Matthew effect

May 15, 2004 12:08 AM

The Matthew effect "It was Merton who identified and named the tendency always to assign exclusive scientific credit to the most eminent among all the plausible candidates. At least I hope it was he, though I'm sure Merton, who invented many wonderful jokes himself, would have been delighted if the credit for it turned out to be misattributed to him." Or is this called the flypaper effect? The question remains: Who popularized the phrase 'Shut up and Calculate!'
posted by vacapinta (2 comments total)

While I haven't the book handy at the moment, I certainly remember a section within Richard Feynman's Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman dealing with the topic of his leading and cajoling a large room full of human calculators during the atomic bomb effort at Los Alamos. Perhaps the quote came from that but the "Shut up" part sounds a bit out of character for Feynman.
posted by bz at 12:56 PM on May 15, 2004

Great post, Miguel.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 2:56 PM on May 16, 2004