Scientists who behaved in unusual/autistic/obsessive/eccentric ways

[Alfred001]

What are some examples of scientists who behaved in ways that were unusual or autistic or eccentric.

I'm especially interested in obsessive behavior, but anything unusual.

Edited October 25, 2019 by Alfred001

[Sensei]

"Scientists who behaved in unusual (...) ways"

Does it count.. ?

 

Edited October 25, 2019 by Sensei

[Curious layman]

Henry Cavendish  look no further..

Quote

Cavendish inherited two fortunes that were so large that Jean Baptiste Biot called him "the richest of all the savants and the most knowledgeable of the rich." At his death, Cavendish was the largest depositor in the Bank of England. He was a shy man who was uncomfortable in society and avoided it when he could. He could only speak to one person at a time, and only if the person were known to him and male.^[31] He conversed little, always dressed in an old-fashioned suit, and developed no known deep personal attachments outside his family. Cavendish was taciturn and solitary and regarded by many as eccentric. He only communicated with his female servants by notes. By one account, Cavendish had a back staircase added to his house to avoid encountering his housekeeper, because he was especially shy of women. The contemporary accounts of his personality have led some modern commentators, such as Oliver Sacks, to speculate that he had Asperger syndrome,^[32] a form of autism.

His only social outlet was the Royal Society Club, whose members dined together before weekly meetings. Cavendish seldom missed these meetings, and was profoundly respected by his contemporaries. However, his shyness made those who "sought his views... speak as if into vacancy. If their remarks were...worthy, they might receive a mumbled reply, but more often than not they would hear a peeved squeak (his voice appears to have been high-pitched) and turn to find an actual vacancy and the sight of Cavendish fleeing to find a more peaceful corner".^[15] Cavendish's religious views were also considered eccentric for his time. He was considered to be agnostic. As his biographer, George Wilson, comments, "As to Cavendish's religion, he was nothing at all."^[33][34]

The arrangement of his residence reserved only a fraction of space for personal comfort as his library was detached, the upper rooms and lawn were for astronomical observation and his drawingroom was a laboratory with a forge in an adjoining room.^[35] He also enjoyed collecting fine furniture, exemplified by his purchase of a set of "ten inlaid satinwood chairs with matching cabriole legged sofa".^[36]

Because of his asocial and secretive behaviour, Cavendish often avoided publishing his work, and much of his findings were not even told to his fellow scientists. In the late nineteenth century, long after his death, James Clerk Maxwell looked through Cavendish's papers and found things for which others had been given credit. Examples of what was included in Cavendish's discoveries or anticipations were Richter's law of reciprocal proportions, Ohm's law, Dalton's law of partial pressures, principles of electrical conductivity (including Coulomb's law), and Charles's Law of gases. A manuscript "Heat", tentatively dated between 1783 and 1790, describes a "mechanical theory of heat". Hitherto unknown, the manuscript was analysed in the early 21st century. Historian of science Russell McCormmach proposed that "Heat" is the only 18th-century work prefiguring thermodynamics. Theoretical physicist Dietrich Belitz concluded that in this work Cavendish "got the nature of heat essentially right."^[37]

As Cavendish performed his famous density of the Earth experiment in an outbuilding in the garden of his Clapham Common estate, his neighbours would point out the building and tell their children that it was where the world was weighed.^[36] In honour of Henry Cavendish's achievements and due to an endowment granted by Henry's relative William Cavendish, 7th Duke of Devonshire, the University of Cambridge's physics laboratory was named the Cavendish Laboratory by James Clerk Maxwell, the first Cavendish Professor of Physics and an admirer of Cavendish's work.

 

[Phi for All]

I remember hearing that Pythagoras had some eccentric eating habits. He was a vegetarian, but he didn't eat beans because he believed you lose part of your soul when you fart. 

[CharonY]

I know one who prefers smoothies to coffee or tea. What a weirdo.

[mistermack]

The idea of a parachute was cutting edge science once, when planes were new and primitive. 

This is one of the craziest and saddest things you will ever see on video. I still find it hard to watch. 

 

[CharonY]

If we count self-experimentation like the above example as fitting there are quite a few with non-lethal consequences but with varying degrees of yuckiness. Barry Marshall infected himself with Helicobacter pylori in order to demonstrate that they cause ulcers. Stubbins Ffirth on the other hand  was convinced that yellow fever was not contagious and inoculated himself with body fluids from sick patients. In this case, the conclusions were wrong (though he did not manage to infect himself). Claude Barlow tried to bring viable eggs to Johns Hopkins by infesting himself with schistosomiasis.  

A number of researchers in the process of developing antidotes against venom have tested treatment on themselves and risked (as well as went into) anaphylactic shock (I cannot recall names, right now, though). In fact, medical research, especially in its early days where knowledge was limited is chock full of self-experimentation such as e.g. William Ramsay, who exposed himself to various gases to figure out anesthetic properties, or Wernder Forssmann who inserted had a catheter inserted in the 1920s to obtain radiographic evidence for the procedure. Also there are quite a few tragic stories related to that research when scientists willingly, accidentally or unwittingly exposed themselves to dangerous hazards (Marie Curie comes to mind, but there were quite a few deaths associated with work on diseases, of course).

[Danijel Gorupec]

I read about Oliver Heaviside - people mention his eccentricity. Among other things, he apparently liked heating his home to levels uncomfortable for most people.

Sources don't tell if he preferred smoothies over coffee.

[swansont]

13 hours ago, CharonY said:

I know one who prefers smoothies to coffee or tea. What a weirdo.

I was once accused of not being a physicist because I don't drink coffee.

[studiot]

1 hour ago, swansont said:

I was once accused of not being a physicist because I don't drink coffee.

 

What you do do with coffee might be more interesting than what you don't do.

 

15 hours ago, Curious layman said:

Henry Cavendish  look no further..

etc

Indeed +1

[Phi for All]

3 hours ago, swansont said:

I was once accused of not being a physicist because I don't drink coffee.

If I don't have coffee, I suffer from a variation of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, where I don't know exactly where I am but I know I'm not going fast enough.

[Curious layman]

20 hours ago, CharonY said:

I know one who prefers smoothies to coffee or tea. What a weirdo.

 

6 hours ago, swansont said:

I was once accused of not being a physicist because I don't drink coffee.

"Fancy a coffee boss?"

 

"No Charon Y, I wanted a smoothie"

[John Cuthber]

I thought that not drinking coffee made you a not mathematician.

 

[iNow]

Meanwhile, drinking coffee makes you not a zombie

[mistermack]

On 10/25/2019 at 6:22 PM, Alfred001 said:

What are some examples of scientists who behaved in ways that were unusual or autistic or eccentric.

They mostly taught science in Grammar Schools. 

In my experience. 

[MigL]

Had a Prof in University, D W Lepard, very bright, one of the nicest guys you'd ever meet, and always well dressed, who had a bad nervous twitch.
Maybe too much coffee and not enough smoothies.

[Mordred]

 Had a Prof in calculus and if you yawned in his class his he would kick you out for the day lol.

[jajrussel]

On 11/5/2019 at 12:28 AM, MigL said:

Had a Prof in University, D W Lepard, very bright, one of the nicest guys you'd ever meet, and always well dressed, who had a bad nervous twitch.
Maybe too much coffee and not enough smoothies.

 

On 11/5/2019 at 2:41 AM, Mordred said:

 Had a Prof in calculus and if you yawned in his class his he would kick you out for the day lol.

I liked these two comments thought they were funny.