

Most "mad scientists" are actually just mad engineers - blasdel
http://cowbirdsinlove.com/46

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bitwize
Mad engineers with super engineering powers at that. I work in robotics -- in
real life, the amount of effort necessary on the part of many engineers, some
with Ph.D.s, to get even a simple robot like one of our AUVs assembled,
integrated, and functioning with acceptable reliability is phenomenal. Yet Dr.
Robotnik can build a whole robot army numbering in the thousands of many
different types, a fleet of airships to deploy them from, and a chaos-emerald-
powered world-shattering satellite -- all by his lonesome, all over Sonic's
summer vacation, and all without having to worry about malfunction except via
high-speed impact by blue hedgehog.

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threepointone
rofl > high-speed impact by blue hedgehog

really, he needs to write better unit tests.

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Periodic
I believe you've uncovered one of the great flaws of standard testing
procedures. The tests cannot test anything the developers don't think up.
Robotnik has a big blank space where a blue hedgehog should be.

~~~
bitwize
Despite his monumental engineering feats the guy didn't account for some
pretty basic deficiencies. If I were him I would set up a test jig consisting
of a cannon which fires spiked cannonballs at high speeds, and make sure my
killing machine's armor could withstand at least that before deploying it. I
would also take care that it never enters a failure mode that involves
exposing its power core, CPU, or other delicate parts; and I would license
Tony Stark's arc-reactor technology to power it, as the very rare mystical
gems I would otherwise need tend to be either highly sought after by ambitious
hedgehogs or guarded by fierce echidnas who would stop at nothing to ensure
their safety and sanctity.

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rbanffy
"just" mad engineers? :-/

I am not sure if I like that.

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jackfoxy
The notable exception being Nikola Tesla, who was both a mad scientist and a
mad engineer.

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_delirium
The Manhattan Project physicists occupy a dual space as well. Their ultimate
hypothesis was "hmm, maybe building a bomb this way will work", and the
experimental setup was "build it and try exploding it in the desert", which is
a pretty engineeringy kind of science experiment. (Of course, there were
plenty of earlier, more basic-physics experiments leading up to it.)

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seldo
My favourite part of that experiment was that they believed there to be a non-
zero chance that it would trigger an uncontrollable reaction that would ignite
the atmosphere and end the whole world _but did it anyway_.

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DilipJ
Crazy, isn't it? But I guess they felt the risk was worth it. I assume that's
how the scientists working on the LHC feel.

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devinj
Nah, the LHC dudes think there's an actual zero risk. The LHC doesn't produce
collisions of any magnitude greater than collisions that occur in the upper
atmosphere (from what I understand). That was the ultimate debunk of things
like the whole "microscopic black hole will eat the earth" thing.

~~~
grinich
The black hole would evaporate so quickly it wouldn't be able to pull in any
matter.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation>

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rbanffy
Noboby will tell a story about a mad scientist that's just a scientist and who
can't build a giant death ray because no publication will accept his paper on
it and he fails to get his department fund it.

Mad engineers are dangerous. Mad scientists are harmless.

~~~
Goladus
Actually I suspect the origins of the term do in fact refer to scientists.
Victor Frankenstein was in fact a scientist in the traditional sense (nor was
he originally written as a villain).

But yeah, it's a lot easier to make a "mad engineer" villain than a "mad
scientist" villain. Mad scientists tend to be more suited to being secondary
characters-- somebody so obsessed with discovery that their goal of scientific
discovery conflicts with the protagonist.

