A Parade of Badass Scientists.

[Kai]

Starting with William Dampier.

He was, as you can see here, a large nosed, lean, keen-eyed man whose image still hangs in Great Britain's national portrait gallery, alongside kings, writers, warriors and other great personages. Which is odd, because he was a pirate.

Not a gentleman pirate. William Dampier was a doubloon-stealing, knife-flashing, boat-nabbing outlaw who preyed on Spanish frigates, who pillaged, robbed and behaved very, very badly.

But he was also a great naturalist, one of the 17th century's best; a man who collected plants and animals and wrote about them during short breaks between piratical adventures.

Some of the stories include: stealing food from a Vietnamese funeral and barely escaping with his life; fashioning a bamboo container to waterproof his journals while running/swimming through the jungle; and that Darwin called him "old Dampier", as if the pirate was his pal over a century later.

The new biography is now on my 2012 reading list.

[Kai]

And then there's Francois Arago.

When he was seven years old, he tried to stab a Spanish solider with a lance
When he was eighteen, he talked a friend out of assassinating Napoleon
He once angered an archbishop so much that the holy man punched him in the face
He has negotiated with bandits, been chased by a mob, broken out of prison

And then he verified the wave nature of light and other scientific achievements. The article has sections from his autobiography, which reads more like a epic. I've been searching for it, but can't seem to find it.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

And then there's Francois Arago.

When he was seven years old, he tried to stab a Spanish solider with a lance
When he was eighteen, he talked a friend out of assassinating Napoleon
He once angered an archbishop so much that the holy man punched him in the face
He has negotiated with bandits, been chased by a mob, broken out of prison

And then he verified the wave nature of light and other scientific achievements. The article has sections from his autobiography, which reads more like a epic. I've been searching for it, but can't seem to find it.

WOW!!!

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Dampier is now one of my heroes.

I trust you'll be covering Feynmann at some point.

[Kai]

I've mentioned Joe Davis before. Hes a research affiliate at MIT who is mostly homeless, has a peg leg and a perchance for doing mad science. And by mad science, I mean the sort that gets you the "mad scientist" label.

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/03/the-brilliantly.html

• Expelled from three high schools and two colleges: for writing about atheism, refusing a haircut, making a still (which exploded), being elected student body president on a "free marijuana" platform and working on an underground anti-war newspaper. In other words, he was a very naughty boy.

• Walked into the M.I.T. Center for Advanced Visual Studies uninvited in 1982. Secretary called the cops. Forty-five minutes later, Davis walked out with an appointment as a research fellow.

• Latest project is to build a biomechanical ornithopter powered by electrically stimulated frogs legs and to fly it across the Charles river.

• Uses his self-made hollow steel peg leg to open beer bottles, to accompany the band (bugle-style) at his local bar.

Not to mention his science fusion art projects, particularly radioing vagina contractions to the stars, just to spite Carl Sagan.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

I've mentioned Joe Davis before. Hes a research affiliate at MIT who is mostly homeless, has a peg leg and a perchance for doing mad science. And by mad science, I mean the sort that gets you the "mad scientist" label.

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/03/the-brilliantly.html

• Expelled from three high schools and two colleges: for writing about atheism, refusing a haircut, making a still (which exploded), being elected student body president on a "free marijuana" platform and working on an underground anti-war newspaper. In other words, he was a very naughty boy.

• Walked into the M.I.T. Center for Advanced Visual Studies uninvited in 1982. Secretary called the cops. Forty-five minutes later, Davis walked out with an appointment as a research fellow.

• Latest project is to build a biomechanical ornithopter powered by electrically stimulated frogs legs and to fly it across the Charles river.

• Uses his self-made hollow steel peg leg to open beer bottles, to accompany the band (bugle-style) at his local bar.

Not to mention his science fusion art projects, particularly radioing vagina contractions to the stars, just to spite Carl Sagan.

Looks like I'm going to have to start spending my Friday nights in Cambridge.

[Kai]

Dampier is now one of my heroes.

I trust you'll be covering Feynmann at some point.

Yes. But not a whole lot of big names. Newton, for example, was a genius, created Calculus on a bet; Darwin was the greatest biologist that ever lived. But neither were badass. They were too much of gentlemen to have that title. Da Vinci might qualify...nahh, he was too nice.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Dampier is now one of my heroes.

I trust you'll be covering Feynmann at some point.

Yes. But not a whole lot of big names. Newton, for example, was a genius, created Calculus on a bet; Darwin was the greatest biologist that ever lived. But neither were badass. They were too much of gentlemen to have that title. Da Vinci might qualify...nahh, he was too nice.

Galileo gets on the list, IMO.

[Kai]

Dampier is now one of my heroes.

I trust you'll be covering Feynmann at some point.

Yes. But not a whole lot of big names. Newton, for example, was a genius, created Calculus on a bet; Darwin was the greatest biologist that ever lived. But neither were badass. They were too much of gentlemen to have that title. Da Vinci might qualify...nahh, he was too nice.

Galileo gets on the list, IMO.

I was going to say no, but then I read some more about his personality. 

[Rumckle]

I like this list, Kai, it is nice to be reminded how bad-ass scientists can be sometimes.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I like this list, Kai, it is nice to be reminded how bad-ass scientists can be sometimes.

ALL the time.  Even my mild-mannered old man is a berserker under the surface.

One time, he's out on the ship over Thanksgiving (which in Canada, is on the wrong day), and he has a can of turkey bits, right?  Only the stove in the galley craps out, so he COOKS IT IN THE AUTOCLAVE.  Then he goes to open the can, and it goes rocketing all over the room, giving everyone 1st degree burns.

Then later on, when I was just a little girl, but old enough to remember, he decides to be clever and buy a turkey 3 months early (Turkey is pricey in Newfoundland, or was) to save a few bucks.  He takes it to the lab and shoves it in the cryofreezer.  3 months later, he gets it out to thaw, and puts it in the fridge at home.  Next morning, the fridge is frozen shut, and everything inside is fucking SOLID.  Best part - and this is the part he should have realized in advance, for which my mother gave him no end of shit - all the cells in the turkey meat are exploded, so it had the consistency of porridge.

Then we moved to America, and people let him play with radioactive shit.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Dampier is now one of my heroes.

I trust you'll be covering Feynmann at some point.

Yes. But not a whole lot of big names. Newton, for example, was a genius, created Calculus on a bet; Darwin was the greatest biologist that ever lived. But neither were badass. They were too much of gentlemen to have that title. Da Vinci might qualify...nahh, he was too nice.

Galileo gets on the list, IMO.

I was going to say no, but then I read some more about his personality. 

Yep.  That man was born at exactly the right time, and in exactly the right place.

[Rumckle]

I like this list, Kai, it is nice to be reminded how bad-ass scientists can be sometimes.

ALL the time.  Even my mild-mannered old man is a berserker under the surface.

One time, he's out on the ship over Thanksgiving (which in Canada, is on the wrong day), and he has a can of turkey bits, right?  Only the stove in the galley craps out, so he COOKS IT IN THE AUTOCLAVE.  Then he goes to open the can, and it goes rocketing all over the room, giving everyone 1st degree burns.

Then later on, when I was just a little girl, but old enough to remember, he decides to be clever and buy a turkey 3 months early (Turkey is pricey in Newfoundland, or was) to save a few bucks.  He takes it to the lab and shoves it in the cryofreezer.  3 months later, he gets it out to thaw, and puts it in the fridge at home.  Next morning, the fridge is frozen shut, and everything inside is fucking SOLID.  Best part - and this is the part he should have realized in advance, for which my mother gave him no end of shit - all the cells in the turkey meat are exploded, so it had the consistency of porridge.

Then we moved to America, and people let him play with radioactive shit.

Holy shit, that's awesome!

[Kai]

Next on the lineup is Craig Venter. He's more or less singlehandedly responsible for entire genome sequencing.

He is said to have an acerbic, arrogant quality about him, or as the grad students at this website put it,

The man has a gigantic ego, collects boats, and hangs out with celebrities. He is also a gigantic pompous prick.

His accomplishments include,

-Vietnam vet specializing in medical triage

-Got his BA and PhD in 5 years.

-Created the worlds first synthetic organism

-popularized shotgun sequencing of environmental samples such as seawater

But my favorite story is of his human genome sequencing project, which he finished 3 years before the large scale collaborative Human Genome Project. The company Celera was going to use 5 different individuals for the project, including Venter. But at some point Venter switched out all the samples for his own DNA, making him the first person to have his entire genome sequenced.

And now he's working on oil producing synthetic organisms while sailing the world. I don't think I need to say much more. All he needs to be a Dampier style pirate is a sword, peg leg, and a perchance for capturing cruise ships.