The lunatics with whom I work: marine geophysics
N: "The best deal that Teddy Bullard ever made was Peak Freans. On a cruise in the Indian Ocean, they discovered a couple of depressions several kilometers deep and he called them the "Peak and Freans Deeps" all because they had a tin of biscuits in the lab. When they got back they let them know and Peak Freans has was so tickled they have kept the Cambridge labs in biscuits ever since."
After the that, as stories about Bullard are wont, things degenerated. N said amongst other things that the esteemed Bullard got more twitish in his 60s and 70s and would announce, "I'm a bottoms man," as he climbed into the window.
"As he climbed into the window?"
"Yes, into the coffee room, off the roof of his car, which he did daily, to prove he was fit."
"To get the Peak Freans?"
[image:USGS]
I was curious, as one can not always tell, whether N was making this whole thing up. He's told the story before, but you never know. So I looked it up.* And found something about the Peak and Freans Deeps and the Cambridge marine geophysical group. A copy of Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society on Matthews. THE Matthews, of the Vine-Matthews (or more properly, Morley-Vine-Matthews) hypothesis. This is central to plate tectonics. It is an explanation of magnetic stripes (like a magnetic cassette tape) on the seafloor as evidence of seafloor spreading in the presence of reversals of the earth's magnetic field. Anyway, scanning this article I hit upon this;
For a while Drum [Matthews] shared a house in Cambridge with several other graduate students. Visitors recall that the students were so familiar with the Penguin cookery book that they used to be able to quote from memory the numbers of their favorite recipes. Characteristic of his sense of humour was Drum's (unsuccessful) attempt to get a recipe for roast penguin into the book.**
I take this as evidence that the entire field is filled with eccentrics. The deeper I dig into the history, the more evidence I find. You might argue that this is only evidence that Cambridge-types are nuts, but trust me; it wouldn't be hard to write a similar post on marine geophysicists of other nationalities.
Incidentally, N was my PhD supervisor. Bullard trained N. Rutherford, "the crocodile" trained Bullard. This explains a lot, including any "stamp collecting" biases. Rutherford was trained by J.J. Thomson of the plum pudding model, because it all leads back to food.
*I love you Google.
**Is it telling about me that I first interpreted this as a joke about his fieldwork off Antarctica and only later realized that it was about the publishing house?
After the that, as stories about Bullard are wont, things degenerated. N said amongst other things that the esteemed Bullard got more twitish in his 60s and 70s and would announce, "I'm a bottoms man," as he climbed into the window.
"As he climbed into the window?"
"Yes, into the coffee room, off the roof of his car, which he did daily, to prove he was fit."
"To get the Peak Freans?"
[image:USGS]
I was curious, as one can not always tell, whether N was making this whole thing up. He's told the story before, but you never know. So I looked it up.* And found something about the Peak and Freans Deeps and the Cambridge marine geophysical group. A copy of Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society on Matthews. THE Matthews, of the Vine-Matthews (or more properly, Morley-Vine-Matthews) hypothesis. This is central to plate tectonics. It is an explanation of magnetic stripes (like a magnetic cassette tape) on the seafloor as evidence of seafloor spreading in the presence of reversals of the earth's magnetic field. Anyway, scanning this article I hit upon this;
For a while Drum [Matthews] shared a house in Cambridge with several other graduate students. Visitors recall that the students were so familiar with the Penguin cookery book that they used to be able to quote from memory the numbers of their favorite recipes. Characteristic of his sense of humour was Drum's (unsuccessful) attempt to get a recipe for roast penguin into the book.**
I take this as evidence that the entire field is filled with eccentrics. The deeper I dig into the history, the more evidence I find. You might argue that this is only evidence that Cambridge-types are nuts, but trust me; it wouldn't be hard to write a similar post on marine geophysicists of other nationalities.
Incidentally, N was my PhD supervisor. Bullard trained N. Rutherford, "the crocodile" trained Bullard. This explains a lot, including any "stamp collecting" biases. Rutherford was trained by J.J. Thomson of the plum pudding model, because it all leads back to food.
*I love you Google.
**Is it telling about me that I first interpreted this as a joke about his fieldwork off Antarctica and only later realized that it was about the publishing house?