Thursday, June 14, 2007

Passing of a Science Icon

Many folks have been chiming in with kind words for the late Don Herbert, known to many as "Mr. Wizard."

Marty Kaplan wrote: "in Don Herbert's New York Times obituary it says that during the 1960s and '70s, "about
half the applicants to Rockefeller University in New York, where students work toward doctorates in science and medicine, cited Mr. Wizard when asked how they first became interested in science." A National Science Foundation official quoted in his Los Angeles Times obituary said in 1989 that "Don has been personally responsible for more people going into the sciences than any other single person in this country."

The impact of one person (and of the media in general) cannot be underestimated, and Mr. Wizard was a perfect example of that.

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