Nerds

Merriam Webster defines “nerd” as:
: a person who behaves awkwardly around other people and usually has unstylish clothes, hair, etc.
: a person who is very interested in technical subjects, computers, etc.
Often, the nerd meets both definitions.

You’d assume that in Western cultures, where arranged marriages are almost unheard of, nerds would stand no chance at “getting the girl”. And you’d be right, most of the time. 3 famous physicists, however, were the exceptions: Wolfgang Pauli, Erwin Schrodinger and Richard Feynman didn’t just find a girl: they were successful womanizers! (Well, Feynman did both: first, he got the girl and then, after she died, became a womanizer).

Today, as software takes over the world, nerds are actually considered cool! So much so that on Facebook, a grandmother told her granddaughters to “date the nerd at school” because he might turn out to be the next Mark Zuckerburg. Zuckerburg decided to reply to her post:
“Even better would be to encourage them to *be* the nerd in their school so they can be the next successful inventor!”
His response went viral on both Facebook and Twitter. Its hashtag on Twitter? #BetheNerd.

So are nerds the new rock stars? Are we living in the Age of the Nerd?

Comments

  1. Ramiah KumarJanuary 13, 2016 at 10:27 AM

    Thanks I came to know of the meaning of the word "nerd". I have way to go with so many such oft-used words of this kind.

    As to Erwin Schrodinger, I don't know if he had any difficulty with getting married or not, actually I am not even sure if he was a nerd in the sense he was a person who behaves awkwardly around other people and usually has unstylish clothes, hair, etc. This I know about him: like Feynman, he too was a womanizer! I may not compare by degree but in kind, I think i can be reasonably sure. I read in a book about this behavior of his.

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