I posted about Alexander Borodin the other day, and how he was a research chemist in addition to composing.
Well, I also have to mention the (perhaps better known to Americans) scientific work of the actress Hedy Lamarr. With a co-worker, she helped do research in radio frequencies that ultimately led to an improvement in secure military communications. (Apparently she had no formal scientific training, but learned some of the stuff from a husband? (She was married six times)). That's kind of amazing to me because I tend to think of that kind of engineering stuff as something you have to have years of training to be able to do.
(I was hoping to find a list of other people, who were known from the world of arts or entertainment, but also had science background/worked in the sciences, but there doesn't seem to be one out on the Internet. Surely there are others than Borodin and Lamarr who worked "behind the scenes" at some kind of scientific pursuit, but were (perhaps) better known in the world of arts or entertainment? I know Danica Kellar wrote books on math and is apparently quite a math genius, but I think she's pretty much retired from acting now...)
4 comments:
Well, The Actress Formerly Known As Winnie Cooper isn't formally retired; she does voiceover work, and she appeared in a couple of episodes of How I Met Your Mother a few years back. Let's say she's keeping a lower profile.
Scientific discoveries happen all the time in entertainment! After all, cousin Balki discovered "The Mypos Cure":
http://youtu.be/0vhC5voj_DQ
Natalie Portman did quite well in the Intel/Westinghouse competition: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/01/science/01angier.html tThis article covers another scientist/actress as well.)
Mayim Bialik, The Actress Formerly Known As Blossom and Currently Known as Amy Farrah Fowler, actually has a PhD in Neuroscience from UCLA.
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