[theoh]

Wow, I don't usually have a problem with the New Yorker, but this is a really patronising and naive profile. He drinks too much Diet Coke? Well, Bill Gates and Karl Lagerfeld also drink too much Diet Coke.

Worse than that, apparently he's not expected or, really, allowed, to apply basic logic and arithmetic in his research without being subject to ridicule: "It was a typical Coster-Mullen moment: he treats the world’s most destructive invention as an ordinary clocklike mechanism, made of simple parts that must fit together according to readily discernible laws."

Seriously, if there's one thing you can say about the Manhattan project, it is that it was an entirely positivistic, scientific activity. The lack of moral or ethical qualms that might be lamented in retrospect doesn't change the nature of the weapon. The mechanical aspects of the bomb are just that, mechanical.

Kenneth Goldsmith would probably excuse the style of this article as twee, but it feels worse than that. It is corrosively anti-geek.

[fmblwntr]

I think you are reading way too much hostility into this post. I think it's clear that David Samuels has a lot of respect for Coster-Mullen, all he's doing is establishing him as a "person," by giving his notable personality traits. I thought this article was an inspiring account of how somebody with no formal training in the subject was able to recreate an incredibly complex machine, simply through his own intelligence and hard work. The sentence you quote is definitely not ridicule, but simply an accurate description of Coster-Mullen's approach, I certainly don't think the Samuels was intending to criticize a positivist worldview and most certainly not to be "corrosively anti-geek." Furthermore, through the article, Samuels repeats how impressed he is at how much Coster-Mullen figures out simply through basic reasoning, math and geometry, I mean it includes a complete description of how he painstakingly tracked down a vintage car so he could measure the size of a box in a photograph. I really have you no idea how you managed to read this article as suggesting that Samuels believes Coster-Mullen is deserving of ridicule, instead he seems very impressed, as does everyone else who is interviewed in the article. (Still not even sure how you got "anti-geek," Coster-Mullen doesn't even seem like a "geek," just a normal person with a family and a hobby, who is simply very good and dedicated at it.

An article that simply repeated the facts about what Coster-Mullen had discovered about the bomb would simply be his book. Everybody has their quirks, and an accurate representation of the person (because indeed, the article is about John Coster-Mullen, not the atomic bomb) should include more than a bare listing of facts about their life. Of course it seems a bit ridiculous, but what hobby on such close inspection doesn't? I think reading it as a criticism is very far removed from the author's intention.

I do agree however that the title of the article (on HN) should probably simply be "Atomic John," it's okay for an article title to be a little bit mysterious, and using a subtitle creates a bit of the wrong impression in this case. (I am not sure about what the actual guideline is however)

[zdean]

I think HN adds to that tone by including "truck driver" in the title of the post. I suppose the inference is that truck drivers are not very smart; therefore, giving the title an interesting contrast. But the reality is that people become truck drivers (as well as any other profession) for any number of reasons.

[gregors]

another truck driver .... http://nasa.orau.org/postdoc/about-fellows/milligan.htm

[Ancorehraq]

Not being very smart accounts for some of those reasons. Do you feel there is a significant category of people who are intelligent enough to be nuclear physicists, but decided to drive trucks instead?

[zdean]

Whether the number is significant or not is irrelevant. The fact is that being a truck driver does not in any way disqualify one from being intelligent. A less loaded but more helpful title might have been something along the lines of "Man who isn't a nuclear scientist uncovers secrets about first nuclear bomb." It might help to understand the problem I'm describing if you replace "truck driver" in the title with a race.

[Ancorehraq]

I don't think that helps understand the problem at all. Are truck drivers a protected class?

Can you provide some evidence regarding intelligence of truck drivers?

[nmrm]

> Can you provide some evidence regarding intelligence of truck drivers?

Sure. This very article. Some non-truck drivers were apparently pretty impressed with the truck driver's book:

The review, written by the eminent atomic historian Robert S. Norris, began, “For many years, Coster-Mullen has been printing his manuscript at Kinko’s (adding to and revising it along the way) and selling spiral-bound copies at conferences or over the Internet.” Norris clearly considered Coster-Mullen’s understanding of the bomb superior to his own.

My own copy of “Atom Bombs” soon arrived in the mail, along with a sheet of testimonials from Harold Agnew, the former director of the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, who was aboard the Enola Gay when it annihilated Hiroshima (a “most amazing document”); Philip Morrison, one of the physicists who helped invent the bomb (“You have done a remarkable job”); and Paul Tibbets, the commander and pilot of the Enola Gay (“I was very much impressed”).

Incidentally, can you provide some evidence regarding the intelligence of software engineers?

See how that feels?

[Ancorehraq]

Ok, http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/occupations.aspx

Doesn't feel like anything at all.