brain flapping

Great moments in science (if Twitter had existed)

Twitter is the source of a great deal of modern news, and scientists are often encouraged to tweet about their research. So what if Twitter had been around during the times of historic scientific breakthroughs and discoveries?

People holding mobile phones are silhouetted against a backdrop projected with the Twitter logo in this file illustration photo taken in Warsaw September 27, 2013.
What if the smartest people in scientific history had had Twitter accounts? In all honesty. we'd probably be less advanced than we are now. Photograph: Kacper Pempel/Reuters

A lot of news these days comes from, or is about, Twitter. Entertainment magazines and shows seem to be entirely dependant on celebrity Tweets, like those fish that feed on the random things that fall out of a sharks mouth.

It's not all random utterances and spats though. Time magazine recently ran an article about the most intelligent celebrities on Twitter. And those of us in the science field are regularly encouraged to Tweet about our research.

But what if these two approaches were combined? What if famous scientists were on Twitter, at the time of their greatest discoveries? Obviously the vast majority of celebrated scientific discoveries occurred before Twitter even existed. But this is the internet, where nothing is impossible!

(Explanatory links in the titles, for those not familiar with the references)

Pythagoras

Pythagoras Twitter
Pythagoras on Twitter.

Andreas Vesalius

Andreas Vesalius on Twitter
Andreas Vesalius on Twitter.

Tycho Brahe

Tycho Brahe on Twitter
Tycho Brahe on Twitter.

Rosalind Franklin

Rosalind Franklin on Twitter
Rosalind Franklin on Twitter. Photograph: /Dean Burnett

Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin on Twitter
Charles Darwin on Twitter. Photograph: /Dean Burnett

Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison on Twitter
Thomas Edison on Twitter.

Erwin Schrödinger

Erwin Schrodinger on Twitter
Erwin Schrodinger on Twitter.

Jonas Salk

Jonas Salk on Twitter
Jonas Salk on Twitter.

Phineas Gage

Phineas Gage on Twitter
Phineas Gage on Twitter.

Florence Nightingale

Florence Nightingale on Twitter
Florence Nightingale on Twitter.

Ivan Pavlov

Ivan Pavlov on Twitter.
Ivan Pavlov on Twitter.

Alan Turing

Alan Turing on Twitter.
Alan Turing on Twitter.

Dean Burnett is, quite obviously, on Twitter, @garwboy

Today's best video

;