One of the reasons physicists know about great physicists is that they spend years in apprenticeship to one of them, and they are linked in a kind of genealogy. Bohr begat Wheeler who begat Feynman who begat… They know their historical lineage because they really had time to become family and to be intellectually bonded to one another. And they work together on things that cumulate into a vast understanding that, every now and then, shows cracks and has to be reinvented.

In contrast, we typically spend a year in graduate education, taking a smattering of different courses, and quite often don’t even write a thesis. There are mentorship programs, but there’s no deep culture of mentorship in our field, which is how science works. They don’t have bosses, they are all equal citizens of a republic, at least if you believe Polanyi, which I am optimistic enough to do. Our organizational structures are industrial (wow, we now have teams, how enlightened) not liberatory, and certainly not intellectual.

Then again, what we do ain’t rocket science. And we’ve never really decided to let go of the trivia that keeps us from exploring the universe of ideas more deeply. The mentorship we have is often about how to be a better public servant, not how to make a real difference.