My stepmother’s brother was Christian Anfinsen, but I never actually met him.
I’ve met Kary Mullis as well. I’ve had dinner with a MacArthur Fellow, Carolyn Walker Bynum. Her mother used to teach at my alma mater.
I had a seminar class with Carolyn Walker Bynum! She was great, and nice to me even as I was in rather over my head. I needed one seminar for my history minor, but was and am a Science Person, and all my textual analysis is pretty shallow and literal. I forget whom, but there’s another Doper who truly loved her classes.
I’ve heard Karey Mullis is great to get drunk with.
Oh well, MacArthur fellows – a friend of mine from junior high won one, actually.
I’ve met Al Gore twice, once in Washington when he was a senator, more recently a few months ago when he came to Panama. I also know at least one person on the IPCC (co-winner with Gore).
When I lived in Washington I went to a reception attended by the Dalai Lama and Rigoberta Menchu. I didn’t actually meet them but was at pretty close quarters.
I got to see a speech once by Desmond Tutu, so I’ve been in the same building as one, but didn’t get to meet him in person.
I’ve exchanged jokes with Obama. He was picking on my friend for taking the biggest slice of pizza at lunch. (Obama and my friend and I were not dining together.)
Well, since I gave money to Obama for the 08 election, he has taken to emailing me once a month. Some Nobel laureates are just way too familiar.
I briefly met Alan Heeger. I worked for a company that he founded just after it was sold to a large multi-national corporation. He wasn’t very involved by the time that I showed up but I did get to meet the man.
I had a desk near Milton Friedman’s office at the Hoover Institution. Used to talk to him regularly about absolutely nothing important.
I was in Guatemala when she won her prize in 1992. I got to meet her after a speech she gave. If you know her history you know what a significant date that was and also how dangerous it was for her to be in Guatemala. She traveled around with a group of Americans (Peace Corps I think) who would stand around her on stage. Theory was that the Guatemalan Army wouldn’t risk shooting an American.
How is it that Stephen Hawking has not won a Nobel prize? He was on The Simpsons ferchrissake.
There are three where I work and I have interacted with two of them. I attended a lecture by James Watson (his topic was highly inappropriate). I vaguely recall seeing Linus Pauling when I was a kid and being told he was very famous. He just seemed like a nice old guy to me.
I’ve met Watson in person. He was highly inappropriate in one-on-one conversation too. Racist and sexist.
A small student group I was in sponsored a lecture with Hans Bethe (then a professor emeritus at our university), and we exchanged a sentence or two on a couple of occasions, although most of his interaction was with one of my colleagues.
I also attended a lecture by James Watson. He may well be prejudiced, but that was the funniest speech I’ve ever been too.
–Cliffy
Kary Mullis certainly seems to get around.
I talked to Douglas Osheroff (Physics, 1996) on the phone for about half an hour when I was working on the Shuttle after the Columbia accident. On one hand, it was nice of him to take the time to expand on what he had written in the accident report, but on the other hand, he was, let us say, very free with his opinions regarding a field (aerospace engineering) he had no particular training or expertise in.
I’ve met several. I had some interactions with Marshall Nirenberg less than a week before he died earlier this year. It was kind of a shock actually. The week of his death I had been expecting a phone call from him. It didn’t come. Finally, late Friday afternoon, the phone rang. It wasn’t him. A few minutes later I got an email saying he had died earlier in the day.
Yes, his topic was about genetic fitness and female desirability (with examples).
When I was working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology as a SURF undergraduate researcher last summer, one of the lab coordinator’s father had won a Nobel prize and he brought in his medal for us to look at. Those things are heavy.
But the highlight of the summer was a lecture given on laser trapping and laser cooling given by William Phillips. He won a Nobel in Physics in 1997 on laser trapping and cooling. It was one of the most enthralling lectures I have been to and, afterward, I went and shook his hand. He was really cool and down to earth.
I came across Richard Feynman a few times when I was a student at Caltech.
I worked with Don Thomas for three years in the late '70s. early '80s. He wasn’t honored until '90, so it may not really count. After all, when I worked with him, he was just a guy.