• Question: who is your faviroute scientist and what did they do?

    Asked by dimitri33 to Marianne, Andrew, Emma on 17 Jun 2010 in Categories: . This question was also asked by terrytibbs, cheesyscience, small, somethingrandom97, anon-5559.
    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 12 Jun 2010:

      Thanks Dimitri. Good question. i’m going to plump for Ignaz Semmelweiss(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis). A Hungarian chap who noticed that one of the obstetric (baby-delivering) wards in his hospital had a higher death-rate for mothers/babies than the other. By rigorous application of logic and thorough investigation he identified young doctors as the culprits. Even in those days young doctors had so little time (probs because of an unsympathetic government, chronic short-staffing and low morale!) that they were neglecting to wash their hands after dissection studies. Thus they were unwittingly transferring microbes from dead bodies to women in labour and causing bacterial infection and death. Semmelweis wasn’t believed and was treated so badly that he died in an asylum alone.

      The moral is: new theories should be rigorously tested before accepting/dismissing them or alternatively mediocrity is the best recipe for happiness!

    • Photo: Marianne Baker

      Marianne Baker answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      Hey dimitri33.

      I’ve answered similar questions on our favourite scientists etc. – so far I’ve done for David Attenborough because of his fantastic zoological documentaries that have taught me so much and inspired me over the years.

      Of course, since I’m a geneticist, there’s the obvious – Darwin! Laying the foundations of evolutionary theory.

      Then there’s Rosalind Franklin; the female scientist who is often forgotten despite her major role in the characterisation of the DNA double helix (with Watson and Crick).

    • Photo: Andrew Maynard

      Andrew Maynard answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      Hi dimitri33, terrytibbsm cheesyscience and small,

      That’s not an easy question, as there are so many great scientists! I must confess a soft spot for the physicist Richard Feynman though. Two things about him I really like – he was a really clear thinker (one of those people who can make a complicated idea sound simple… until you try and explain it yourself), and he lived an extremely interesting life (he was known for playing the drums!).

      Some of the things he did:

      He wrote some of the best books on physics you will find anywhere.

      He got a Nobel Prize for his work on Quantum Electrodynamics – he came up with a wonderfully elegant theory of how particles interact by exchanging photons

      He helped work out what caused the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, by asking obvious questions that no-one else bothered to.

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