If you want to bring up ego-maniacs, I nominate Carl Sagan. He was bad enough with his TV show “The Cosmos” but I sat through one of his lectures on astrophysics once at Bell Labs in New Jersey. His condescension and sneering smile of derision to his audience was entirely inappropriate behavior on his part,
especially since there were two Nobel Prize winners and numerous patent holders of sophisticated electronic devices in the seats. He was a rabid atheist and in a round table on nuclear disarmament, when challenged by another participant to explain an obvious flaw in his advocacy of complete elimination of nuclear weapons, he completely lost his cool, obviously enraged that some “peasant” would dare to question him.
Nice anecdote, thanks. I certainly consider Carl Sagan one of the great ego-maniacs of science. I talked to a surgeon who cared for him as he came to the end of his life, at Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse, NY. Of course I had no idea he was there. I guess he lived in Ithaca until the end of his days.
The story of his talk at Bell Labs comes as no surprise at all, and as you say is especially noteworthy given the remarkable people and accomplishments that were sitting in the audience in front of him.
As I understand it, he was a man of few notable scientific accomplishments (something about the temperature of the atmosphere of Venus, IIRC). His position as a public figure gave him immense fame and prestige. I guess he was a clear speaker and to some extent writer, although I think his books were largely ghost-written. He was photogenic, and looked the part of "a Scientist." I guess his huge ego was a part of his "Famous Scientist" costume.
On the other end of the spectrum was Richard Feynman, who to the best of my knowledge never lorded his immense intelligence and accomplishments over anyone. He liked to talk about physics and enjoy life, and that was pretty much it. I'm sure he had an ego, but it was much more under control than that of the others we've mentioned.
What an experience it must have been to work at Bell Labs back then. Lucky you!
Now that he’s dead, I wonder if Sagan is still an atheist.