Murray Gell-Mann

http://discovermagazine.com/2009/apr/17-man-who-found-quarks-made-sense-of-universe/

He and Feynman did not get along, unfortunately... I love Feynman, a special talent no doubt. Gell-Mann is something in his own right...

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Did you find it strange that Feynman became such a celebrity?
Feynman was a peculiar case because he was a very brilliant, terrific, successful scientist, but he was also a clown. He was more of a clown than he was a scientist sometimes.

But you and Feynman could get into really deep conversations about physics. You were well matched, weren’t you?
For some years, and then I got fed up with him. He was just so turned in on himself. Everything was a test of his brilliance. So if in discussing things we came to some interesting conclusion, his interpretation of it was, “Gee, boy, I’m smart.” And it’s just annoying, so after a few years I just wouldn’t work with him.

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Murray Gell-Mann

...beauty is a very successful criterion for chosing the right theory...




This one is great too.. close to my field-ish. Do all languages have a common ancestor?

Merlin Donald, an absolutely brilliant free-thinker, and my thesis adviser and teacher, thought about this a lot. Such a great topic! Recently visiting Iceland and falling into the Gaelic language, learning that it came from nordic, knowing that the geography prevented Latin influence... sort of a side branch of what we use here, ugh.. just like our genes... split, etc.. pretty good. More if you talk to me about this here... I like this shit. Merlin postulated that language came from gossip (trying to communicate about other events, people), which I adhere to, but it's a bit more complicated then that.. (geographic?) bottlenecks, as addressed below.