Mad scientists: This species seems to represent hubris, scientists who driven by an arrogant lust for knowledge end up crossing boundaries that shouldn't be crossed.
The mad scientist has a long history, dating back to medieval sorcery and before that to ancient times.
There's also an association with hospitals, places of pain where before the 19th century surgery was performed without anaesthesia (or antisepsis). Literal houses of torture. Places where even today scientists/physicians turn incomprehensible machines and science loose on their victims:
Boffins on the other hand seem to me to just be what we Americans call science nerds. With them it's more about style than it's about transgression. The British idea seems to be people so involved with totally arcane theory that they are hopeless in everyday life. They are noted for their being totally oblivious to conventional style and the little behavioral norms of everyday life.
Here's an exaggerated posed version
In an ironic twist of fate, in places like San Francisco the 'nerd' look has become very stylish in the hipper clubs and bars. Thick-rimmed 'nerd' glasses are a style-statement. But the hipsters' version of nerdness is so calculated and carefully put together that it's doubtful that a real nerd would fit into that scene.
You do see plenty of real-life boffins at Stanford University, which is crawling with them. I like to eat lunch in the cafeteria in the ground floor of Clark Center (BioX) which is packed with scientists at lunchtime. The guy in the yellow shirt below is real. He's the guy in charge of the Lokey Stem Cell Core Facility at Stanford. (He's got the hair going, but in California it works. I could imagine this guy backpacking in the mountains or riding a surfboard on his days off.)
Many of them actually fall in lust like normal people, which can result in what would probably have to be called test-tube babies. It might be the white lab coats, a fashion statement that the hipsters haven't caught on to yet.
The mad scientist has a long history, dating back to medieval sorcery and before that to ancient times.
There's also an association with hospitals, places of pain where before the 19th century surgery was performed without anaesthesia (or antisepsis). Literal houses of torture. Places where even today scientists/physicians turn incomprehensible machines and science loose on their victims:
Boffins on the other hand seem to me to just be what we Americans call science nerds. With them it's more about style than it's about transgression. The British idea seems to be people so involved with totally arcane theory that they are hopeless in everyday life. They are noted for their being totally oblivious to conventional style and the little behavioral norms of everyday life.
Here's an exaggerated posed version
In an ironic twist of fate, in places like San Francisco the 'nerd' look has become very stylish in the hipper clubs and bars. Thick-rimmed 'nerd' glasses are a style-statement. But the hipsters' version of nerdness is so calculated and carefully put together that it's doubtful that a real nerd would fit into that scene.
You do see plenty of real-life boffins at Stanford University, which is crawling with them. I like to eat lunch in the cafeteria in the ground floor of Clark Center (BioX) which is packed with scientists at lunchtime. The guy in the yellow shirt below is real. He's the guy in charge of the Lokey Stem Cell Core Facility at Stanford. (He's got the hair going, but in California it works. I could imagine this guy backpacking in the mountains or riding a surfboard on his days off.)
Many of them actually fall in lust like normal people, which can result in what would probably have to be called test-tube babies. It might be the white lab coats, a fashion statement that the hipsters haven't caught on to yet.