Science Rules!

If I were casting a movie about Abe Lincoln heroically thwarting an alien invasion, I would select Bill Nye for the part. I don't know if he would actually BE a good President -- since I suspect he'd be reluctant to nuke Iran due to nuclear winter considerations -- but he certainly has the right looks for the part. And he certainly has superhero street cred. All he needs is the stovepipe hat.

Anyway, please bear with me today, as I fear the focus may wander about a bit. For example, the photo above reminds me of one of my favorite philosophical movies lines. Can you tell me who said "It's like a finger pointing away to the moon. Don't concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory!"

A. Spock
B. Ted "Theodore" Logan
C. Bruce Lee
D. Ted "Motor City Madman" Nugent
E. Bruce Campbell

The answer is here. Ahh, I do so admire good screenwriting.

Anyway, today's thoughts are the result of my attendance at "Pluto-palooza," a lecture about the discoveries of the New Horizons mission. (I was still at Lockheed Martin when it launched, so I feel I have at least a minor connection to the mission. Besides, I've been a fan of planetary science since I first made a not-to-scale model of the solar system out of Styrofoam balls and wire coat hangers. I remember having great difficulty in spray-painting the planets---though I suppose that learning about wind influence on aerosol distribution patterns and the indelibility of enamel pigments on blue jeans provided a science lesson that went above and beyond getting the planets in the right orbital order.

(A few years later, those psychedelic paint-patterned pants would've been right in style. Thanks a lot for your bad timing, stupid hippies.)

The point is that there are fewer famous scientists than there are Osmond brothers. This makes me sad. But it also makes me think back and wonder: What is it that puts a scientist into the public consciousness?

Quick, stop reading this and pull out a pen and paper. Make a list of all the famous scientists you can think of off the top of your head. Think back to when you were a kid, when you were in college, and even when you were touring the country on your motorcycle. What scientists have embedded themselves in your cerebral archives?

All done? Good. Welcome back. How does your list compare to mine?

The first few names I remember learning about were probably the same as yours. Einstein, Archimedes, Galileo, Newton, DaVinci, and Curie.

(Extra credit: How many names can you recall where "Madame" is an automatic attachment? In addition to Curie, all I can think of are Butterfly (and I'm talking Mary T. Meagher, not some opera dingus) and Tussaud. There's kung fu actor Jean Claude Madame, of course, but I don't think he counts.)

(More extra credit: Can you identify the Star Trek Connection involved in Samantha's encounter with Leonardo pictured above?)

In high school, I learned about Ptolemy, Copernicus, Franklin, and all the guys with units of measure named after them (Volta, Ampere, Watt, Angstrom, Kilometer, etc.) In college, I heard about Leibnitz, Gauss, Bohr, Oppenheimer, Heisenberg, Schrodinger, Daystrom, and Zephram Cochrane. Although Edison and Tesla were obvious proponents of scientific method, I think they fall more into "engineer" and "inventor" categories, which is also where I'd throw Bill Gates, Sergey Brin, and their ilk.

But the guys who have made headlines during my lifetime are the ones with large TV audiences. During the "Right Stuff" era, we heard a lot about Werner von Braun. After that, it was Carl Sagan, who begat Bill Nye, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and Sheldon Cooper. And of course, Stephen Hawking.

I know that Sagan, Nye, and Tyson are all fully qualified as science guys...but I have no idea if they have contributed to any particular discoveries about the nature of things. Hawking certainly has, with his theories about black holes and time perception and all the stuff that made Frankenfurter's voyage possible. But let's face it, I doubt he'd be nearly as well known if he wasn't all gumbyfied in his robot-voice wheelchair incarnation of the Borg. His disability has given him an identity that he probably wouldn't have achieved if he still walked around looking like Eddie Deezen.

Recently, we've all been exposed to the name "Higgs," as in "boson" (no, not "Higgy Baby", the dude from Magnum, PI.) But I can't tell you the name of anyone on the team that actually found the elusive particle. And I know that Les Paul invented most of the stuff that's the basis of modern music recording, but I have no idea who came up with the theory that magnets connected to vibrating strings could translate guitar music into electrical impulses. But without that particular genius, I would have never have experienced the heavenly glory brought to my ears by Buck Dharma.

All I'm saying is that science is cool, and I am lucky to work with scientists at my current job. But I'm also fascinated by the way our memories parse popular culture, school-based book learnin', and news coverage of grand discoveries about the Universe.

I'll share a few tidbits from Pluto-palooza in upcoming posts. I'll also share a progress report on my meager and inadequate preparation for the rapidly-approaching Triple Bypass bike ride.

In the meantime, please join me in congratulating Sammy Achterberg on winning the National Championship in Modern Pentathlon last weekend. Let's all support her in her run for the Olympics!

Thanks, and have a great day!