A List!

So its finally come to this, a list on Alias Mr Hackenbacker. To make up for the notable lack of science in the last post, I decided I needed an extra helping pretty damn quick. And since this is blog is notionally an attempt at science communication, I decided to make a list of the people who have made that job easier, the n best nerds of all time.

Randall Monroe: I'm guessing most of you know Randall as the guy who writes XKCD. That little web comic has done more to put a human face on geekiness than anything else.

Douglas Adams: Most people know Douglas Adams as the creator of Hitchhikers. But he was also a rampant nerd and mac user. a self taught science commentator, Adams used his profound wit to turn scientific concepts on their head. I can't really do it justice here, you should get Salmon of Doubt and read Is There an Artificial God?. Its up the back, around page 126.

Julius Sumner Miller: YOUR IGNORANCE MAKES ME ANGRY! I don't actually know much about Julius Sumner Miller, since he was on the telly before I was born. I do know that he basically invented science communication in this country, even though he was American. I do know he used to frighten people by going a bit mental when they couldn't keep up, or were a bit slow on the uptake, but it was science as it should be, driven by curiosity and hurtling blindly towards insight and conclusion without fear of the consequences.

Richard Feynmann: SEX! That's right. The adventuring bongo playing strip clubbing quantum mechanics guy. Feynmann was not content to accept other peoples theories if he didn't think they were good enough, and if he didn't like them he damn well made his own. They were right too.

Doc Emmet Brown: Probably the closest to a role model for scientists ever committed to film. The guy never let up, and people liked him too.

Carl Sagan: You want to know who put those plaques on space probes for the aliens to find? It was this guy. Sagan wrote Contact, made Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, and made being a scientist who thinks about aliens respectable. He campaigned against Nuclear Weapons, figured out a lot of that stuff you learnt about the planets in primary school. Science as hope, oh hell yeah.

Albert Einstein: All the stuff I wrote up there about the other guys applies to Uncle Albert.

TIME's Person of the Century

The Runners up: A few flaws here

Mythbusters: Scientific accuracy! No wait, explosions! Mythbusters is great, it promotes skepticism, and has a lot of fire and funny hats. But for whatever reason, it usually gets the scientific method wrong. Most often there's no control, and not enough control of the variables. Curiosity is great, but untested answers don't do it justice.

Brains: Brains from Thunderbirds is the Mr. Hackenbacker this blog is named after. He has a stutter, terrible glasses, and a pocket protector. But in the world of Thunderbirds he gets all the respect for building gigantic rescue machines and airships and such. The problem is, in real life, people aren't that obsessed with machines. He's a nerd who gets respect, but only in a world created by nerds.



The complete opposite: Some people who make things harder


Phil Plait: Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy website and book are supposed to dispel bad science and mistakes you see in the movies. That'd be great, if Phil wasn't so damn snarky.


Richard Dawkins: The Blind Watchmaker is one of the best science books I've ever read. However, Dawkins recent tirades against religion make the scientific method sound like dogma, which is kind of the opposite of what he is trying to achieve.