Cohen had scoured the annals of discovery for years, looking for scientists who had declared their own work to be “revolutions.” All told, he found just sixteen. Robert Symmer, a Scots contemporary of Benjamin Franklin whose ideas about electricity were indeed radical, but wrong. Jean-Paul Marat, known today only for his bloody contribution to the French Revolution. Von Liebig. Hamilton. Charles Darwin, of course. Virchow. Cantor. Einstein. Minkowski. Von Laue. Alfred Wegener—continental drift. Compton. Just. James Watson—the structure of DNA. And Benoit Mandelbrot.
