Minds Behind the Discoveries: 28 Intriguing Facts About Scientists – Part 2

Stephen Hawking once dined in the company of Edward Teller, pioneer of the hydrogen bomb, and typed "He is Stupid" in his speech synthesizer without bothering to lower the volume.

Robert Hooke, despite pioneering the experimental method and discovering many elements of gravitational theory first, was almost entirely erased from history by Sir Isaac Newton because they did not like each other, and Newton lived 25 years longer, allowing him to edit history to his favor.

Anders Celsius originally created the temperature scale with 100 degrees as freezing and 0 degrees as boiling. Carl Linnaeus, another scientist, waited until he died to change the scale to what it is today.

Benjamin Franklin used chess as a means of learning Italian. He would play games with a friend who was also studying the language. The winner of their match assigned a task to the loser; such as making them learn some Italian grammar, which had to be performed before their next match.

Nikola Tesla was voluntarily chaste, despite numerous women "vying for his affections... some even madly in love with him", because he believed sex inhibited his abilities to think in a scientific manner.

Isaac Newton once tried looking at the sun in a mirror, essentially blinding himself for 3 days and experiencing afterimages for months.

Thomas Edison abandoned his research into x-rays when he damaged his eyesight, and his assistant had his arms amputated from repeated exposure. “Don’t talk to me about X-rays,” he said. “I am afraid of them.”

Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of the structure of the DNA molecule and Nobel prize laureate, sent a letter accompanied by a cheque for 10 guineas to Winston Churchill, saying that the money should be used for the establishment of a brothel at the Cambridge University, instead of a chapel.

Charles Darwin married his first cousin Emma Wedgwood, before having 10 children, three of which died before the age of 11. This lead him to wonder whether close genetic matches had an impact on health, adding to his theory of evolution and the passing of traits to offspring.

The middle finger of Galileo Galilei is on display at the Museo Galileo in Florence.