Why aren't there famous chemists/mathematicians in the public?

[Curious3141]

We are on a science website, so I would hope that people here know about Einstein. The average American on the street knows the name from jokes and media, and perhaps even know E = mc2 but I would wager that most have no clue what that means or what his main accomplishments were.

When I say that I don't think of Einstein first, it doesn't mean that I don't know of Einstein's role in the creation of the bomb. Trust me, I know it well. He laid the theoretical groundwork, and he even encouraged FDR to build the bomb. But he never actively participated in the nuts and bolts of it. He also wanted it used against the Germans (whom he felt were getting close to a nuclear breakthrough themselves). In the end, after the two bombs were unleashed on Japan, he condemned their use.

Oppenheimer was, in contrast, directly involved in the Manhattan project. He was in favour of the bombs being used in Japan (at least until they were actually deployed, and he realized the horror of what he'd wrought). He is known as the "Father of the Atom Bomb" with good reason.

That's why I think of J. R. Oppenheimer when I think of the atom bomb. Not because I don't know who Einstein was, or his role in the whole thing.

 

[lisab]

I've never really thought about what the public thinks of Einstein. When I hear "Einstein", I think "photoelectric effect". Probably because I can't count how many profs have explained that he won his Nobel for it, not relativity, as many believe.

I am a product of my education, I guess.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

he won his Nobel for it (photoelectric effect), not relativity

The Nobel Prize in Physics 1921 was awarded to Albert Einstein "for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect"

Nobel Prize website

In order to say that he didn't receive the prize for relativity, you would have to read that as "for his services (and by the way, we don't mean relativity) to Theoretical Physics". I don't read it that way.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Too bad wings on a pig doesn't guarantee its flight capability

Why? Do you really want pigs flying around?

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Why? Do you really want pigs flying around?

What other way would a spherical pig with wings fly?

 

[zoobyshoe]

What other way would a spherical pig with wings fly?

Not the point, is it? The point is pig bombs.