Curated playlist
Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge
- Frederick S. BoasFrederick S. Boas gave Thomas Kyd, author of The Spanish Tragedy, a scholarly edition in 1901.
- Ernest RutherfordErnest Rutherford scoffed at atomic power in 1933. Leó Szilárd later said that speech inspired his chain reaction idea.
- Isaac NewtonIsaac Newton was born so small, he said, that he could have fit inside a quart mug.
- John Bowker (theologian)John Bowker took on Richard Dawkins's claim that belief in God is a mental virus.
- Ludwig WittgensteinLudwig Wittgenstein, the Austro-British philosopher, published only one book of philosophy during his lifetime, and it ran to just 75 pages. He was born in Vienna on the 26th of April 1889 and died on the 29th of April 1951. Nearly…
- John DeeJohn Dee, an English mathematician and astronomer, once sent a flying beetle soaring up to the palace of Jupiter. The stage was at Trinity College, Cambridge, and the play was Aristophanes's Peace. Dee built the effect from pulleys and…
- James George FrazerJames George Frazer wrote about world cultures without ever doing fieldwork. He relied on mailed questionnaires.
- Bertrand RussellAt 89, philosopher Bertrand Russell went to jail for an anti-nuclear protest. Asked to behave, he said, "No, I won't."
- Arthur EddingtonArthur Eddington photographed stars during a 1919 eclipse to test Einstein's theory.
- Simon Baron-CohenSir Simon Baron-Cohen is a British clinical psychologist at the University of Cambridge who has studied autism since 1982. Across that career he has put forward three large theories about the condition. Each one took a decade or more to…
- Srinivasa RamanujanSrinivasa Ramanujan was ill in a hospital at Putney when G. H. Hardy came to visit him. Hardy had ridden there in taxi cab number 1729. He remarked that the number seemed rather dull, and he hoped it was not an unfavorable omen. Ramanujan…