>> Uh... I can't actually remember the title now. Let me go check...
>>
>> ...OK, the copy on his website has different cover art [sigh], but I
>> believe it was Climbing Mount Improbable.
> 
> OK, so that's one book.  The more important works that he wrote had to do 
> with genetics.

Yeah, this one had to do with evolution and so forth. It made multiple 
references to The Blind Watchmaker, but I haven't read that.

>>> But in my circles, Richard Dawkins is quite well know.  So's Jane
>>> Goodall, for that matter.
>> My point being that you don't need to be in any particular "circles" to
>> know who Einstein or Newton is. 
> 
> Well, you assume everyone has heard of them.  There's probably some guy 
> living in a little village in a remote part of Africa who's never heard 
> of either of them.

I meant in general Western culture. People have written books and made 
films about Einstein, Newton and the like. They're that all known that 
"almost everybody" knows of them. I doubt too many people know who, say, 
William Harvey.

>> Even very small children have heard the
>> tale of how Newton was hit on the head by an apple. (I wonder if that
>> myth actually happened?)
> 
> It didn't; there was a bit on an episode of QI this series that talked 
> about the myth.

What a surprise...

(The next question, of course, becomes "who invented this myth?")

>> Everybody has heard of Archimedies, even if they're not sure exactly
>> what he did.
>>
>> Unfortunately, there's nobody alive today of quite the same stature -
>> except perhaps Steven Hawking.
> 
> Again, Jane Goodall probably fits that bill.  If we counted people who 
> have lived in our lifetimes, Carl Sagan.  Vint Cerf, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, 
> both of whom I previously mentioned, are also quite well known.

I would refute that... Perhaps I need to do a straw poll when I go down 
the pub tonight? (Although I can't *pronounce* most of those names, so...)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message