[mundo]

Linus Pauling was a bona fide genius; he won a Nobel for his pioneering research in to chemical bonds, made important contributions to our understanding of crystalline structures and various proteins, helped explain the the molecular genetic cause of sickle cell anemia, etc, etc. He was a giant of science and will always be remembered as such.

But he also spent the last thirty years of his career refining and attempting to popularize a model for the structure of the nucleus (the "close-packed spheron model") that never seems to have gained much acceptance. He spent even longer advocating for megavitamin therapy, which is now generally regarded as quackery, and went to his grave pushing the idea that large doses of vitamin C can help cure cancer, despite numerous studies failing to support this.

I'm not saying that Wolfram is exactly like Pauling (although his fascination with his own work on cellular automata certainly seems to share some similarities to Pauling's fascination with the spheron cluster model). But I can't help but wonder if Pauling's reputation would be different if he had had a blog.

[selimthegrim]

He also put the equivalent of a scientific hit out on Shechtman for quasicrystals