Jess Nevins, author and librarian presents a History of Mad Scientists (both real and literary) in two parts: Alchemists, Astronomers, and Wild Men (part 1), and Organ Theft and the Insanity of Geniuses (part 2: the Industrial Age). [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief on Jun 8, 2011 - 20 comments

Since the late '70s, Gordon Monahan has been making a career of extracting the unheard from pretty much anything he can get his hands on. Monahan's works for piano, loudspeakers, video, kinetic sculpture, and computer-controlled sound environments span various genres from avant-garde concert music to multi-media installation and sound art. Such pieces include long string installations activated by wind (Long Aeolian Piano, 1984-88), by water vortices (Aquaeolian Whirlpool, 1990) and by indoor air draughts (Spontaneously Harmonious in Certain Kinds of Weather, 1996). His work for electronic tone generators and human speaker swingers (Speaker Swinging, 1982), is a hybrid of science, music, and performance art, where minimalistic trance music based on the Doppler Effect contrasts with issues central to performance art such as physical struggle and 'implied threat'. John Cage once said, "At the piano, Gordon Monahan produces sounds we haven't heard before." [more inside]
posted by wcfields on Apr 29, 2011 - 4 comments

Mad Scientists imagine the WMD's of the future. And the Army is listening.
posted by cross_impact on Mar 5, 2010 - 46 comments

How did we miss the 150th anniversary of Nikola Tesla's birth?
posted by unknowncommand on Dec 9, 2006 - 43 comments

Tatjana van Vark: Creative null-A polymaniac.
posted by loquacious on Apr 23, 2006 - 14 comments

Mad Scientist calls for destruction of 9/10 of Earth's population. Texas Academy of Science's 2006 Distinguished Scientist Recipient (pdf) Eric R. Pianka received a standing ovation after he advocated a man-made pandemic to reduce the human population. (via linkfilter)
posted by Baby_Balrog on Apr 2, 2006 - 131 comments

"Welcome to www.villainsupply.com, your best online source for everything EVIL. If you are a supervillain, mad scientist, warlord, dictator, or despot, then this is the place for you."

Need a doomsday device? Gear for your henchmen? How about an impenetrable fortress? Save 35% on the Orbital Space Station!
posted by starvingartist on Jun 20, 2002 - 12 comments

Unlike NASA, Walker, a Bend, Oregon toy inventor, can’t afford to build and launch test rockets. The first one he builds is the one he’ll fly in. He will be his own monkey. Aren't we all? God, I hope he pulls this off. Let's take rocketry out of the hands of guys who miss Mars all the time with space probes and back into the hands of backyard inventors. If Goddard could do it, why not Walker? Suborbital flight from his own yard. (And yes, I know Goddard never went suborbital.)
posted by Ezrael on Jun 13, 2001 - 29 comments