On a happier science-related note, the AIP's Physics News Update highlights a very nice article in The American Journal of Physics about the wide-ranging scientific investigations of Luis Alvarez:
Scientist as detective: Luis Alvarez and the pyramid burial chambers, the JFK assassination, and the end of the dinosaurs
Luis Alvarez (1911-1988) was one of the most brilliant and productive experimental physicists of the twentieth century. His investigations of three mysteries, all of them outside his normal areas of research, show what remarkable things a far-ranging imagination working with an immense store of knowledge can accomplish.
It's a nice summary of his accomplishments. Not mentioned in the article is the (less famous, but more personally significant) fact that he was really nice to a naive elementary school student, back in the day...
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There is only one true sin starting with the Garden of Eden, through the Dark Ages (that naughty Crab!), professional management and Homeland Severity - original thought.
Think early, think often. The gods only fear ridicule. If pendejo Yahweh had any cajones, pi to a(n accurate) page of digits would have been vouchsafed. The worst crime against the State is bootstrapping a vital new mind, hence the Department of Education as a whole.
I went back and read your Alvarez story. It really is remarkable.
Some of that stuff is really amazing. Using muons to look for burial chambers? That man was, uh, really smart.
Of course, today I read about using neutrinos to study the earth. Makes using muons seem easy.