sci-fi

TV and the movies are full of slapdash -- extremely slapdash -- science. A mystical wave of the hand, a chalkboard full of scribbles, and voila! Cold fusion in every home. That gets no respect from me. But the practitioners of that science... well, sometimes they make it look really good.

So you can keep your wild-haired Wolverine with his tanned muscles and adamantium appendages. My lust objects wear glasses and SPF 45. Knowing how to maim and kill is all well and good, but reciting the digits of pi and lecturing co-eds in dusty classrooms is hot.

Here are 20 fictional scientists I just can't stop watching. Take a look at who excites my atoms.

Fourteen years ago I instructed all of my friends and relatives to file past the picture of me with Spock and into the the basement of the synagogue so we could begin my Star Trek-themed bar mitzvah reception. Needless to say, it would be a long while before I had a date.

In the world of cinematic science fiction one of the most appealing themes involves a universe brimming over with intelligent life. In this imagined future (or past) humans interact with alien friend and foe because they've at last hammered down the ability to travel to distant stars and galaxies, and, yes, "to boldly go where no man has gone before. Having grown up on the original Star Trek series, observed the effect of the Star Wars movies on the zeitgeist of movie-going generations and enjoyed sci-fi soap operas like Battlestar Galactica, I have to admit I wish we could make it happen; no matter the odds.