I have a big stack of exams and lab reports to grade, so I need to go off someplace where I don’t have Internet access and do that. In my absence, here’s a Dorky Poll question inspired by recent news:
Which Nobel laureate (in any field) is the craziest?
There’s no real shortage of scientists who have won the Nobel Prize for something or another, and then gone completely goofy. But which Nobel laureate is the most goofy?
In physics, it’s hard to top Brian Josephson, who was recently cited as a noble defender of Rusi Taleyarkhan against the mean folks at Nature.
The problem is, he has a couple of parallel beefs going with Nature: one is about the bubble fusion stuff, the other is about their unwillingness to believe in telepathy, which he thinks can be explained by quantum mechanics. His website is loaded with Usenet-quality rants about various skeptical organizations, which really don’t do a whole lot to improve my opinion of parapsychological research.
He did unquestionably brilliant work on superconducting junctions back in the day, but this stuff… Not so much.
So, who’s your favorite crazy Nobel laureate?