Professional Mad Scientists of all kinds, unite!

[Mr D. Sjöberg]

I have always thought of myself as a bit of a mad scientist, but seeing as how I am not in fact an actual scientist I suppose it is more of a feeling then an actuality in my case (I am a programmer by trade by the way)... Perhaps a description as a mad engineer would be more appropriate...

It is quite possible that it is all down to genes in my case (not that I would have it any other way). My grandfather was a farmer by trade, but an inventor at heart (and a quite mad one at that, or so I am told)...

Personally I was unfortunately a bit too young to experience his creations first hand, but when I was young I did take quite a lot of delight in hearing the stories about the things he got up to with gears, chains, ropes, counterweights and old engines in that barn of his. I particularly enjoyed the way that the teller of those stories usually told them while shaking his/her head with a general feeling of "that old coot sure was crazy"... (Apparently he was also a bit of a bastard, but that is completely beside the point)

No one were ever quite able to tell me exactly what his contraptions did, except that they were usually made to assist with the work around the farm (like loading and unloading hay for instance I would expect), but the general feeling of the thing were enough to captivate me and make me want to be just like him... eh... Except perhaps for the "being a farmer" and the "being a bastard" parts.

Now in my own little ways I am a dedicated DIY'er and try to build and create all the things that might happen to strike my fancy. Most of it is not something that I would display here (either not steampunk enough or not pretty enough for that), but I do have my cluttered workspace and my multitude of projects to keep me busy and give me that "mad scientist" (or "mad engineer" whatever now may be the case) feeling... Whether or not that actually qualifies me for this thread or not I don't know... Probably not, but I am at work, bored to death with the coding and in a ranting mood, so there you go

[Kabuki]

As a child and teen, I had quite the streak of Dexter running through me...  I think it runs through my veins though.  My grandfather the watchmaker, my father the auto technician, and my mother the Environmental Lab Chemist, have all had a had in driving toward the Mad Sciences for years.  A couple of eccentric teachers and geeky friends crossing my path only exacerbated the situation, producing various incendiary devices, a Tesla Coil, and a 30" long Van DeGraff generator that would arc between the dome and the base.
    Until we bought a different home a little over a year ago, my Mad Science had been on hiatus for the duration of my marriage.  Of course, we now have much more space, and a garage of our own. which allows me room for more experimentation.  I must state, though, that I lean a bit more toward the engineering end of experimentation than the test tubes and beakers.  Currently my projects consist of mostly learning metal working, including welding, blacksmithing, and founding (liquid metal, yay!).

[WisconsinPlatt]

Not a Mad Scientist, but a generally agitated tinkerer...does that count?  I only wrangle bits during the weekdays to keep my lab stocked...or something like that.

[Lazaras]

One does what one must to continue living. As to the idea of 'mad' is this more a description of sanity, an emotional state while working, or what? Is there a 'slightly upset scientist' for example? What about the 'happy scientist' hmm? i know, bit silly, but somebody had to say it sooner or later.

[fmra]

    ... and (now) language...

Ooh, what do you mean by language?  I want to know more.  I love linguistics.

[Kabuki]

One does what one must to continue living. As to the idea of 'mad' is this more a description of sanity, an emotional state while working, or what? Is there a 'slightly upset scientist' for example? What about the 'happy scientist' hmm? i know, bit silly, but somebody had to say it sooner or later.

Think less "angry" and more "loony", or "crazy". 

[Penny Dreadful]

Well, right now I am planning a study to explore the animacy heirachy and definiteness in english (to start with). and the relation between conceptual distinctions and grammar.

b.t.w. animacy hierarchy-
"Animacy is a grammatical category, usually of nouns, which influences the form a verb takes when it is associated with that noun.
Usually, animacy has to do with how alive or how sentient the referent of a noun is. In general, personal pronouns have the highest animacy, the first-person being the highest among them. Other humans follow them, and animals, plants, natural forces such as winds, concrete things, and abstract things follow in this order..."
-stolen from wikipedia

[fmra]

We so need to get together and confound all sense out of our boyfriends...

>

[Professor Bevel]

I've been resisting this description for years, what with having a psychiatrists note that says I'm quite sane, just a little highly strung.

However, this afternoon I produced just over ten pounds of pineapple jam as a side effect of constructing a new piece of lab apparatus.  All of the decisions that led here seemed perfectly logical at the time, and yet... there it is.  Ten pounds of jam.  Created as a byproduct of metallurgical research.

Hello, everyone, my name is Algernon Bevel and I am a Mad Scientist.  What are the other eleven steps, again?

[steampunkrusski]

I'm afraid my areas of expertise are abit modern in nature however many would consider me a mad scientist of sorts. My specialties include Computer Science and Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Electrodynamics. Really it's not just the quantum aspects of physics but I have a large interest in the TOE [Theory of Everything] Also recently i've been taking an interest to the Chaotic Inflation Theory if anyone has ever heard of it.

[19th Century Space Pilot]

Well, I want to build a biohacking lab in my house, and I plan on doing natural sciences at university (next year)... yep, I'm a mad scientist.

Hello, everyone, my name is Algernon Bevel and I am a Mad Scientist.  What are the other eleven steps, again?

I think the next one is accepting that you can't change on your own and need a higher power to help you. Being a steampunk, that may not be advisable for risk of getting a Cthulhu as your higher power...

[Professor Bevel]

Can I get Helen Mirren in lacy underwear as my higher power?

Failing that, Morgan Freeman, the only individual I've ever seen look credible in the role of a god.

[steampunkrusski]

Ah yes, Morgan Freeman did well indeed.

[celephicus]

Professional mad scientists cannot unite! The only thing a mad scientist hates more than a crowd of villagers with torches & pitchforks is another mad scientist with ideas completely at variance with their own!

I actually really worked for a professional mad scientist. The stories that my few years association gave me will allow me to dine out for years on the retelling of them. The M.S was ex-Prof M.H (yes, he was a cashiered professor!).

Two stories will have to do for now. He built a large high power infra-red laser in his garage and was investigated by ASIO (the Australian version of MI5). We refer to the episode to this day as the "unwarranted intrusion of the comic opera police".

One day coming to work, my wife hit a medium size kangaroo, which shortly expired. I ended up with the carcase so I took it to work to dump it in a skip. Prof. M.H saw it, and immediately grabbed it, and put it in a lab freezer. I often wonder at how many freezers that man had, and how some were locked with disturbingly solid locks... This freezer was not locked, and I happened to look into it a few days later, and the tail was missing. The ex-Prof had made it into one of his famous stews, in the Stewpot of Death, that was never washed, just had more ingredients added, or popped into the freezer on weekends. A few days later, the rest of the roo was used for testing the ex-Prof's experimental endoscope. What happened to it after then history is mercifully silent.
For all I know it may still be somewhere in the building, he stopped paying rent, and the landlord, faced with the prospect of clearing out the lab, just shut the door and said "Well maybe one day if we keep his stuff he'll come up with the back rent".

Moral: mad scientists can be fun people to be around, just never be their landlord!

[Tito Alba]

I studied anthropology too.  Seems to be the starting point of a lot of mad scientists and given some of my old lecturers I can see why.  Two in particular I remember: one was a psychiatrist, anthropologist and voodoo priest who published some studies on mental health and the zombie myth.  Another took a particular interest in the phenomenon of possession trance and exorcism rituals and its implications for modern philosophical debates about self and identity.  I loved it there!  A lot of my friends would come to my place moaning about what they were being made to study and I had piles of books of witchcraft, shamanism, ecstatic trance states and demonic possession

I suppose you could say that I'm a bit of a mad scientist now.  Interested in the medical and psychiatric side of anthropology I studied acupuncture and am spending my time sticking needles into people's tender spots, occasionally wiring them up to a battery and sending pulses down their nerves, while pondering how to design some experiments that might shed some light on its less well understood aspects and wondering if I could return to my old uni and join the other eccentrics as an medical anthropologist of acupuncture.

[SteampunkObserver]

They'd withdraw my security clearance if I ran around claiming to be a "mad scientist." I do, however, have a strong background in both the hard and soft sciences, with more focus on the latter.

V/r,

~SO

[Prof. Michael Masters]

Mwa-Hah-Hah-HA! Yes, I am a Mad Scientist! Call us Sparky, Mad boys, heck call us that Bugger who lives up on the Hill, but what ever you call us We have the power of SCIENCE! Sure sometimes we hit the occasional hitch in our plans (like a mob of villagers with pitchforks) but do we let that stop us? Of course not! There is SCIENCE! to be done and there will always be SCIENCE! to do.

 I myself am in the process of creating a School for Mad scientists. A haven where we may we may preform our experiments in peace(well if you don't mind the occasional Giant Kumquat rampaging through the campus grounds). Yes the Aether Academy is there for all of us who have been unjustly thrown out of lesser establishments. We even have a Understudy program for Minions. ( Well where did you think they came from?)

[Dr. Madd]

The only thing preventing from being a professional mad scientist is no degree, and no pay. My branch of mad science involves primitive weapons, and stranger recipes, with the goal of  turning the world into one giant pantry.

[Wandering Scholar]

I think I'm on my way to qualifying as such: last year my project was to build a magnetic levitation rig, over its course I blew around 7 fuses, damaged the power supply, let it catch on fire... twice... and at one point accidentally turned it into a coilgun which nearly destroyed the overhanging light. But it worked! Eventually

Mwa-Hah-Hah-HA! Yes, I am a Mad Scientist! Call us Sparky, Mad boys, heck call us that Bugger who lives up on the Hill, but what ever you call us We have the power of SCIENCE! Sure sometimes we hit the occasional hitch in our plans (like a mob of villagers with pitchforks) but do we let that stop us? Of course not! There is SCIENCE! to be done and there will always be SCIENCE! to do.

Consider yourself sigged, sir

[Dr. Madd]

Would you consider nearly wrecking someone's kitchen with an accidental air-powered rocket or building a speargun out of a cardboard tube, a rubber band and a bamboo skewer mad science?

[Professor Bevel]

No, that's mad engineering (which is what you teach your kids until they're old enough for mad science, or you realise they're failures good only for mad humanities and eventual work in mad fast food).

[Wormster]

Well i do have an underground lair where we occasionally blow things up, otherwise we attack things with crowbars, hammers, chisels and on the odd occasion a trowel.

Mind you being the 4Th son of an eccentric inventor/scientist does give me a bit of a head start. Now to wind up my Igor and go and do something interesting, involving mice and human DNA - Igor does have some marvellous ideas, shame about the locals - always with the pitchforks and burning torches MMWWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

[Maeg]

Once set up a shortwave transmitting station out of a lethal power supply, old wartime valves and a hunk of modulating iron, but two polite men of Her Majesties Government eventually came round to see to it's destruction. I got licenced after that.

Thank heavens they didn't find the cold-war era airborne radar set. That made the lights dip...

[Professor Bevel]

Heh, yes.  Doesn't matter how much you argue that until they pass laws requiring particle accelerators to be licensed, it can't possibly be an unlicensed one and since you only built the one you can't even accidentally cross the streams, they get all officious about it.

[von Corax]

'Over the years there have been numerous conferences, summits and symposia of mad scientists seeking an answer to that age-old question, "Why can't we all just get along?"

'No survivors have ever been found...'