Comments on: Awesome science tattoos

Awesome science tattoos

GuyZero — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 11:49:45 -0800

By: troybob

troybob — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 11:53:37 -0800

What better way to commit to a life of celibacy than to have the periodic table of the elements tattooed on yourself.

By: DU

DU — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 11:54:57 -0800

So....ambivalent....science rules....tattoos do not.....what....to do.... Someone should make temporary science tattoos. Interesting that my thought for most of them was "awesome science!" but for the lisp one my first thought was "I hope there's no bug in that". Good ol' software engineering instincts.

By: DU

DU — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 11:56:11 -0800

What better way to commit to a life of celibacy than to have the periodic table of the elements tattooed on yourself. Having an enormous spider tattooed on yourself.

By: caddis

caddis — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 11:59:11 -0800

Wow, these really put the poor pocket protector and calculator on the belt to shame.

By: LordSludge

LordSludge — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 12:01:57 -0800

What better way to commit to a life of celibacy than to have the periodic table of the elements tattooed on yourself. Umm... BSOD tattoo.

By: Greg Nog

Greg Nog — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 12:02:12 -0800

What better way to commit to a life of celibacy than to have the periodic table of the elements tattooed on yourself. Seriously? When I saw that, my first thought was, "Oh, damn. I bet that dude gets so much play." Ladies Love Cool Germanium.

By: Riki tiki

Riki tiki — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 12:04:26 -0800

I think both science and tattoos are cool. But if you get a science tattoo just for the geek chic of it and don't bother with making it aesthetically pleasing then you're not much better off than the people who jumped on the Tasmanian Devil bandwagon in the 90s. Case in point, the periodic table on a forearm is distracting and ugly, although for what it's worth I'm guessing that it was faked as part of an "ingenious cheat sheet" punchline.

By: wsg

wsg — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 12:05:35 -0800

What better way to commit to a life of celibacy than to have the periodic table of the elements tattooed on yourself. I thought geekiness is in.

By: T.D. Strange

T.D. Strange — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 12:06:50 -0800

OK, this one is kind of hot.

By: Devils Rancher

Devils Rancher — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 12:13:12 -0800

Umm... BSOD tattoo. Geez.. couldn't have gone with a nice, tasteful C:\> ? Has anybody tatooed OS X's kernel panic screen on themselves yet?

By: weapons-grade pandemonium

weapons-grade pandemonium — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 12:21:25 -0800

Is Schrodinger's Cat alive, or are you just happy to see me?

By: zeoslap

zeoslap — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 12:31:14 -0800

I quite liked the dragon dna one at the bottom

By: jeffamaphone

jeffamaphone — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 12:31:56 -0800

What if they discover new elements? I guess he can always tack them on, but the ink won't match exactally... I'm very much liking the look of the ATP one... The LISP one is a bit, I dunno, not cool. Too many parenthesis.

By: mrnutty

mrnutty — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 12:33:51 -0800

I've always told myself that if I ever got a tattoo it would be a semi-obscure science-related one. I'm was afraid that one of those pictures would be of my perfect tattoo and I would be reduced to copying it, but none were very inspiring. But I did like the periodic table. That dude rocks.

By: Gary

Gary — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 12:44:59 -0800

The LISP one is a bit, I dunno, not cool. Too many parenthesis. Also, all the math nerds with their closed form expression tattoos beat him up for his lunch money.

By: action man bow-tie

action man bow-tie — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 12:48:44 -0800

The tat on the right of this page is the one I covet - it's a schematic for the simplest radio receiver possible.

By: invitapriore

invitapriore — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 12:51:44 -0800

I like the ATP one. For one, most chemical diagrams are aesthetically pleasing just by virtue of being interesting, minimalistic geometric arrangements. For this particular photo, there are also a bevy of other, more obvious reasons as to why I enjoy it. If pressed to decide which chemical compound I might tattoo on myself, I can't say that ATP would be anywhere near the top of the list, though. No flare. I can think of many better and more interesting ones. Anyway, I've replaced ATP in my system with something better.

By: Mayor Curley

Mayor Curley — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 12:53:49 -0800

So this is what the Yakuza would be like if Asperger's were a requirement for membership.

By: Wavelet

Wavelet — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 12:53:54 -0800

They blinded me...with science! The gal with the upper body entomology themed tattoos really rocked. I have no idea how you could top that. Full body slime mold themed tattoos?

By: Nabubrush

Nabubrush — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 12:58:45 -0800

Those are sweet, and I echo zeoslap.

By: mbd1mbd1

mbd1mbd1 — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 13:02:37 -0800

A friend of mine has an awesome tattoo from his ankle to the top of his calf; it's a DNA molecule morphing Escher-style into a tree. I've always wanted a tattoo of a photo target on my shoulder. Can't bring myself to actually do it though.

By: tehloki

tehloki — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 13:17:46 -0800

My pipboy tattoo is still my favorite.

By: 517

517 — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 13:20:21 -0800

Wait, wait. I want a DNA strand but it's got to be a wicked mean DNA strand.

By: mygothlaundry

mygothlaundry — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 13:20:42 -0800

That octopus is totally sweet. I wouldn't mind that one, and I'm not all that scientific, even.

By: HeroZero

HeroZero — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 14:32:36 -0800

I've often pondered what signifier I could possibly get drawn on my body that would so attached to my identity that I wouldn't regret having it there. I'm a teacher, but I teach English, which doesn't have as many fun symbols as math and science. A venn diagram, maybe?

By: octothorpe

octothorpe — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 14:42:38 -0800

troybob: "What better way to commit to a life of celibacy than to have the periodic table of the elements tattooed on yourself." Can't we retire that tired cliché? All of engineers and scientists that I've known have normal social/romantic lives.

By: puke & cry

puke & cry — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 15:12:23 -0800

Does getting a tribal turtle count as a science tattoo just because the guy that got it is a scientist?

By: Luddite

Luddite — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 15:13:28 -0800

I've always liked the idea of getting a discreet Aleph Null tattoo. But tattoos are (quite literally) not kosher.

By: rxrfrx

rxrfrx — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 15:20:23 -0800

"Science" tattoos scream "hey look at me I took an intro [biology/chemistry] class and I am so cool, science rules guys! yeah! I don't actually know anything about being a professional scientist and I'll probably be a technician or actually more likely work at starbucks or an indie book store for the rest of my life" etc etc

By: misha

misha — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 15:24:24 -0800

I'm not a big tattoo fan, but the raptor and the mean DNA dragon helix are great quality tattoos.

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 15:31:16 -0800

Nthing the DNA monster. This might be a good one, an I believe in science logo. A superb black light tattoo.

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 15:34:21 -0800

oh wait, here's a good math knuckle tat.

By: switchsonic

switchsonic — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 15:53:25 -0800

A guy in my lab has a beautiful stylized tattoo of an sp3-hybridized molecule on his shoulder. Like a methane molecule, but the tattoo only depicts the orbitals. Very Zen-like. I've never wanted a tattoo before but that one got me thinking...

By: thatswherebatslive

thatswherebatslive — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 16:16:37 -0800

I have a water molecule similar to this, although inverted and a little more balanced, design-wise. It's the one I get the most comments on. Most of them are "What is that?" but occasionally it'll be the jump off for an interesting conversation. The bassist in my band has a graph of a sine wave around his wrist. And yes, we have active sex lives.

By: pombe

pombe — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 16:43:45 -0800

I know a pretty highly-regarded biologist who has ATG tattooed on the knuckles of one hand. I'm assuming she has a stop codon tattooed on the other hand. I thought that was pretty hard core.

By: cephalopodcast

cephalopodcast — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 17:25:36 -0800

Creepy Anatomy tattoos Sealife tattoos Cephalopod tattoos (self link)

By: dame

dame — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 18:14:49 -0800

What better way to commit to a life of celibacy than to have the periodic table of the elements tattooed on yourself. Just like to emphasize: science tat == 8 kazillion hot points added to your total. To be fair: I have a punctuation tattoo and am planning another.

By: A dead Quaker

A dead Quaker — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 18:35:47 -0800

I knew someone once who had e^x tattooed on her shoulder (but in the stylized LaTeX font, so it looked really classy). Sorry guys, last I knew she was taken.

By: schroedinger

schroedinger — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 18:49:26 -0800

One of my friends has h-bar (the symbol for Plank's constant) tattooed on her shoulder. She's entering grad school for a doctorate in physics so she is the real deal.

By: Arturus

Arturus — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 18:52:39 -0800

I'm an undergrad in astronomy right now, and I've been thinking about this as a tattoo.

By: hattifattener

hattifattener — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 19:26:39 -0800

Someone should make temporary science tattoos.

IIRC when my gf was accepted into her major, they gave her some official biology department temporary tattoos.

By: ch1x0r

ch1x0r — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 21:20:11 -0800

I once dated a guy who later got a tattoo of a geometric proof of the pythagorean theorem. It was so totally hot.

By: exlotuseater

exlotuseater — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 21:31:10 -0800

This one's poemy, not sciencey.

By: Brainy

Brainy — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 21:51:44 -0800

I dated a girl who had an empty set {} on the back of her neck, I drew the neuron that another ex got tattood on her shoulder and I have a brain between my shoulder blades. One day I'll be called Brian again and my kids will ask "what is that on your back?" and I'll say "well, you see kids, when I was your age..."

By: flaterik

flaterik — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 00:33:59 -0800

This is computer sciencey rather than Sciencey, but I really want something along the lines of a wrench manipulating square brackets - or an octagon formed of square brackets. You know, 8 bits to a byte, powers of 2, all that. I do a LOT with byte arrays and back end server & infrastructure code, and the phrase "bit wrenching" or "byte wrenching" has occurred to me many times. And besides the type of software development I love doing, I also really like working on mechanical things with physical wrenches... so it has a lot of meaning to me on at least two levels. I'm sure if I try hard enough I can BS a third. Of course, I am no visual artist, and futzing around with drawing programs has never produced anything I like. I should try to communicate this idea to an Actual Artist and go from there, but for some reason this seems daunting.

By: micketymoc

micketymoc — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 04:35:28 -0800

And nobody thought of getting some bitchin' Blind Watchmaker tattoos? Anyone? Anyone?

By: OmieWise

OmieWise — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 05:43:29 -0800

Those are cool.

By: bhance

bhance — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 10:10:54 -0800

What? No finite state machines in there?

By: Many bubbles

Many bubbles — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 21:45:30 -0800

I feel that this was as awesome as promised.

By: cortex

cortex — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 09:57:50 -0800

Also, one of our own.