Thursday, March 02, 2006

Philandering physicists


The theoretical physicists of the 20th century were no exception. Promiscuous chasers by profession, physicists ever-pursue objects that lie partially hidden to the immediate senses, but are evidently there behind nature’s many layers. The best physicists are able to tease a peek beneath all that partially-covered exterior, as any pickup artist would: with a mix of cleverness and straightforward arrogance.

From this article in the magazine Seed. [Link via Sean Carroll.]

While on this interesting topic, I must link to this very juicy stuff about professors lusting after students (and vice versa). Here's a great quote from this article:

Every once in a great while, such affairs make their way into the news, as one did several years back, when a professor of English, Jane Gallop, upon being asked whether she preferred males or females for sexual partners, replied that she preferred "graduate students."

2 Comments:

  1. Anonymous said...

    Sometimes the students pick up the TAs.

    One of my profs in graduate school said he met his wife when he was taking a Computer Architecture class. She was one of the TAs.

    I appreciated the Feynman quote at the end of the article.

    Love is a matter of chemistry.
    Sex is a matter of physics.

    I dated a physics major once. It didn't work out. Oh well.

  2. Abi said...

    Hi HalfDesi: Thanks for your comment. Teacher-student romance in academia is generally frowned upon; so, there is also this 'forbidden fruit' angle to such a romance, which makes it even more, ummm, juicy.

    But, it is also a fact that everyone knows of some real-life romances in academia. These articles essentially bring these stories out in the open.