Today's Faraday

[easilyconfused]

Do you ever wonder how much import we put on historical personalities due purely to their stodgy appearances? Would history assign as much respect to them if they had looked more like today's people? Would Michael Farady have been invited to lecture if he looked like this?

[dmlandrum]

I want one of those Faraday t-shirts now.

[MightyTwin]

I want one of those Faraday t-shirts now.

Seconded.

[Time]

Why Faraday? Maxwell was more important.

[dmlandrum]

Faraday's ideas on action-at-a-distance being caused by fields with specific field lines was what allowed Gauss and Maxwell to mathematically codify the behavior of electricity and magnetism. Now, there's no way of knowing if someone else wouldn't have had the same ideas as Faraday, but without Faraday, Maxwell and Gauss would've had to build on someone else's work, and that might have happened much later, or proven false, or any number of other outcomes.

So, no, we needed Faraday.

[Time]

No one said we didn't need him.

[Rhythmtech]

Put me down for a Faraday shirt. 

[retched]

 Put me down for a 'Dave's head on Faraday's portrait' shirt.

[rossmoffett]

I think an iPod or a smartphone might be more appropriate than a cigarette these days.

[dmlandrum]

Yeah, the cigarette makes Michael look a bit like Andy Warhol.