Otto Kretschmer Posted May 23 Posted May 23 Which ones do you like and why? Personally I like Carl Sagan the most obviously. From modern ones I like Brian Cox (he's apparently more popular in the UK now than Carl Sagan ever was even in the US) and Neil deGrasse Tyson. I have mixed feelings about Michio Kaku - he started out genuine but jumped on the "will say anything for the money and fame" bandwagon a long time ago.
exchemist Posted May 23 Posted May 23 1 hour ago, Otto Kretschmer said: Which ones do you like and why? Personally I like Carl Sagan the most obviously. From modern ones I like Brian Cox (he's apparently more popular in the UK now than Carl Sagan ever was even in the US) and Neil deGrasse Tyson. I have mixed feelings about Michio Kaku - he started out genuine but jumped on the "will say anything for the money and fame" bandwagon a long time ago. I find deGrasse Tyson a bit glib and the level of Cox’s explanations seems to be for 11yr olds - a sad reflection of the assumption in the British media that nobody in the population knows any science, even though we all learn a fair bit in school and many people take it further. (British media seems run by arts graduates , quite unlike say France where the prestigious grands ecoles were founded by Napoleon to study science and engineering.)Cox is also a bit annoying, somehow, for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on. Kaku seems to be a bit nuts, but I don’t really know much about him. Sagan was far better than any of them I think. I quite like Sabine Hossenfelder on physics. 2
joigus Posted May 23 Posted May 23 It's Sagan, of course. And after that, Sagan. The poetry, the music, the absolutely unfettered passion for understanding it all that cannot be muffled in any way. The Cosmos is all that is, or was, or ever will be... And I was immediately and unconditionally engaged for the rest of my life. As to the rest of them, I can't help but feel they've been built as marketing products in a way, probably through no fault of their own. I agree with exchemist that Hossenfelder means business more than any of the others. Sorry for the mixed metaphor. 1
swansont Posted May 23 Posted May 23 James Burke. Connections just blew me away as a teen and The Day the Universe Changed as a young adult. 1
Genady Posted May 23 Posted May 23 A. Einstein. As a teen, I was driven by the ideas and by the evolution of "the attempts of the human mind to find a connection between the world of ideas and the world of phenomena" in The Evolution of Physics by Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld. 1
exchemist Posted May 23 Posted May 23 37 minutes ago, swansont said: James Burke. Connections just blew me away as a teen and The Day the Universe Changed as a young adult. Gosh I remember him from “Tomorrow’s World” in the 1960s. With Raymond Baxter.
Mordred Posted May 23 Posted May 23 While not directly a populizer the physicist that got me hooked was Allen Guth with his original False Vacuum inflationary model. I spent the first few years of my studies chasing the process of virtual particle production including many processes you don't hear about today including Parker radiation that was applied to universe expansion. ( that version never went far however Parker radiation now applies to MRI's).
sethoflagos Posted May 23 Posted May 23 (edited) For me it has to be David Attenborough. I find his series as fascinating and awe-inspiring now as I did as a child. For YouTube, the group of channels put out by the profs and associates at Nottingham University seem very well curated and pitched at an accessible level. Professor Poliakoff on the Periodic Videos chemistry channel is particularly entertaining. Associated channels are Sixty Symbols (physics) and Numberphile (maths). Edited May 23 by sethoflagos Missing symbol 1
dimreepr Posted May 23 Posted May 23 It's always Richard Feynman for me, he was so excited to explain; it was as contagious as a sneeze.
CharonY Posted May 23 Posted May 23 Heinz Sielmann and the Grzimeks were influential to me. Sielmann was a filmmaker and not an academic, but his expeditions and footage made me want to pursue biology as a career. The documentary from the Grzimeks is one of my earliest memories of the impact of humans on the natural world. Also challenged the prevalent idea of humans being something separate and above nature.
zapatos Posted May 23 Posted May 23 Lewis Thomas had the biggest impact on me and really got me interested in science.
Otto Kretschmer Posted May 25 Author Posted May 25 What are your thoughts on Anton Petrov, a YouTube science popularizer?
dimreepr Posted May 25 Posted May 25 5 hours ago, Otto Kretschmer said: What are your thoughts on Anton Petrov, a YouTube science popularizer? I haven't thought about him, what are your thoughts? This is a social contract, a discussion if you will, a question has to have a point; so what's the point of your's?
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