I once read that Tesla was the model for the mad scientists in the early days of movies, the way Einstein was the model for the crazy german professors with the wild hair you see in cartoons all the time. The book pointed out Dr. Frankenstein from the Boris Karloff “Frankenstein” movie and a Max Fleischer Superman cartoon with a mad scientist with a death ray in particular. Tesla was associated with his Tesla coil and his high voltage displays, and Dr. Frankenstein’s lab was full of lightning producing and sparking gizmos. Also, as he was getting on in years, he would entertain reporters with stories about death rays, creating the mad scientist/death ray stereotype. Is all of tht true? I don’t know. Was Tesla well known enough back then to have been spoofed?
As far as mad scientists go, I like Professor Frink from the Simpsons.
I believe that at the Asilomar Conference, where scientists basically decided whether or not genetic engineering was safe enough to be permitted, several possible “mad scientist” scenarios were considered. The only one I remember is the one in which a biochemist wins the Nobel Prize, and upon shaking the hand of the Knig of Sweden turns to the cameras and says, “Now that I have your attention, I want you to know that I have spliced the gene for pertussis toxin into a common rhinovirus. Unless all nuclear weapons on earth are immediately destroyed, my confederates will release this virus at several points around the world, ensuring the destruction of the human race.” The mad scientist concludes, “I’m afraid you physics boys have had a monopoly on doomsday for far too long…”
-Ben
Regarding the Japanese group Aum Shinrikyo - I don’t have any documentation on this, but I recall reading in the newspapers at the time that they were in the process of developing a number of sinister weapons. Each weapon was installed in a van. I know that they had a laser. I think they were also developing a particle beam gun and some kind of sonic weapon that would disable and/or kill people. I just ran a really quick search and only found reference to the sarin, the laser and the development of a small nuclear device. Does anyone else have references to the theme vans? In any case, Shoko Asahara (I think that was his name)certainly made evil use of some very vulnerable scientists.
Surely one of the best candidates for real-life mad scientist would be Walter Freeman, the American neurosurgeon who popularized lobotomy as a treatment for mental illness. Cecil talks some about him here. Other doctors might have performed lobotomys, but this guy was knife-happy (or should I say “icepick-happy”?)
And I saw a photo of him in a Discover magazine article about lobotomy. I’m not kidding you, he looked just like the mad surgeon in the old Bugs Bunny cartoon “Hair-brained Hare”: pince-nez glasses, goatee, and white tunic with high starched collar. If I saw this guy coming toward me with a scalpel, I’d run for my life.
Since nobody else has mentioned it, I’ll post the link to The Master’s own take on Tycho Brahe:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/980717.html
a quote about the duel in which his nose got snicked:
“Over a woman? Of course not. Tradition has it that the two were fighting over some fine point of mathematics.”
–sublight.
Ya know, reading these posts, it strikes me that Aum Shinrikyo was at least trying to be a James Bondian evil organization, what with their poison gas, death rays (lasers), etc. When I think about it, the bad guy in the Bond flicks wasn’t always a scientist him/herself.
Now the real question is: was Aum Shinrikyo inspired by the James Bond movies? 
Sua
VileOrb, from the way I read it, I think Phobos may have been rolling eyes at your expressed statements as if he thought you felt that way. In other words, the extrapolation you are accusing others of making he might have taken to mean that you felt that way. Or else maybe he’s rolling eyes at the idea, and not you per se.
From Unca Cece’s column:
Sounds A-OK to me. I want a half dozen or so bastards. I want a dwarf jester. I want an alcoholic pet elk. I want to dabble in alchemy. And, especially, I want to tyrranize the local peasantry.
Does that make me mad? Mad, you say? Fools! I’ll show you. I’ll show you ALL!
Thomas, Lord Cochrane was quite a character. He made headlines as the commander of the H.M.S. Speedy in the Med in 1800, capturing an enormous amount of French and French-allied shipping. His fourteen gun brig successfully boarded and captured a 32-gun frigate, the Gamo.
If all of that sounds vaguely familiar to you Patrick O’Brian fans, you’re right: Master and Commander is based largely on the exploits of the Speedy.
During a period of unemployment (Cochrane’s mouth got him into more trouble than his courage got him out of it), Cochrane delved into the possibilities of chemical and biological warfare. He proposed two types of ships, floating bombs, really. One was lined with shrapnel and dead animals, backed by an enormous stock of gunpowder, designed to spread infectious shrapnel throughout a harbor. The other was filled with a sulphur-charcoal mix that was designed to asphyxiate. The Admiralty was more horrified by the possibility of these inventions being used against their own harbors, and swore Cochrane to secrecy.
Cochrane remained an advocate of chemical warfare tactics throughout his life, and he refined them to a level of nastiness uncharacteristic of the age. His plans were considered so dangerous that they remained secret until just prior to the Great War, when modern chemical weapons were first used.
[/url="
http://www.thehistorynet.com/MilitaryHistory/articles/12952_text.htm"]Here’s a great article on Cochrane’s plans.
Before the Aum Shinrikyo made the sarin attack in the Tokyo subway, they tried germ warfare. Fortunately, they couldn’t get their hands on a germ of sufficient lethality, but not for want of trying. See here for more.
JCHeckler, you might be thinking of Dr. Humphrey Osmond, an early LSD researcher who worked in my home town.
A couple of quotes from http://www.mindmined.com/public-library/LSD.html:
Captain Al Hubbard, a former OSS spy, was acting in accordance with the theory that spirituality can induce sobriety when he began to administer LSD to hard-core alcoholics in the early 1950’s. His private experiments were so successful that he established LSD treatment centers at three major hospitals in Canada. He also convinced other researchers, such as Dr. Humphrey Osmond, to exploit the spiritual aspects of the LSD trip.
Before Hubbard introduced Osmond to the spirituality theory of sobriety, Osmond had been using LSD to induce a nightmarish experience involving delirium tremors in his patients, believing that only those alcoholics who reached “rock-bottom” could recover. Osmond became convinced that Hubbard’s method was preferable after he performed an experiment based on the new theory at Weyburn Hospital. Osmond administered a single high dose of LSD to 1000 hard-core alcoholics. Fifty percent of his subjects did not drink alcohol again. (Lee and Shalin, 50) Osmond continued this research for thirteen years, finally concluding that “LSD therapy can turn a large number of alcoholics into sober members of society. Even more importantly, this can be done very quickly and therefore very economically” (Lee and Shalin, 50).
Psychedelic therapy … involved the administration of high doses of LSD for the purpose of creating a mystical or conversion experience. Therapists, unknowingly acting under the watchful eyes of CIA field officers, served as guides, helping their patient assimilate his or her experience in a manner that would maximize personal growth. Therapists often ingested small amounts of the drug before therapy sessions so they could properly empathize with their patients.
I suppose this leads directly into Project MKULTRA.
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Hi there, you NSA screwballs. We’re watching you, too.
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I’m not Phobos but I did feel (perhaps unjustifiably) that you were stretching with your final description of astronomers lifestyles as being being characteristic of someone who was “mad”.
ie
“Many of the astronomer types were of questionable sanity. They were frequently very egotistical. They stayed up all night a lot and spent unending hours either recording or analysing rows and rows of numbers often proving nothing at all. They made up all kinds of bizarre theories about space and then when ridiculed they holed up with rich eccentric friends who would feed them and let them stay in a tower room with nothing but a paper pencils and a telescope. Imagine what the village children thought of these guys.”
Eccentric maybe (they sound like MIT grad students) but MAD! well…maybe but IMO it’s a stretch.
I think that’s why you got the rolleyes smiley from Phobos.
I think I have explained what my intentional message was. And I see that no one seems to know exactly what Phobos meant by his smiley. All we can be sure of is that he dissed my post and gave no indication of why. Apparently he thought my post was obviously rediculous. I don’t appreciate those sentiments. I think that eccentric activities were enough to give the impression of insanity in that time period. I think that eccentricity STILL frequently causes people to doubt your sanity. I don’t consider myself that eccentric but I get people who question my sanity merely because I use the name VileOrb. I don’t think it’s much stretch to think that historical astronomers were probably considered kooky by their contemporaries. Even if I did a little stretching, what’s wrong with a little stretch when we’re concocting theories. I didn’t deserve the insult.
If Phobos had just said, “I think your theory is a stretch.” Then I could have responded with, “OK, I accept that I may be stretching but I think that it may have happened that way in some instances. And, therefore, I think it’s relevant.” But, he gave me no such opportunity. He merely dissed me and left. I have no respect for that.
Is this the dread Ellipticon with which Vladimir Zhirinovsky threatened the enemies of Russia? He had said that Russia had a secret, ultra-destructive weapon in its arsenal, but I have not been able to research any further on the topic…
I wouldn’t be so quick to say the Unabomber wasn’t a scientist. After all, he was a mathematics professor on the faculty at UC Berkeley, and math is the very heart of science (or so they told me–if it isn’t, then I made a terrible mistake in not going into science due to fear of math).
But I agree that he’s probably not a mad scientist, because he didn’t use the advanced mathematical knowledge he undoubtedly possesses in the execution of his mad acts. Now Dr. Evil, on the other hand, must certainly have used the
nefarious techniques he learned in evil medical school in his many attempts to annihilate Austin Powers :D. So he was
a mad scientist.
WRT Tycho, I wonder if part of his problem was that he clung to the Ptolemaic theory of the solar system when the Copernican system was coming more and more into general acceptance.
I read something about a sonic weapon that could be fit in a truck, it involved a jet engine and properly spaced baffles, it supposedly could create a sound loud enough and at the right frequency that could cause catastrophic damage to the bodies of those near it, causing certain death. It was mentioned in something by Larry Niven or Jerry Pournelle (or maybe both) so if it isn’t real, it probably could be…anybody know anything else about this? It wouldn’t really count as mass destruction, as people had to be within a hundred feet or so to get the full effect, but it’s very interesting and ‘mad-scientish’.
Well, in the case of Galileo, the village children placed him under house arrest for being a Heliocentrist.
And in the case of Giordano Bruno, it was an angry torch-wielding mob.
I’d say the modern mad scientist, especially the Frankenstein kind who in the attempt to gain knowledge and power tampers with forces which we mere mortals should tremble to behold, goes back to the tales of Faust, and earlier. The real life Faust was apparently just a shite-talking alchemist who blowed himself up real good trying to turn lead into ham or some such, but he came in the to be remembered as the central character in what formerly were the tales of different “Magi” who practiced science and the occult, harnessing the powers of hell and what have you. Classic archetype stuff.
There are lots of mad scientists. If you would like to meet some I suggest you pay a visit to Los Alamos New Mexico.