Susan Boyle has risen to fame after being mocked for her interest in fame and success. So here I go – I want to be famous. She wanted to be as successful at Elaine Paige. Who would I model my success after, if I were given the chance?
Neil DeGrasse Tyson
Just as Susan Boyle did not want to be as successful as say, Madonna or Britney Spears, the physicists with the most air time are not my biggest role models. Stephen Hawking may have been featured on The Simpsons, but his fame is more about him personally, rather than his science. I think Neil deGrasse Tyson is a very successful physics “celebrity” – he’s been on The Colbert Report 5 times – but his appearances are about science as much as they are about him. I don’t necessarily want to be on The Daily Show, or late night television, but being called on as an expert for a Nova show would be pretty awesome. I certainly wouldn’t want to go onto a reality show – as a MIT grad, I’d be stuck in a geek role.
My true dream (and if only there was a reality show for this) would be to be a science consultant for tv or movies. I certainly don’t want to run away to Hollywood, but I’d love to be called up someday to make sure that the background for a “science” shot looks more like an actual lab than the back of a Spencer Gift’s store. I worked at a store called Glow!, where I saw many plasma lamps and plates (pictured below). I’ve sadly even seen them in “labs” in Stargate SG-1 but have never seen one actually being used for science. So Hollywood – feel free to give me a call. My business cards are already made. And if you’d rather have some spiffy looking glowing things in the background – rather than actual scientific devices – I can hook you up with that as well.
Plasma Plate - fun decoration, but not in a scientific lab!
