George R.R. Martin recently made the news because he co-wrote a scientific paper. While it’s rare for someone from the arts to get their name on a research paper, it’s not unheard of. Several familiar names from music, screen or literature have either worked with scientists or studied science themselves.
Martin’s paper was about the physics of the universe of Wild Cards, a story collection of which he is one of the editors. The research paper, co-written with physicist Ian Tregillis, uses the Wild Cards Universe as the basis for an exercise to teach students physics and math skills. It has been making headlines not so much for the physics content, but, of course, for its celebrity author. It’s not every day that a famous author writes a science paper. But it’s not the first time, either.
Several actors, authors and musicians have not only walked the red carpet but also published … [+]
Beatrix Potter, the author and illustrator of Peter Rabbit, also wrote a scientific paper. In her case, it wasn’t a paper about the fiction books she’s known for, but a study of fungi. It was still unusual for women to practice science in those days, and the Linnean Society did not allow female members. A friend presented it on her behalf, and it was sent back for revisions, which Potter never made, so we can’t see the paper itself. However, from her notes and drawings scientists have learned that she discovered several fungi that were not formally described by other mycologists until several decades later.
Isaac Asimov was a chemist as well as a science fiction author, and combined those two roles perfectly when he wrote a completely fictional research paper about a material that doesn’t exist. The paper was published in a science fiction magazine rather than a scientific journal, but the style of it is identical to that of serious chemistry papers. During his time as a chemistry lecturer, Asimov also wrote many genuine non-fiction educational science books.
Besides fiction authors, there are also some actors who have scientific papers to their names. First, Mayim Bialik did a PhD in neuroscience, but her thesis doesn’t seem to have led to any peer-reviewed research papers. (Usually a paper is about the length of one chapter of a PhD thesis, so she has put in the work.) On the other hand, Natalie Portman has several research papers from her undergraduate psychology degree that are readily accessible online under her non-stage name Herschlag.
But even celebrities without science degrees manage to get their names on research papers sometimes. Film director James Cameron was the first person to reach the deepest point of the Mariana Trench in 2012, and collected some samples there. Because of his role in the research, he is an author on the resulting research paper a few years later. (It takes a while to research samples and write up a study!) Colin Firth had a much easier path to scientific authorship: He suggested an idea for a research study on a radio program and got the credit for that on a biology paper in 2011.
Then there are various musicians who dabble in the sciences to various extents. The Offspring’s Dexter Holland and Queen’s Brian May both completed PhDs after they were already famous, and have their names on research papers as a result of that. Opera singer Renée Fleming works closely with researchers on various studies related to music and health, so she also has some scientific papers from that.
Scientific research even has “nepo babies” – or at least, it’s not uncommon for family members to work together. Lisa Kudrow is an author on a neurology paper about left/right-handedness and headaches because she joined her father’s research project. The paper came out the same year as the first season of Friends, so she clearly had other things to do after that.
So now George R.R. Martin joins the list of celebrities with a research paper under their belt. Unlike most of the others, though, his paper is directly related to his work. Whether the Wild Cards physics will inspire educators remains to be seen. New Scientist’s reporters wondered why he didn’t choose the Game of Thrones universe instead.
