Friday, August 1, 2008

The key to imortality as a scientist

No, I don't mean the Philosopher's stone.

I mean having people know your name after you're gone. Sure the big guys have got popular for their discoveries; Einstein, Galileo and Newton are all household names, but they had to do a lot of work to get there.

Think instead of Bunsen and Petri. What did they discover? I don't know either. But, we know their names because they invented a stand for a gas flame, and a circular dish, respectively. Those guys knew how to achieve longevity.

Forget trying to cure diseases, contributing to the advancement of society, or the search for pure knowledge; just invent something useful in the lab and your name will live on in the scientific literature for centuries.

Eppendorf® and Falcon® figured this out a long time ago.

2 comments:

Lou said...

I think the king of kings in naming is Prof. Southern -
just imagine a world where he didn't invent the Southern blot. There won't be northerns or westerns or south-westerns or...etc.
Can you imagine if it was a Dr.Smith or a Dr.Brown who invented it??

Science Bear said...

I love the first line. In addition to being a huge nerd (as indicated by my profession), I am also a Harry Potter fan.