'If, in a government agency, anyone has to wait in line for more than 15 minutes, the official in question is obliged to humbly apologise, and explain the reason for the delay.'

December 6, 2007 8:27 PM

Nobel Laureate Gerardus 't Hooft has an asteroid named after him. Dr. 't Hooft has drawn up a constitution.

The good professor's lovely homepage has a treatise^pdf on 'nice features of Meccano strips', postscript art, an explanation of the apostrophe in his name and rather stern and funny articles on 'How to become a GOOD and BAD theoretical physicist.'

Previously.

posted by sushiwiththejury (11 comments total)

"One of the consequences of this article is that no violence can be applied in enforcing the Law, since Law Enforcement Officers will not be exempt of this regulation. The law is enforced by debate and persuasion only, and the penalty for violators will be exposure and contempt. They will be continuously advised to leave."

I laughed. Very cute.
posted by blacklite at 8:36 PM on December 6, 2007

Man. Is the line between 9491 Thooft and ET Corn Gods thin or what.
posted by phaedon at 8:50 PM on December 6, 2007

Anyone who persuades Hawking to change his mind is alright in my book.

On another note, he's also a rock star - of sorts: he gave a talk at the "Lowlands University" programme at the 2006 Lowlands festival in Holland.

Awesome post.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 9:00 PM on December 6, 2007

Today I learned that dutch Nobel Laureates have humorous facial hair.
posted by delmoi at 9:08 PM on December 6, 2007

Looks like some good reading, but I really appreciate the explanation of the apostrophe in his name. One of those questions I never think of asking. Dutch names come up frequently, since my partner is Flemish. The other prefix, 'de' he doesn't mention, is usually from historic nobility. (I'm told not always, but my mother-in-law's maiden name has the 'de', so they may be playing humble).
posted by Goofyy at 9:26 PM on December 6, 2007

Well. Good for him.

Huh huh huh Flemish. Say it. Flemish. Huh huh huh.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 12:00 AM on December 7, 2007

That's pretty awesome. I'm actually pretty sure I've been on his website before; that list of skills for physicists comes up not infrequently in discussions.
posted by cobaltnine at 4:12 AM on December 7, 2007

That's fantastic. The metric tensor shall be given the (-+++) sign convention. Now why doesn't our constitution cover that?
posted by Zonker at 5:42 AM on December 7, 2007

His name means "The Head" for chrissakes. How could you grow up to be anything but a Nobel Lauterate.

Man, this problem sure is hard... I wonder if one of the other students can solve it.

Call in... THE HEAD
posted by phrontist at 6:15 AM on December 7, 2007

I like how he uses Comic Sans in the header for how to be a BAD theoretical physicist.
posted by sciurus at 9:03 AM on December 7, 2007

In my mind, I was equating 'BAD' with 'EVIL'. While this was not the case, Comic Sans would in fact be the perfect font to use in a guide on Evil Theoretical Physics.
posted by Sugar Induced Coma at 2:25 PM on December 7, 2007