The Baffling Descent of a Nobel Prize Winner

[n2doc]

By STEVE CHAWKINS, Times Staff Writer

In 2002, John Robert Schrieffer posed for ads in national newspapers and magazines touting scientific research in Florida. "When you have a 34-ton magnet, you attract some of the brightest research minds in the world," the ad read, extolling the Nobel Prize winner who had become chief scientist at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee.

Florida State University recruited Schrieffer from UC Santa Barbara with the kind of full-court press usually reserved for collegiate sports stars. Lawton Chiles, who was then governor, pitched the job to him personally in a call from a state airplane. When Schrieffer signed on with the school in 1991, university officials rhapsodized over their catch, with one of them telling reporters that the hire reflected "a realignment of the nation's scientific resources."

But Schrieffer's appearance in a Santa Maria courtroom this week stood in shocking contrast to his reputation as one of the greatest scientific minds of his generation. Tearfully, the 74-year-old physicist apologized to the surviving victims of a crash he caused by roaring down U.S. 101 at more than 100 mph. Schrieffer has pleaded no contest to vehicular manslaughter in the accident, which killed one and injured seven.

Nobody knows just why Schrieffer, who taught at UC Santa Barbara for 12 years and headed its Institute for Theoretical Physics in the 1980s, was driving down the coast so recklessly. His lawyer, Roger Lytel of Santa Barbara, said his client had fallen asleep at the wheel. A few friends and colleagues allude to long-standing medical problems and powerful medications. But whatever really happened, those who know Schrieffer are perplexed and saddened by the downfall of a man they consider a giant.

more:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-nobel13aug13,0,3237685.story?coll=la-home-local
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Hubris....IMHO

[benburch]

1. Sounds like he should not have been driving.

People with medical conditions often will not voluntarily give up the freedom of being self-mobile.

[Kali]

2. I didn't read the whole thing

but terms like "downfall" and such would indicate to me a series of events. This seems to mention only one, tragic as it is...is this his first accident? What else has gone wrong for this to be a downfall? I don't get it.

Guess I'll go read it. Dang I was only going to check my posts from last night and now I have been on here for HOURS.

I love you DU but I think we may need a 12 step forum (at least I do)

[Kali]

4. some previous signs

"Yet Schrieffer had piled up nine speeding tickets since 1993, most of them in the last few years, prosecutors said. At the time of the accident, he was driving on a suspended Florida license, and he initially fabricated a story about a truck forcing him off the freeway."

[lala_rawraw]

3. Running from Jeb no doubt...

Prob did not want to be part of the next "hit". Seriously, the guy is in his late seventies, Nobel winner, HUGE career, and then all of a sudden he is recruited to Florida of all places (cuz the U's here are so well known) and then this?

Hmmm- tin foil hat time

[salvorhardin]

6. Actually the lab he was at was doing some really neat work

National High Magnetic Field Lab
http://www.magnet.fsu.edu
http://www.magnet.fsu.edu/about/tallahassee.html

High magnetic fields have a profound impact on the understanding of electronic structures and the structural properties of condensed matter systems. In the last several decades, larger magnetic fields have spread to the fields of chemistry and biology to better understand complex molecules and tissues.

Even though he made no mention of illness in his plea I would be willing to bet there is something going on with him medically, perhaps psychiatrically that would cause him to behave recklessly. We don't know the man though so anything we could come up with would be just baseless speculation. Perhaps the most important thing that we can take away from Schrieffer's story is a reminder that tragedy is indiscriminate.

[Dudley_DUright]

7. He was recruited to FL because FSU took the National High Magnetic Field

lab away from MIT in a competitive bid process which included money to attract stars of the field like Schrieffer. I actually met him one time at a party at FSU. I am greatly saddened by his troubles. He has made enormous contributions to my own field of solid state physics through the BCS (Bardeen, Cooper, Schrieffer) theory of superconductivity.

[Inland]

5. Well, maybe he should have studied practical physics.

Three thousand pounds at 100 mph.....collision with humans.... somebody do the math.

[NNadir]

8. Winning the Nobel Prize might be bad for you...

Some Nobel Laureates went on to highly questionable activities after their awards...

Phillip Lenard and Johannes Stark became virulent nazis, with the attendant antisemitism and racism.

William Schockley also became a virulent racist, although not a nazi, and provided much dubious fodder for neocons by bring Nobel prestige to a field he knew nothing about (genetics).

Henry Kissinger, a peace laureate, became a world renowned virulent mass murderer, although he'd already been practicing in that dubious profession at the time of his award.

I have heard in such a way as to believe it, that getting the award places a huge strain on the recipients who are badgered to lend their prestige to all sorts things, from corporate boards to political statements to research institutions, etc. At the same time gives them a tremendous sense of infallibility. This can be an unfortunate mix.

Famously Richard Feynmann complained that no one asked him if he wanted the Nobel Prize and that he'd wished forever after that someone had contacted him advance so that he could have privately declined the honor without creating any hub-bub.

Nobel's intentions in creating the Nobel were noble, but I'm not sure that the Nobel itself is always noble, as in having a Nobel doesn't always produce noble results.

[northzax]

13. it's a strange aware

for the most part, it's gotten to the point where it rewards people 30 years after the fact of discovery. Basically, you are looking at people who dedicated their younger lives to pursuit of esoteric excellence, at the expense of everything else, including relationships. Then, as the blush of discovery and fame wears off, they are left alone, with failing careers, put out to pasture (since most discoveries are done by 35) to vainly try and recreate their past successes. Then, all of a sudden, they get put back on the pedestal, reliving the glory of decades past, without the support system they need to remain in place. it's a tough life, psychologically.

[Boomer]

9. Very sad

Sounds like the beginning stages of some kind of brain or neurological disorder. Changes in behavior and personality are the first symptoms, and they are very often overlooked as simply "bad judgment."

I have an uncle who is deep into Parkinson's dementia now, but who had managed to completely destroy his relationships with wife and children over a decade before due to emotional outbursts and flagrant affairs. I can't help but wonder if the charming, intelligent man I knew was fully in control of his character even back then. Was it "bad judgment" and selfishness, an especially bad case of mid-life crisis, or had his brain already begun to deteriorate?

[Dogmudgeon]

10. Is this a nasty rumor or the Real Thing?

I've heard that one Nobelist -- in medicine, I believe -- is also a convicted pedophile.

Not just some pathetic soul who whacks off to kiddie porn (bad enough as it is), but a bone-fide predatory child rapist. And that his work really is, indeed, so valuable that there was talk of not imprisoning him, but sentencing him to house arrest for life, or some similar punishment which would allow him to work on his discoveries.

Can anyone fill me on on whether this is real, or just some cockamamie story? And if so, how much of the story I mangled?

Thanks!

--p!

[NNadir]

11. Daniel Gajdusek.

Here you go:

http://www.1-electric.com/articles/Daniel_Carleton_Gajdusek

It seems that he was up to this stuff before winning the Nobel.

[Dogmudgeon]

12. That's him

I hope he's hard at work on a test and a cure for Creutzfeld-Jacob/Mad Cow, because he's got a lot of "debt to society" to pay off.

Thanks for the article!

--p!