5 Of Physics's Greatest Sex Scandals

Physicists need love, too. Just ask Paul Frampton, the physics professor who was sentenced recently after an alleged scam involving drugs and a bikini model.

By Krislyn Placide Posted 11.27.2012 at 5:00 pm 11 Comments

He's Just A Love Machine Wikimedia Commons

We know it can be hard to resist the temptation of bikini models on the Internet, but physicist Paul Frampton was duped pretty bad. The University of North Carolina professor flew to Bolivia to meet up with model Denise Milani, but Milani never showed up. Instead, a man with a briefcase claiming to be Milani's intermediary sent Frampton on a drug smuggling mission. Frampton was arrested before he made it back the United States and convicted last week. We're all fools in love, huh?

Frampton isn't the only physicist to get caught up in a love scandal. Though most of them haven't ended up in an Argentine prison, some did have awkward run-ins with the media. Check out these physicists who probably wish their sex lives were as invisible as dark matter.

Albert Einstein's theory of relatives

The father of relativity wasn't very good to his first wife, Mileva Maric. He made her do all the housework, and in return, she got... well, nothing much in the love department. That's because he was too busy taking lovers, including his cousin Elsa whom he later married. When asked about his love life, he would probably say, "It's all relatives." Zing!

Marie Curie's radioactive love

Apparently, two Nobel prizes aren't enough to get people off your back about that one affair you had. After Marie Curie's husband died, she fell in love with his former student, Pierre Langevin. The man was married, so the French press made a big stink about it and started calling her a homewrecker and a Jew. For the record, Curie was not cheating on anyone herself (and was also not Jewish.)

How The Media Reacts To Science Sex Scandals: Courtesy The CW

Erwin Schrodinger's mistresses

Here we have another physicist who wanted little do with his wife. Austrian physicist Erwin Schrodinger had several mistresses, one being the wife of his assistant, Arthur March. The weird part: March was cool with it and stepped in as the father of the child while his wife Hilde moved into the Schrodinger household.

Stephen Hawking and the sex clubs

It doesn't really seem fair to pick on Hawking for a few reasons, the main one being that he currently doesn't have a wife to cheat on, but the media did it anyway. Hawking apparently frequents the sex clubs, and the only reason that's a scandal is because it is now horrendously public. No one's getting hurt here, at the very least.

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11 Comments

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beagle

11/27/12 at 5:31 pm

Mileva Marić was Einstein's first, not second wife. She received the nobel prize money, not nothing. New research suggests Mileva Marić was also helpful in Einstein's relativity early formulations, based on correspondence.

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beagle

11/27/12 at 5:36 pm

"Did Mileva Marić assist Einstein in writing his 1905 path breaking papers?"

Writers read Einstein's letter to Mari\'c from 1901 in which he wrote: "bringing our work on relative motion to a successful conclusion!" What came afterwards was boosted by a claim that Joffe had seen the original relativity paper manuscript, and that it was signed "Einstein-Marity" (i.e., "Mari\'c"). This drew the attention of some writers to develop a theory according to which Mileva Mari\'c assisted Albert Einstein in solving his physics problems, but her name was left out of the published article and only Einstein's name appears in the journal as author. Historical and primary sources do not support this scenario.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1204.3551

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Chelle12

11/27/12 at 5:39 pm

I believe there is a 'c' missing in the tittle *sex s(c)andals*

@beagle,

About Einstein and the Nobel Prize money:

"The letters reveal that Einstein lost his 1921 Nobel Prize money in the Great Depression when the stock market crashed. This caused great friction with his first wife, Mileva, a Serbian scientist, who felt betrayed because he didn't deposit the money in the bank as agreed.'

www.scienceshorts.com/061016.htm

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beagle

11/27/12 at 5:50 pm

In 1922, Einstein received news that he had won the Nobel Prize in November and the money was transferred to Marić in 1923. The money was used to buy three houses in Zurich: Marić lived in one, a five story house at Huttenstrasse 62, the other two were investments.[25]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mileva_Mari%C4%87

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Patrick Mehr

11/27/12 at 8:10 pm

The biography of Marie Curie by Susan Quinn, now available as an eBook www.plunkettlakepress.com/mc.html relates the virulent anti-Marie Curie campaign her affair with Paul Langevin triggered in France.

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Robot

11/27/12 at 9:50 pm

PoPSCi is becoming a rag magizine..... sad sigh....

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Regen

11/28/12 at 3:06 am

And all this is relevant in what way? The 'popular' in popsci just took overhand.

And you don't see anything wrong in this?
"It doesn't really seem fair to pick on Hawking for a few reasons, the main one being that he currently doesn't have a wife to cheat on, but the media did it anyway. Hawking apparently...."

Media != popsci?

-I dont want to live on this planet anymore

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Robot

11/28/12 at 8:42 am

I prefer the spam in this article more interesting verse the article itself....

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GMarsack

11/28/12 at 10:37 am

@Robot, I wish this site as a "Like" button next to comments. I would have clicked it 20 times on yours. :)

---
In space, no one can hear a tree fall in the forest.

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Chelle12

11/28/12 at 12:05 pm

@Robot

"I prefer the spam in this article more interesting verse the article itself...."

... and that's how a scientist like Paul Frampton gets to be duped pretty bad.

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Peter10

11/29/12 at 4:54 pm

Regarding Hawking "...he currently doesn't have a wife to cheat on,...", should read "...he currently doesn't have a wife to cheat on, nor anything in working order to cheat with.". But who knows...