Vokel forum technology just didn't hold up well (which seemed to have about 1000 users at peak, and being sponsored by Time-Warner I figured would work better).

P.S. Speaking of crappy forum tech, why is it that Google Chrome just shits itself trying to post here at /.? Annoying enough I'm gonna just stop.

Re:Funny timing for this

[mr_mischief]

That's really funny. Britney Spears wasn't alive when I was in grade school and we kept hearing about how Young Astronauts and such similar programs were to help shore up the US's slipping position in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Alberto Santos-Dumont

[Kaeso]

If it's not a problem that he hasn't been young/alive recently, how about Alberto Santos-Dumont? Among other things, "between 1898 and 1905, he built and flew 11 dirigibles. With air traffic control restrictions still decades in the future, he would glide along Paris boulevards at rooftop level in one of his airships, commonly landing in front of a fashionable outdoor cafe for lunch. On one occasion he even flew an airship early one morning to his own apartment at No. 9, Rue Washington, just off Avenue des Champs-Élysées, not far from the Arc de Triomphe." How could anyone not find that awesome? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Santos-Dumont

Elon Musk or Burt Rutan

[Troll-Under-D'Bridge]

I'm divided between these two private launch pioneers. If you're looking for the rocket scientist, I'd pick Rutan, who engineered the first successfully reused private suborbital spacecraft. While not a rocket designer, Musk has the youth and glamor factor going for him (as an ex-dot-com multimillionaire). His vision seems to be longer range, opting for real (read "orbital") space.

Musk wins by a hair for me simply because he could have chosen to start another dot.company after PayPal. Instead he chose to take real (as against virtual) risks and start a brick-and-mortar, or should I say, nuts-and-bolts business.

Re:A Pilot? How About Captain Sully?

[Anonymous Freak]

Reference: Look up "ALPA vs. USAPA" for more information on the dispute. My friend's side has prevailed in every court hearing so far.

Cartoon Physics

[Sparx139]

Do the laws of physics you are familiar with work similar to these ones?

Von Braun

[Troll-Under-D'Bridge]

If you're looking for that old, why not pick the rocket scientist, Werner von Braun.

Re:Von Braun

[germansausage]

Because Rocket Scientists weren't on the list.(Should be, though)

It's hard to think of any young ones.

[Animats]

It's hard to think of young ones. Mark Zuckerberg, maybe.

Dean Kamen (the Segway) would be cool to 3rd graders, but he's too old. Same for Mark Raibert (BigDog). Burt Rutan (Scaled Composites, aircraft and spaceplane designer) is way too old. I know some young people (one is under 20) doing cool stuff in the electric car area, but they're not well known yet.

Historically, there have been many inventors who became famous in their 20s, from Edison onward. But I'm having a hard time finding modern examples.

The NSF used to have "Presidential Young Investigator Awards", but after five revisions of that program it's smaller and watered down.

"jesus" and "jesus wtf"

[keith_nt4]

These are two of the tags for this story as I write this. It made me bust up laughing so I thought I would say bravo...bravo...

How about these guys?

[Geoffrey.landis]

"...The recipients include the engineer behind the digital camera, the Intel team that designed the first computer microprocessor, and the inventor of the adhesive 'super glue.'”

http://blogs.voanews.com/breaking-news/2010/11/17/obama-honors-scientists-and-engineers/

Another one...

[kaoshin]

So, how about John Pistole? I hear the TSA are really beginning to touch children.

other scientists who popularize science.

[je ne sais quoi]

In that vein, I think a good role model is someone who popularizes science. If I were to quote you some scientists who Hirsch-indices were really high, the problem is that most of their stuff is unintelligible to most adults, much less a kid. So I'd pick ones that have written books that popularize science. Along with Tyson, I'd think about guys like:

Steve Jay Gould (paleontologist, unfortunately dead)
Robert Hazen (mineralogist, works on origin of life, not really young though)
David Goodstein (chemist, writes on oil resource depletion.)
Perhaps someone who reports on science, like the scientists at work blog at the NYT or one of the blogs on national geographic. That way the kid could keep up with current events (maybe you could find a blog of someone working someplace inhospitable, like McMurdo station in the Antarctic.

Reasonably young??

[fishexe]

To be eligible for hero status, an individual must be (1)...(2) reasonably young (it pains me to report that Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger, NASA's youngest astronaut and now just 31, barely makes the cut), and, critically to my naive son's way of thinking, (3)...

Since when do 8-year-olds know the difference between 45-year-olds and 30-year-olds? They were all just grown-ups to me when I was that age. There were, like, 4 categories of people: kids, big kids, grown-ups, and old folks (technically a subset of grown-ups, but distinguished by completely gray/white hair and large amounts of wrinkles). I don't think I became aware of the difference between 45 and 30 until I was at least 11.

Re:Reasonably young??

[keith_nt4]

I don't think I became aware of the difference between 45 and 30 until I was at least 11.

Impressive. I don't think i knew the difference until I was...30.

Re:Reasonably young??

[Phred T. Magnificent]

Impressive. I don't think i knew the difference until I was...30.

You won't really know the difference until you're 45.

Kari Byron

[codepunk]

My child is starting off on the right foot his favorite and mine is Kari Byron.

Galois

[onionman]

Galois (look him up!!) is long dead, but he was quite possibly the greatest genius ever to walk the planet. Too bad he was killed in a sword fight when he was 20. As a teenager, he solved a centuries-old math problem and created a fundamental branch of advanced mathematics.

Re:Galois

[kumanopuusan]

he was killed in a sword fight

That explains why he lost, since Galois died of a gunshot wound.

Re:Galois

[mangu]

he was killed in a sword fight

That explains why he lost, since Galois died of a gunshot wound.

-"En garde!"

BANG!

-"Now, THAT should explain to you the difference between a postulate and a theorem!"

Re:Galois

[drmofe]

"Never bring a sword to a gunfight."

Re:Galois

[sureshot007]

he was killed in a sword fight

That explains why he lost, since Galois died of a gunshot wound.

I think "genius" might be too strong of a word....

Re:Galois

[jasper_amsterdam]

Am I the only one who only knows this quote (and many others) from Sid Meier's Civ?

Re:Jesus Christ is my #1 Science Hero!

[c6gunner]

I thought he was infinitely old? Then again, that whole three-guys-in-one or one-guy-in-three thing never did make much sense ....

Re:Elon Musk

[jeremylichtman]

Not only all of the above, but he had a cameo in Iron Man.

George Washington Carver!

[mehemiah]

He's still my hero. More than any of the tech giants just because he invented SO MANY things.

Why young?

[lawpoop]

Why do they have to be young? When I was in middle school, my hero was Einstein.

But, I don't think you're going to find a 20-year-old science hero, like you would a 20-year-old sports hero. To really have a science career, you have to have a PhD, and then some career after that. I think the best you can do is a 30-year-old with promising research, or a 20-year-old whose a promising genius, or made a great invention. Other than that, you're looking for a person who has a PhD + 10 years' work behind them.

Re:Why young?

[mcvos]

Why do they have to be young? When I was in middle school, my hero was Einstein.

Exactly. Einstein for me too. Hell, he predicted one of the coolest things ever: Bose-Einstein condensate! How cool is that?

Warning about Sidney Crosby

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS]

While he is a fine young hockey player, and I fully expect him to lead his team to a Stanley Cup, there is one thing that every eight year old should know about him before indulging in any form of 'hero worship'.

HE HAS COOTIES!!!

Steven Hawking

[ondigo]

I don't know if the average 8 year old would find Hawking heroic, but a kid as thoughtful as this poster's might well do so. And when are we going to get a Steven Hawking action figure? (Irony intended, but not in a mean way.)

Doctor Who

[Roger W Moore]

RTFS "reasonably young".

I guess that rules out 'the doctor' from Doctor Who then unless it is only the age of the actors which counts?

Al Gore?

[keith_nt4]

Otherwise known as the hunter of "Man-bear-pig". Okay he's more a politician then a "sciencey guy". But he invented the internet and appeared on Futurama (where he's apparently the emperor of the moon and inventor of the environment). A semi-famous geek if nothing else is something any 8 year old should look up to.

John Carmack

[pieisgood]

John Carmack makes video game for a living, has a successful private space rocket company and was driving super charged ferraris at 26 because of his programming skills. If that's not a cool hero I don't know what is....

Akrit Pran Jaswal

[Tokerat]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akrit_Jaswal

Missing the point.

[fishbowl]

If you don't share the meme du jour with the other 3rd graders, it won't matter *what* you're into. Chose your hobbies, your heroes, and whatever else you do because you can. Realize that the other kids don't have this drive to have an original thought of their own to begin with, and that no matter what you do (even including trying to adopt their trends!) is going to be met with hostility anyway, because you are different.

You don't join these bandwagon trends because you like their subject matter. You do it because you do not want to stand out, especially when standing out for any reason makes you a threat.

I hate to say it, but this kid is already in the group that needs to be thinking about ways to defend against bullies.

Re:Feynman

[Fnord]

Seconded. Also while not an astronaut took on NASA management in the Challenger committee and won.

Re:Peter Parker?

[guyminuslife]

(2) reasonably young

I'm not sure, but I think a 558-year-old is a little long in the tooth to be considered "reasonably young."

Norman Borlaug

[The_mad_linguist]

Norman Borlaug. Because if saving a billion people's lives using science doesn't make you a sciencey hero, nothing will.

Scientific method != science

[Roger W Moore]

Who said you got to STUDY to be a scientist?

Being a scientist means doing original scientific research i.e. something that nobody has done before, otherwise it is called history. This means that you had better know what has been done before so that you can build upon and expand the existing knowledge. Currently the only way to learn this is via studying so, with currently technology, to be a scientist you do need to study.

Like it or not, but there is uneducated people doing research by the scientific method.

Using the scientific method does not mean that you are doing science. For example you could conduct a criminal investigation using the scientific method but that does not mean that what you are doing is science.

Re:Scientific method != science

[walshy007]

I think the grandparents point is you don't need a university degree or any formal qualifications in order to 'study'

You can learn the current state of the art independent of any such institutions.

Using the scientific method does not mean that you are doing science. For example you could conduct a criminal investigation using the scientific method but that does not mean that what you are doing is science.

By that definition no applied use of science would be 'doing science' and for example physics students at university would not be 'doing science' because what they are learning has already been done before.

Science does not need to be new to still be science.

Re:Scientific method != science

[ShakaUVM]

>>Being a scientist means doing original scientific research i.e. something that nobody has done before, otherwise it is called history.

Replication of results is a critical part of doing science.

You train to do science by repeating classical experiments.

Re:Scientific method != science

[Roger W Moore]

You train to do science by repeating classical experiments.

True, but training to do something is not the same as actually doing it.

Re:Scientific method != science

[Internetuser1248]

Who said you got to STUDY to be a scientist?

Being a scientist means doing original scientific research i.e. something that nobody has done before, otherwise it is called history.

This seems like an absurd view of science. None of the definitions i got from google say anything about originality directly. Perhaps you would care to furnish us with the one from your dictionary just so we can have the same true understanding that you have.

In the meantime I don't think I even understand how to measure originality. How am I to know what has been known in the past? If information is lost to the scientific community (eg. the burning of the library at Alexandria) is a subsequent study of that subject not science? What if I am stranded on a desert island, and I use the scientific method to work out how to grow/prepare food and work out which plants are poisonous. It seems like something very akin to science and I wouldn't call it history. Perhaps you are thinking of the value of science. If sufficient study on a subject has already been conducted then further scientific study has no value. Many of the definitions linked refer to something like this. The difference is that science is a noun not a verb. One is not producing science if ones results are already known. the definitions speak of producing solutions to problems for example. One cannot produce solutions to problems that are already solved. The scientific method is the method by which one builds science, not all applications of the method produce science, but any application that produces useful results has produced science. Another example might be if you do some scientific study that has never been done before, but you refuse to give me your results. I might do the same research to solve my problem, which is that you wont tell me your results. I might then achieve the same results as you and therefore solve my problem. The knowledge i would gain from this fits every definition of science on that list (except the band and album titles).

Discussions of originality aside, the quotes you responded to also stand, you dont have to study to do science, even by your own definition, and there are not only uneducated people doing reasearch by the scientific method, there are even some that are thereby producing original science as aresult.

Re:Scientific method != science

[uncledrax]

Being a scientist means doing original scientific research i.e. something that nobody has done before, otherwise it is called history.

Isn't one of the big things about science is that it's repeatable? That is.. it's actually encouraged someone do what you did in order to repeat your results.. I think that's classified as 'good science', at least in my book..

I think the point of the of Skal's post was rather to indicate you don't need to spend years in a University studying how to be a scientist, but rather, just a natural curiosity can (and often has) been sufficient. What the schooling is good for is things like how to standardize and analyze your results, how to manipulate various equipment you might not have access to just as a hobbist, and of course how the 'science institution' wants you do do things.

One of the problems though is alot of the casual-accessible science has already been done, which sorta of raises a bar to entry unless you stumble across something interesting that no one noticed before [The exceptions to this are under-observed fields, like Astronomy, where amateurs are still making notable strides, mostly because it's difficult for the professionals to observe the entire sky at the same time].

Re:Scientific method != science

[Talderas]

Being a scientist means doing original scientific research i.e. something that nobody has done before, otherwise it is called history. This means that you had better know what has been done before so that you can build upon and expand the existing knowledge. Currently the only way to learn this is via studying so, with currently technology, to be a scientist you do need to study.

How about Einstein? When he came up with his theory of relativity, he was working in the patent office and didn't have access to libraries of material to do for research. I believe he even admitted in either an application for a professorship or a journal submission that he didn't have access to a lot of material.

Re:Scientific method != science

[Roger W Moore]

How else can you train than by doing it?

Reading books and other learning material? Using simulations? Following and observing an expert? You usually only get to do things AFTER you have trained up to a certain level with the doing part being done under close supervision to demonstrate that you have learnt the skills needed to actually do whatever it is. You are confusing basic training to learn how to do certain tasks with those who have already learnt those basic skills _improving_ their skills by using them.

Re:Scientific method != science

[Roger W Moore]

How about Einstein?

Einstein had a physics degree and had done extensive extracurricular physics and maths studies in addition. So to think that Einstein never studied simply because he worked in a patent office would be very, very wrong.

Re:Scientific method != science

[Roger W Moore]

This seems like an absurd view of science. None of the definitions [google.co.nz] i got from google...

Really? Wikipaedia for Scientist: "A scientist in a broad sense is one engaging in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge." The originality here being to "acquire knowledge" i.e. something not known before (and no I did NOT just edit the entry to say that! ;-).

Louis Pasteur

[louarnkoz]

I am sure children could relate to the guy who invented pasteurized milk, discovered germs, found the vaccine for rabies, etc...

Scientists do not fit the heroic mold.

[tpstigers]

Let's just face it. Indiana Jones isn't heroic because he an archaeologist. He heroic despite it.

Re:Scientists do not fit the heroic mold.

[Mindcontrolled]

Not necessarily. If you read about the early age of archaeology, you'll find lots of explorer-types venturing into bandit-ridden lands, fighting of robbers (or running like hell from them), smuggling their finds away from money-grubbing local potentates while barely escaping their minions... Some pretty exciting stories there.

The Stem Cell Man

[Stem_Cell_Brad]

Shinya Yamanaka - He found a way to turn your skin cells into stem cells. pretty cool, possibly hero-ish.

Re:the youngest billionaire in the world of course

[Miseph]

Yeah, all that charity work in Africa is just EVIL.

I'm not a fan of many of Bill's business practices, but at the end of the day I'd much rather see a kid wish to emulate him than a lot of other people. I think if you put aside your blinding irrational hatred for a moment, you might even agree.

League of Scientists

[abkaiser]

January/February of 2011, you'll get the first book in the League of Scientists. It's about a group of science geeks in seventh grade who use science and critical thinking to solve seemingly-supernatural mysteries. Seems to be right in line with the poster's request.

[Disclaimer: I'm the author.]

Professor Fink

[halcyon1234]

Professor Fink. He'll make you laugh, he'll make you think...

Lord British!

[trickofperspective]

Teenage video-game prodigy and self-made astronaut Richard Garriott!

Shai Agassi, If not for the '3rd grader' bit

[MikShapi]

Not only a genious technologist, but one with enough grasp on geopolitics, business, consumer behavior and macro-economics to singlehandedly start a movement that would outflank the entire global automotive AND oil industries.

Search for him on Youtube if you haven't heard the name before.

That said, it's not something my second-grader son would be able to appreciate as much as he would, say, Carl Sagan. Maybe when he's a bit older. Or maybe he'll have his own heroes.

I guess it'd be a bit different as the world he would come to would already have EV's as a for-granted thing, and remember little of a time when they were all but "decades+ away, if ever, science fiction" and when one man standing up to that multi-trillion-industry entrenched dogma and methodically converting the world over (while founding a company that'll probably end up an order of magnitude or more bigger than google in a few years) with the charm and the wit he does it with... that's hero stuff right there :)

Re:the youngest billionaire in the world of course

[walshy007]

If a drug baron is making millions, and donates 10% of his profit to charity.. does that make him a good person?

Sure microsoft may have just played dirty to get their market dominance, but that is still not behaviour I'd like a child to emulate.

Except explorers

[LongearedBat]

What about arctic/desert/jungle explorers? They tend to be not be too old (due to the rigours of the environments they traverse) and they're often researchers.

If lucky, one might find a live one here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_explorers

Re:Except explorers

[Gravitron 5000]

Meagan McGrath is alive, although she has had at least one close call, falling into a crevasse in Antarctica. Also, saving a Sherpa on Everest is bad ass.

Re:Peter Parker?

[Culture20]

(2) reasonably young

I'm not sure, but I think a 558-year-old is a little long in the tooth to be considered "reasonably young."

But the mutant turtle named after him is a teenager.

Re:Peter Parker?

[XxtraLarGe]

Really? A fictional guy when there are so many more unbelievable real folks to choose from?

I must apologize. I couldn't resist making a joke over the submission. The criteria laid out by the submitter does not sounds like anyone who exists. Expert in their field of science, young and popular with 3rd graders? Seriously?

Magnets can affect Lead too

[Roger W Moore]

A whole program trying to deflect bullets with magnets. Aren't they made of lead?

Ever heard of Lenz's law? There is a very simple demo of it where you can make an aluminium ring jump off the pole of an electromagnet - this would work fine for lead as well. Not to mention paramagnetism and diamagnetism (not sure which applies to lead) - all materials containing atoms will interact with a sufficiently strong static magnetic field.

Re:Peter Parker?

[guyminuslife]

And has been since I was a small child, a teenager, and now a twenty-something.

I think there must be some time-dilation down in those sewers.

Bill Nye the Science Guy

[ukemike]

This series from the 1990s is somehow owned by Disney, despite it being funded by the National Science Foundation and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (in otherwords the taxpayers should own it). I tried to find a way to buy the show on DVD but all I could find was the educational institution price of something like $700 for the whole series. That was obviously absurd, so I found it via bittorrent. Anyone who reads this site should also be able to find it.

It's great fun and educational. My son loves the show. He asks to watch it. We've been watching it since he was 2 or 3. Now in second grade he's way ahead of his class in science and math.

Bill Nye! Bill! Bill! Bill!

Re:Bill Nye the Science Guy

[GameboyRMH]

That was by far my favorite TV show as a kid.

Évariste Galois

[Sepiraph]

While he may not be the perfect role model for your 8 years old, he definitely top the list of (tragic) heroes.

- Accomplished something REALLY young (invented group theory, introduced the concept of finite field).
- Political Activist / Revolutionary.
- Fought in a duel (and died).


When you think about Galois' life, it definitely does not fit into the mold of a mathematician at all. There is not even one mathematician who lived remotely similar to him in human history that I know of.

You idiots

[eddeye]

Obviously it's the Mythbusters! Not only are they scientists AND engineers, but they're entertaining and appeal to a wide audience. What third grader doesn't like robots and explosions??

No one else mentioned even comes close. Sagan? Bill Nye? Some random astronomer? Please. They have absolutely zero crossover appeal with the general population (much less third graders) and will result in blank stares. May as well use Henry Kissinger (yeah not a science guy, but just about as boring as you can get).

I am surrounded by heroes.

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

"Need" is not the word I would have chosen, but being in the dialogue, I accepted it as a proxy for the question of why heroes are good to have.

I am surrounded by heroes. I see people who spend their lives working to make the world better. It gives me hope, and it gives me something both to aspire to in my own way and to support intellectually, politically, or financially.

Hundreds of thousands of kids in the US are at high risk for being forced into slavery each year. And slavery is a problem around the world, too, with the worldwide slave population in the high tens of millions. Genocide remains a problem in Darfur, after Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and didn't they just discover new mass graves in Columbia? Nelson Mandela and Ghandi and King worked to change parts of the world that needed changing. With the Global Health Initiatives, we're making a huge difference in hundreds of millions of African lives.

There's a lot of good going on in the world, if you stop to look. And there are a lot of heroes.

Do we "need" heroes? If "we" are those of us lucky enough that we have time to be talking on slashdot, chances are we'll survive without them. But the world needs them, and they make us the better for knowing them.

Heck, yes, Elon Musk.

[lawhack]

Totally agree. Thought of him, then found his name in the list already. Show your son the bio. Spaceships, cool cars, saving the world, and an internet gazillionaire in his 20s. What's not to like?

Re:Not so hard to find

[fractoid]

+1 for Tony Stark.

L Ron Hubbard

[seeker_1us]

He's like the only scientology hero right? ooooh ScienCY....

Re:the youngest billionaire in the world of course

[fractoid]

He's not in any of of the fields the OP asked for, including being an inventor, what with the idea for Facebook having been stolen. Also, if it were me, I wouldn't want my kids looking up to him, similarly to how I wouldn't want them looking up to Bill Gates - he's far from heroic in any sense of the word.

You seem to think that taking an untested idea and developing it into a billion dollar industry is somehow not difficult or notable. I don't like the guy either (or Gates for that matter) but I'd still hold them up as examples for my kids because they're ridicu-fuckoff-ability-ously successful.

"Stealing the idea" is a pretend crime invented by people that love to dream things up but are too lazy to follow through with them. An idea is worthless until someone takes it and makes something real with it. If there's one lesson I'd want my kids to learn from people like Zuckerberg, or Gates, or Jobs, it's that having big ideas and fantastic dreams means jack shit. Seeing an opportunity (be your big idea, someone else's big idea, or a simple market opportunity), building a vision around it, forming a plan, and making that vision happen... THAT is worth everything.

Dolf Lundgren

[lul_wat]

Yes. You read that correctly.

Re:Dolf Lundgren

[Rozzin]

For those who think this is a joke, cf. Lundgren's Wikipedia page, or his IMDB bio.

He has a master's degree in chemical engineering, and was awarded a Fullbright Scholarship to MIT, and just happened to get co-opted into being a movie-star while en route.

If you read the quotations, he's evidently intelligent and witty. He's also an actual martial-arts master, and a family-photo of his actually scared-off a couple of burlars who made the mistake of breaking into his house and attacking his wife (`your husband is who!? So sorry, ma'am!').

Re:the youngest billionaire in the world of course

[walshy007]

Because he couldn't possibly be getting most of that back as profit now could he?

Re:the youngest billionaire in the world of course

[shaitand]

"If a drug baron is making millions, and donates 10% of his profit to charity.. does that make him a good person?"

Drugs are not actually bad m'kay. Bill is evil, a drug baron may or may not be evil.

Re:Put subject here

[mikael_j]

That number is heavily skewed towards older engineers, don't you think?

Well, as the parent post (and the linked article) stated, that's the average starting pay, out of college, not "older engineers" but fresh grads straight out of college.

Re:"young" children.

[Le Marteau]

> Isn't that redundant? When have there been "old" children?

Ever since one of the definitions of "child" included "a son or daughter of human parents".

Re:Biologist?

[SharpFang]

been said already, hero, not super-villain.

Re:This should be obvious to all

[M8e]

jean-luc is -295 year old right now. Maybe that is unreasonably young?

Eliezer S. Yudkowsky

[Hakubi_Washu]

would be a scientist (auto-didact, if that excludes him for you) and is among the youngest people I can think of given your restrictions (31). He has written a few very interesting pieces on AI (Warning: Transhumanist/Singularitan), as well as the best Harry Potter fanfiction I've ever read: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality

For more information see: http://yudkowsky.net/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliezer_Yudkowsky

May I suggest though not to restrict yourself to actual people? "Hero" is a word I use extremely rarely, since I consider that to be a "larger than life, thus fictional" label...

Re:Eliezer S. Yudkowsky

[geekoid]

Your an idiot. Hero has a real world meaning.

Maybe you need less fiction in your life?

Re:Eliezer S. Yudkowsky

[Hakubi_Washu]

Have you considered adding more life to your fiction?

Re:Richard Stallman

[Anonymous Coward]

The description of the book is pretty lousy. The book is principally set on a space station. Only a small amount of the book is actually set on Athos, and Athos isn't entirely populated by gay men. It takes place in Lois McMaster Bujolds sci fi universe in which, centuries before, a wave of human colonization left earth to explore and colonize the galaxy via a series of naturally occurring wormholes. In Bujold's universe, all kinds of national, corporate, and idealist groups have founded their own colonies sometimes with very specific purposes. In the case of Athos, the colony was founded by some sort of group of religious misogynists (or at least gynephobes) who intended to found a celibate, religious utopia free from sin (by virtue of being free from women). In the time the story is set, celibacy has gone out the window for some part of the population (percentages are never given) and on a planet with no women, if you're not celibate, you only have one choice, which has obviously become an accepted mainstream thing. The story doesn't delve too deeply into their society, but there's undoubtedly some hard core fanatics somewhere who futilely condemn all sexual activity. In any case, the entire society views women as the source of evil and as a bogey man waiting out there in the rest of the galaxy to destroy mens minds. All information sources from the rest of the galaxy are censored, which isn't too difficult since the planets only contact with the rest of the galaxy is via a galactic census ship that comes once a standard year for a few days and carries all trade goods and communications (pretty much limited to incoming trade journals) and inbound immigrants (virtually non-existent) and the extremely rare outbound traveler with some sort of approved diplomatic or business purpose out in the rest of the galaxy. The title character, Ethan, is a doctor at a reproductive clinic which is where men come to have children grown in uterine replicators from their sperm and eggs produced by ovarian cultures. The ovarian cultures are hundreds of years old and just won't produce enough viable eggs anymore, so they've ordered a shipment of ovarian cultures from offworld, but when they arrive the crates that are supposed to contain cultures grown from human female ovaries carefully cryopreserved actually contain whole ovaries, wrapped up in bubble wrap, completely dead, and some of which are from animals. So, the character Ethan gets chosen as their representative to the rest of the galaxy and is sent out with the planets entire trade budget for the year to find out what happened to their shipment and secure a replacement for the following year. This is the setup for the rest of the book which, after the first chapter or so, leaves Athos and doesn't come back until the very end of the book.

Explain what heroes are

[houghi]

These sports types are NOT heroes. Oh and neither are firemen or policemen, just for being a fireman or policeman. Same for almost all 'heroes' we see nowadays.
What they are looking for is 'role models' and it should be the school that should explain the difference as well as the parents.

But then the kid already knows that and does not see sports people as heroes. I would go with Einstein. Looks like a real scientist AND he build a frikkin' A-bomb that saved America from fascism. (well, for many years anyway.)

Re:Explain what heroes are

[jedidiah]

> Looks like a real scientist AND he build a frikkin' A-bomb that saved America from fascism.

Brought to you by the schoolhouse rocks school of bogus history myths...

web designing

[saiyom123]

Two Latina mothers are heroes in the new banana book, Small Changes Big Results from the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University. Their adventure is to actualize a convalescent affairs for their accouchement and families and action obesity. The animation moms are like real-life moms in Latino acreage workers' families, who are anxious about the growing blubber botheration a allotment of adolescent children, says Jill Kilanowski, abettor assistant at the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University. As allotment of several analysis projects, Kilanowski advised over 200 accouchement on farms abreast Fremont, Willard, Urbana and Tipp City in Ohio and South Haven, Michigan. web designing company in chandigarh thanks

Re:Elon Musk

[MrEricSir]

Right, because everyone has a Tesla in their driveway? No, he's not a science hero so much as a marketing hero.

Re:Peter Parker?

[mwvdlee]

Forget the first criteria. Name me one scientist that is even well-known amongst 3rd graders.

Re:Jesus Christ is my #1 Science Hero!

[mwvdlee]

We're looking for science heroes, not science fiction heroes.

only one true hero relevant for him

[advocate_one]

Christa McAuliffe

Re:only one true hero relevant for him

[dargaud]

Christa McAuliffe

Meh... School teacher only put there for PR reasons.

Re:Jesus Christ is my #1 Science Hero!

[Cwix]

Either I missed the woosh, or your trolling.

Disregarding the relatively young bit:

[nixNscratches]

Trying not to repeat earlier suggestions, (though Tesla has always been a personal hero)

How about Chuck Yeager, fighter pilot, test pilot, first person to break the sound barrier.
Any and all of the Mercury Seven astronauts. If your son has any doubts, sit him down in front of a copy of "The Right Stuff", he'll come around.

Re:the youngest billionaire in the world of course

[Cwix]

Alright comon Mark, your not allowed to nominate yourself. Trust me, no one with any sense looks up to you.

The correct answer when his friends ask

[goose-incarnated]

there is only one answer

"My dad"

Re:The correct answer when his friends ask

[geekoid]

So your goal is to get him beat up and shunned?

Jeez, you really don't know anything about razing kids, do you?

Re:The correct answer when his friends ask

[goose-incarnated]

You may be correct. My kid is, after all only 4-ish, so when he tells other kids that his daddy is the best daddy in the world, no one actually tries to harm him. Will see how it goes when he's 8 :-)

Re:Feynman

[Mr2cents]

And if you watch a video of him (use google videos) you'll notice he has always retained the curiosity of a small child. Great man.

Richard branson

[Aargau]

Owns his own cola, music, airline, and private island, bonks supermodels, and about to commercialize LEO travel. Does his own extreme sport stunts as well.

Re:Jesus Christ is my #1 Science Hero!

[Hognoxious]

Then again, that whole three-guys-in-one or one-guy-in-three thing never did make much sense ....

You're clearly not a Unix user.

man ln

Borlaug and Hilleman

[science_rocks]

My two favorite science heroes are Norman Borlaug and Maurice Hilleman. Borlaug lead the research that developed variations of wheat that led to the Green Revolution in Mexico and India. Hilleman lead the research teams that developed 8 of the 14 primary vaccinations given to children to prevent childhood diseases. Each of these research scientists are responsible for millions of people being alive today who otherwise wouldn't be. They averted untold suffering and heartache. We too often remember those who cause pain and suffering in the world; why can't we also revere those who prevent it?

Re:Jesus Christ is my #1 Science Hero!

[Belial6]

I never understood why this concept was so hard. Seriously, have you never had a dream where a person was one person, yet they were someone else? How about one where you were one place, but it was also another?

Simon Singh

[clickety6]

The scientist who took on the super villains of chiropractory and beat them. Plus he has a haircut that looks like it should be on a super hero action figure. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Singh

Emily Rosa - She's still young (early 20's)

[VShael]

As a 9 year old girl, she debunked the whole Therapeutic Touch nonsense, with a sensible experimental design.

If it helps, she grew up to be a smoking hottie, as well as having brains to burn. IMO, young kids could look
up to her for both her critical thinking skills, and the way she was no swayed by arguments-from-authority of
the "we're older than you, so we know better" sort.

Salman Khan? He makes kids smarter...

[uberjeep]

http://blogs.forbes.com/bruceupbin/2010/10/28/khan-academy-a-name-you-need-to-know-in-2011/ A smart guy doing not for profit education videos on practically everything. Now on the verge of revolutionising education, noted this year by Bill Gates, given funding from Google.

Re:Jesus Christ is my #1 Science Hero!

[c6gunner]

No. But I've never taken LSD.

Chuck Norris

[indre1]

...counted to infinity, twice!

That's just astronomical, so it should do.

Re:Chuck Norris

[Eunuchswear]

Come off it, Norris is a wimp who's scared of Obama.

Check out the "New Imaging Model..." article.

[rgbatduke]

In it an amazing new computational method of producing a 3d image of all of the synaptic connections in a mouse brain from high resolution tomographic slices 70 nanometers thick was developed by a young graduate student named Busse. The entire process is stupendous with "heroic" achievements all around (the actual process of staining involved antibodies with colored dye fluorescent molecules attached -- it sure beats the old days, things like horseradish peroxidase and stains and looking at slices one at a time through a microscope to see perhaps a single set of mutually activated neural connections) and many of them are directly connected to young researchers like Busse.

Nearly every issue of Science, Nature, Physical Review Letters, or what have you contains "heroic" work by young researchers. Entire game companies are founded by young geeks. Google was started by young geeks. SAS was founded by young geeks. Not all of them remain young, of course, but every generation produces its crop of new ones from the self-renewing resource of our University and research system. They're pretty easy to find in particular in the many articles posted on slashdot, so this is a great place to mine for them.

rgb

Read to the kid---biographies, lots of biographies

[WillAdams]

Biographies intended for children often focus on specific aspects of childhood, relating that to later endeavours, so the age thing should be ameliorated.

When I felt my children were a bit weak on American history I read them biographies of American Presidents, Vice Presidents and First Ladies, starting w/ George Washington, only stopping w/ Harry Truman 'cause my wife quit working nights and the evening schedule became too busy.

Re:Peter Parker?

[commodore64_love]

My "hero" is middle school was Mr. Spock via the reruns of the original Star Trek.

Later on it was LaForge.

Strange how both of them ended-up terminally single.

"Sciencey"?

[tehcyder]

Just because this article is about eight year olds doesn't mean you have to write like one.

Re:"Sciencey"?

[geekoid]

Just because your ignorant of a word doesn't mean you have insult peopel with a better vocabulary.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sciencey

Sherlock Holmes. Jamie from Mythbusters.

[evilandi]

Sherlock Holmes. You can't get much more science and hero than that.

Real world? Any of the presenters of Mythbusters.

Re:Sherlock Holmes. Jamie from Mythbusters.

[geekoid]

Sherlock Holmes? A drug addicted man who doesn't know the earth revolves around the sun?

Yeah, great role model.

Re:Jesus Christ is my #1 Science Hero!

[proverbialcow]

Batman's a scientist.

Dr. Gordon Freeman

[Seismologist]

Dr. Freeman Gorden; He is a theoretical physicist (Ph.D. from MIT) who finds himself thrust into a battle for survival against both alien and the (Orwellian) human forces.

Jacques Cousteau

[Lazarian]

He may have passed away, but Jacques Cousteau still has to be included on any list of innovative, adventurous scientists. Researcher, filmmaker, deep-sea explorer, among his many accomplishments. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Cousteau

people who blow things up = cool, right?

[ghostlibrary]

Kristian von Bengtson and Peter Madsen of Copenhagen Suborbital. Not only are they building a homemade rocket to get to space, but Madsen already built a submarine just to commute to work. The Mythbuster guys, because they are paid well to blow things up on tv. Plus Kari Byron, just because. Also, everyone that does underwater caving (most dangerous sport/adventure around), wingsuit builders, etc.

Chuck Norris

[sureshot007]

Hey may not be a "scientist", but let's face it, if he wanted to, he could solve every problem on the millennium list.

Jacques Cousteau

[Jungle guy]

He was not exactly a scientist, but was very close to what you would call a "science hero". He helped to improve the aqualung, used by every diver (including for scientific research), and did a pretty good job of science communication for a broad audience. Much before Myth Busters, Costeau was making nature documentaries that were broadcasted on National TV. He also raised public awareness of human impacts on the sea, and of the ecology in general. That is a hero!

Re:EASY!!

[jimbobborg]

Cindy Crosby is a whiny crybaby. Plus he's Canadian. Alex Ovechkin is missing a front tooth and is a better player and dates better looking women.

He might be too old, but...

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

...what about Hans Moravec?

AMERICA!

[laxergreg]

Besides the age/being alive thing, Ben Franklin is my personal hero/role model. He was a genius scientist/inventor and a true American hero.

Just stop already

[Quiet_Desperation]

Stop looking for larger than life heroes. Be your own hero to those around you.

Re:Just stop already

[geekoid]

Don't be an idiot. Kids got through a phase where they look for an external hero. It's normal.

Re:Just stop already

[Quiet_Desperation]

Don't be an idiot.

Aw. :-( You wound me, sir.

Kids got through a phase where they look for an external hero.

Best time to teach them, then.

It's normal.

Bullshit. It's cultural.

Re:Perhaps a little dated

[DrLov3]

I came here to propose Salk, but parent beat me to it.

The fact that he refused to patent it and waived mountains of money allowed poorer people and third world countries to get rid of polio, otherwise it would still be a threat today!
This is what true heroes should do, work for the betterment of mankind.

Plus I like to think of Mr. Salk as the father of open source, in a vaccine/biology field he gave his receipe for the vaccine for free.

When asked about patenting, he replied : no it's important like the sun, ... could you patent the sun?

And one last quick note, 5 years ago I got my polio vaccine and it costed me 9$ !!!!! instead of the 150$ It woulda costed me if a big pharmaceutical had a patent.

Get 'em while they're young

[ChrisMaple]

Bindi the Jungle Girl.

Not my hero, but

[gmuslera]

the son in No Ordinary Family being dumb in a dumb show still have as superpower knowing math, and using it in normal life situations.

Alan Turing

[Bobtree]

Maybe you've heard of him Slashdot?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing

Re:Peter Parker?

[HaZardman27]

Bill Nye the Science Guy?

Phil Jones

[Eunuchswear]

Yes I can type more than that idiot slashcode.

Re:Thor Hyerdahl and the Kon-Tiki crew were my her

[Quirkz]

Seconded. I loved Kon-Tiki when I read it in high school, and I've just reread it recently and found it as much fun. I was astounded by the Easter Island adventures, too. My school taught me--decades after Heyerdahl had demonstrated their construction and published it in a book--that the statues were "a mystery" which still frustrates me to this day.

Teach and let him find his own.

[lythander]

I'll throw in for Jamie and Adam, since they are both really well known and worthy of the adulation.

Far better to have your children live the life of math and science, makers and doers, and let him come on his own. Expose him to your (our) world and let him decide for himself.

Finally, remember that there is no reason he couldn't also like Hockey, or football, or anything else that the muggle world indulges in. We do our children (all of them) a huge disservice when we act like to be a geek you can't also play a sport, or be interested in something outside of the traditional geek pursuits. Geekdom is creeping ever farther afield to encompass more and more (geek cooking, geek fashion, etc.) Heroes need to be something one chooses organically, so take him on a journey, don't hand him one.

Dn't pick his hero

[geekoid]

expose him to the fields he is interested in and let him pick his hero.

Mythbusters is a good start.

There is a TV show my kids watch where it's 3 teens that build stuff and then blow it up. And do contests that are interesting 'science'. I can't remember what it called right now. grrr.

Niel Degrass Tyson would be a start.

Age is a problem. Really known accomplishesh scintists tend to be older.

Look for local things.

There are a number of younger cool skeptics out there.

oh, and if he like Dinosaurs, check out AArons world.

With a good mix, you can help him decide.

Doctor... Who?

[street struttin']

The Docotor, duh. Who cares if the science works or not?

Re:Peter Parker?

[teslafreak]

I second this motion, though it doesn't meet the age criteria. Convince him to overlook that.

Danica McKellar

[greywire]

Well, she might not precisely fit your requirements, but give her a chance:

* she's an actress so maybe you've seen her. Actresses are popular and know.
* She's smart and educated.
* She's actually done something with her smarts (write math books).
* She's attractive (you do have a boy, right?)

A great role model for girls, at least, if not boys too.

Bill Nye the Science Guy

[c0rnwallis]

Just an awesome example of someone who can make learning fun.

Re:Put subject here

[SleazyRidr]

Why should I get double the pay for only 50% more work?

For the record, I'm an engineer, was on $74k a year straight out of college, and if I ever work more than 40 hours in a week I add it to my vacation hours.

Jaimie Mantzel

[bhoult]

Jamie Mantzel is building a giant robot and all the associated fortress / workshop / laboratory etc. He is doing all this on the top of a mountain out in the woods in Vermont while wearing chains and chainmail. He even has a giant geodesic dome made out of pipes with a trampoline on top, with lots of videos to demonstrate how it is all done.

http://jamius.com/Robot/Robot.html
http://jamius.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/JMEMantzel#p/a

I must be getting old

[Dast]

Mine would have to be Asimov in a heartbeat.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov

If it wasn't for the 'young' criterion

[Geminii]

I'd have to say Tesla. Anyone who built and worked with giant lightning-throwing devices gets automatic kid-cred.

Dean Kamen looks pretty young for being nearly sixty. He's more of an inventor than a pure scientist, but some of his stuff's pretty cool - the Luke arm and iBot balance system more than the Segway. He's also got a new TV show which has just started up and which some kids might theoretically watch.

Ham Radio Heroes

[knirps]

Joe Taylor is a Nobel laureate who got his ham radio license with his brother - both went on to have great careers and Joe (now K1JT) became a famous astronomer-physicist. He's now revolutionized weak-signal communication in the ham radio world, making exotic modes like bouncing signals off the Moon, accessible to hams with relatively modest equipment. (physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/K1JT) Even kids can aspire to do it - he is a real hero of the techies. Another couple of ham heroes are Chris Hurlbut (KL9A) and Dan Craig (N6MJ) who are both in their twenties and represented the US in the recent World Radiosport Championships (www.wrtc.info) held in Russia. They placed third in the world - very nicely done so far from home. There are many young hams very active in this wide-spread, but little known activity.

Robin Sparkles

[svick]

Obviously.

way old history...

[surd1618]

-But cool for relative obscurity: Evariste Galois! Invented a new field of mathematics! Political radical! Killed under shadowy circumstances, and "Don't cry for me. I need all my courage to die at twenty." Maybe not the best role model for a 9 year old, I readily admit...