• Question: Who do you think is one of the greatest scientists or your personal role model?

    Asked by katnisseverdeen to Adam, Catherine, Karen, Leila, Nazim on 14 Mar 2012. This question was also asked by elliejones, highpriestesswill, littlechatterbox, funkymonkey, howwilst1, livyad, cartridge98.
    • Photo: Adam Stevens

      Adam Stevens answered on 14 Mar 2012:

      Richard Feynman. He was a really cool guy, did lots of mad things, but was one of the cleverest physicists ever! He was really passionate about communicating science as well and had a great way of describing things. If you can, watch this video! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRmbwczTC6E

      I’d also add Niels Bohr. I did a project on him at university and it was really interesting. He was working in a time when physics was being developed to harm people (the atomic bomb) in world war 2, but he managed to keep his head when lots of people were doing stupid things around him. He also stood up to the Nazis, helped to evacuate a lot of Jewish people from Denmark, and ended up working at the Manhatten Project (with Richard Feynman!) where apparently he was one of the people that made sure that everyone’s moral compasses were still working!

    • Photo: Leila Battison

      Leila Battison answered on 14 Mar 2012:

      My role models are a pair of scientists who used to be married, but sadly they have both died now – Carl Sagan and Lynn Margulis.

      Carl Sagan was a cosmologist and an excellent science communicator. He made some amazing programmes and films, and even wrote a Sci-Fi book ‘Contact’, about the search for life in space. He has inspired lots of people to go and look for alien life, and he has also inspired people to tell the story of science to non-scientists, because if you say it in the right way, all science can be really really interesting! Carl died in 1992 of Leukemia, but i would have given anything to meet him.

      Lynn Margulis was a biologist and she came up with a theory of how cells evolve that everyone thought was completely mad when she first thought of it. They thought she was a wacky scientist and didn’t believe her, but over 20 years, all the evidence built up to support her theory, and now everyone accepts it as fact. It didn’t stop her having some other crazy ideas though! She was a good friend, and she died earlier this year.

    • Photo: Karen Masters

      Karen Masters answered on 14 Mar 2012:

      Jocelyn Bell has always been a role model of mine. I admire her persistence in the face of adversity and her willingness to give her time to talk to young people about science. I saw her speak twice before I make the final leap into being an astronomer, and I think that was important in my choice.

    • Photo: Catherine Rix

      Catherine Rix answered on 14 Mar 2012:

      I’m inspired by lots of different scientists. There are the really famous ones like Einstein and Steven Hawking who come up with brilliant ideas and think of things that no one else has and there are the scientist I work with every day.

    • Photo: Nazim Bharmal

      Nazim Bharmal answered on 19 Mar 2012:

      There are a huge number of scientists whose work we use daily but hardly ever think about. So I won’t name one or two people but instead say that great scientists build on the work done by lots of people and all of them are, in one way or another, great.

      As for a personal role model, I don’t think I actually have one. I do admire scientists who have a strong moral aspect to their work, so James Hansen in the United States or Bertrand Russell in England. And I do admire C P Snow who was a great physicist but followed his heart and gave it all up to write, and he is a rather good writer too especially of how scientists work and behave.

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