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Caucasian, male, aging, crooked teeth, messy hair, lab coat, spectacles/goggles, dramatic posing — one popular stereotype of mad scientist.

A mad scientist is generally a stock character of popular fiction, more specifically Science Fiction, either villainous, benign or neutral. Whether insane, eccentric, or simply bumbling, mad scientists are often working with fictional technology in order to forward their schemes. Alternatively, they fail to see the evil that will ensue from the hubris of “playing god”. Not all mad scientists are evil or villains. Some are protagonists (or at least positive forces), such as Dexter in the animated series Dexter's Laboratory. Occasionally there are self parodies of mad scientists making fun of the stereotype.

Though the archetypes often overlap, a mad scientist need not be an evil genius. A mad scientist is simply a scientist who has become obsessively involved with their studies and has begun to develop eccentricities by normal standards; an evil genius is a genius who uses their gift for explicitly, consciously evil purposes. For example, while a mad scientist would test the bounds of science to create an army of zombies, he may do it to see if – or prove that – he could, or out of boredom, to impress women, to help clean up his house, or many other such reasons. By contrast, an evil genius would construct his army with a purpose, such as taking over the world – in addition to being evil, such characters tend to have large-scale ambition (see Megalomania in fiction). A mad scientist may be a naive pawn of an evil genius, the evil genius often promising the scientist the funds and resources to conduct his research. Mad scientists also, whilst definitely being intelligent, usually fail to think things through to their conclusion while an evil genius is usually a clever planner and would have a diabolical use for the army of zombies as well as a plan to avoid being killed by them.

Occasionally a Mad Scientist may be an Evil Genius, using their creations for evil reasons.

Mad scientists are typically characterized by obsessive behavior and the employment of extremely dangerous or unorthodox methods. They are often motivated by revenge, seeking to settle real or imagined slights, typically related to their unorthodox studies.

Their laboratories often hum with Tesla coils, Van de Graaf generators, Jacob's ladders, perpetual motion machines, and other visually impressive electrical oddments, or are decorated with test tubes, bodies of mutant creatures embalmed in glass jars, and complicated distillation apparatus containing strangely-colored liquids with no obvious purpose. Very often there will be chemicals heating over the yellow flame of a poorly adjusted Bunsen burner despite the fact that this produces soot and less heat. Typically, the laboratory is decorated in the Raygun Gothic style, a term coined precisely to describe this kind of retro-futuristic aesthetic.

Other traits include:

• Pursuit of science without assessing its destructive or ethical implications (such as violating the Nuremberg Code).
• Playing God, tinkering with nature, or self-experimentation, as in H. G. Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau as well as in the film The Fly and its sequels, along with H. P. Lovecraft's "Herbert West: Reanimator".
• Absent-mindedness, often manifested in careless grooming.
• Lack of normal social relations, often to the point of becoming ostracized hermits (such as Emmett Brown in the film Back to the Future).
• Physical deformity, either a birth defect or the result of maiming in some past incident.
• In English-language works: Speaking with a German or Eastern European accent. This was in large part the result of many scientists emigrating to the United States from Germany and Eastern Europe in several waves, the two biggest being the one just before World War II comprising refugees from Nazism like Albert Einstein, and the one just after the war comprising captured former Nazi employees such as Wernher von Braun. (See: Operation Paperclip and Manhattan Project) Other waves include the late 19th century immigration of eastern Europeans (e.g., Nikola Tesla), and the flight of Russian scientists (e.g., Vladimir Zworykin) after the Russian Revolution of 1917.
• In villains, maniacal laughter, especially pronounced when their experiments reach their climax, parodied by Gene Wilder in the Mel Brooks film Young Frankenstein.
• Ranting monologues about mistreatment by their more orthodox peers, and their plans for revenge (or at least vindication, as typified by the common catchphrase "I'll show them. I'll show them all!"). These rants often involve the scientist in question to refer to "normal people" as "fools". An example is in The Invisible Man.
• Wearing a white lab coat while working or using it for the character's image (such as Doctor Wily, Doctor Drakken, Doctor Neo Cortex, Professor Farnsworth, and Doctor Viper). Alternatively, Dr Clayton Forrester from Mystery Science Theatre 3000 wears a green lab coat, as does Professor Frink of The Simpsons.
• A villainous scientist may have an assistant(s) who doubles as a henchman, often an indentured simpleton whom the scientist cruelly dominates. These assistants are generally tasked with the "dirty work", such as snatching corpses or kidnapping live humans for their master's diabolical experiments, as well as manual labour around the laboratory (Some mad scientists don't use henchmen).
• An academic degree, usually Professor or Doctor (e.g. Dr. Jekyll of Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, parodied by Jerry Lewis in his film The Nutty Professor).

Mad scientists are usually among the first fictional characters in mainstream media (movies, TV, written stories) to introduce a newly-developed concept of science to the mainstream public. In the pulp magazine era, mad scientists were building rocket ships to travel to the Moon, Mars, and other planets. When World War II popularized the existence of "radiation" and its mysterious consequences, mad scientists built nuclear bombs and radiation-powered machines and mutated monsters. By the time the 21st century debuted, mad scientists of the time were experimenting with nanotechnology, genetic engineering, and similar sciences.

As a fictional archetype, the mad scientist can be seen as representing the fear of the unknown, and the consequences that will result when humanity dares to meddle with “things that are best left unknown”. Similarly, the tendency of the mad scientist to place himself in the role of God may be an extension of the differences between religion and science. This is reflected by the recurring role of the mad scientist as a God-like creator, as many fantastic beasts and monsters have been birthed in their laboratories. In the 1931 film Frankenstein, when the monster is brought to life, its creator cries out: “Now I know what it feels like to be God!”. This statement was considered controversial enough for the line to be censored.

The mad scientist is the antithesis of the heroic scientist and is considerably more popular.

Dr. Herbert West, the protagonist of H. P. Lovecraft's "Herbert West–Reanimator" is another example of a mad scientist, albeit somewhat less stereotypical.

Since ancient times, popular imagination has circulated on archetypal figures who wielded esoteric knowledge. Shamans, witches and witch doctors were held in reverence and fear of their rumored abilities to conjure beasts and create demons. They shared many of the same perceived characteristics such as eccentric behavior, living as hermits, and the ability to create life.

Perhaps the closest figure in Western mythology to the modern mad scientist was Daedalus, creator of the labyrinth, who was then imprisoned within it by King Minos. To escape, he invented two pairs of wings made from feathers and beeswax, one for himself and the other for his son Icarus. While Daedalus himself managed to fly to safety, Icarus flew too close to the sun, which melted the wax of his wings, casting him down into the sea below.

In actual history, Archimedes shares some of the elements of the mad scientist^{[citation needed]}, but was closer to the more benign archetype of the absent-minded professor^{[citation needed]}.

A more whimsical prototype of the mad scientist can be found in Aristophanes' comedy The Clouds. The play depicts Socrates, a contemporary of Aristophanes, as tinkering with odd devices and performing implausible experiments to determine the nature of the clouds and sky, and presents his philosophical method as a means for deceiving others and escaping blame, closer to the later descriptions of his opponents, the Sophists, than to those usually ascribed to him. While this is at variance with the depictions by Plato and Xenophon, two of Socrates' students, it is plausible that Aristophanes' parody of Socrates is more accurate than their panegyrics. One of Plato's students, Aristotle, is known to have also been an experimentalist, and may have taken the concept up from his teacher's teacher. A similar parody of insane and pointless experimentation may be found in the Academy of Lagado in Gulliver's Travels.

The protoscience of alchemy long had a resemblance to mad science with its lofty goals and bizarre experiments. Certain alchemists were well known for behaving strangely, sometimes a result of handling dangerous substances, such as mercury poisoning in the case of Isaac Newton. The famous alchemist Paracelsus claimed to be able to create a homunculus, an artificial human. Alchemy steadily declined with the advent of modern science during the Enlightenment.

Since the 19th century, fictitious depictions of science have vacillated between notions of science as the salvation of society or its doom. Consequently, depictions of scientists in fiction ranged between the virtuous and the depraved, the sober and the insane. Until the 20th century, optimism about progress was the most common attitude towards science, but latent anxieties about disturbing "the secrets of nature" would surface following the increasing role of science in wartime affairs.

The manic behavior of Emmett "Doc" Brown (played by Christopher Lloyd in Back to the Future) is that of an archetypical mad scientist

The prototypical fictional mad scientist was Victor Frankenstein, creator of Frankenstein's monster, who made his first appearance in 1818, in the novel Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley. Though Frankenstein is a sympathetic character, the critical element of conducting forbidden experiments that cross "boundaries that ought not to be crossed", heedless of the consequences, is present in Shelley's novel. Frankenstein was trained as both alchemist and modern scientist which makes him the bridge between two eras of an evolving archetype. His monster is essentially the homunculus of a new form of literature, science fiction.

Another archetypal Mad Scientist is Faust, or Dr. Faustus. The Faust legend is a widely recognized and referenced example of selling one's soul to the devil. In almost all cases, Faust is selling his soul for knowledge or supernatural power.

Fritz Lang's 1927 movie Metropolis brought the archetypical mad scientist to the screen in the form of Rotwang, the evil genius whose machines gave life to the dystopian city of the title. Rotwang's laboratory influenced many subsequent movie sets with its electrical arcs, bubbling apparatus, and bizarrely complicated arrays of dials and controls. Portrayed by actor Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Rotwang himself is the prototypically conflicted mad scientist; though he is master of almost mystical scientific power, he remains slave to his own desires for power and revenge. Rotwang's appearance was also influential -- the character's shock of flyaway hair, wild-eyed demeanor, and his quasi-fascist laboratory garb have all been adopted as shorthand for the mad scientist "look". Even his mechanical right hand has become a mark of twisted scientific power, echoed notably in Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove.

Nevertheless, the essentially benign and progressive impression of science in the public mind continued unchecked, exemplified by the optimistic "Century of Progress" exhibition in Chicago, 1933, and the "World of Tomorrow" at the New York World's Fair of 1939. However after the first World War, public attitudes began to shift, if only subtly, when chemical warfare and the airplane were the terror weapons of the day. As an example, of all science fiction before 1914 which dealt with the end of the world, two-thirds were about naturalistic endings (such as collision with an asteroid), and the other third was devoted to endings caused by humans (about half were accidental, half purposeful). After 1914, the idea of any human actually killing the remainder of humanity became a more imaginable fantasy (even if it was still impossible), and the ratio switched to two-thirds of all end-of-the-world scenarios being the product of human maliciousness or error.^{[citation needed]} Though still drowned out by feelings of optimism, the seeds of anxiety had been thoroughly sown.

Armand Tesla=Nikola Tesla, Bela Lugosi plays Romanian scientist/vampire in The Return of the Vampire (1944) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037219/

The most common tool of mad scientists in this era was electricity. It was viewed widely as a quasi-mystical force with chaotic and unpredictable properties by an ignorant public.

A recent survey of 1000 horror films distributed in the UK between the 1930s and 1980s reveals that mad scientists or their creations have been the villains of 30 percent of the films; that scientific research has produced 39 percent of the threats; and, by contrast, that scientists have been the heroes of a mere 11. (Christopher Frayling, New Scientist, 24 September 2005)

Mad scientists had their heyday in popular culture in the period after World War II. The sadistic medical experiments of the Nazis and the invention of the atomic bomb gave rise in this period to genuine fears that science and technology had gone out of control. The scientific and technological build up during the Cold War, with its increasing threats of unparalleled destruction, did not lessen the impression. Mad scientists frequently figure in science fiction and motion pictures from the period. Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, in which Peter Sellers plays the titular Dr. Strangelove, is perhaps the ultimate expression of this fear of the power of science, or the misuse of this power.

In more recent years, the mad scientist as a lone investigator of the forbidden unknown has tended to be replaced by mad corporate executives who plan to profit from defying the laws of nature and humanity regardless of who suffers; these people hire a salaried scientific staff to pursue their twisted dreams. This shift is typified by the revised history of Superman's archenemy, Lex Luthor: originally conceived in the 1930s as a typically solitary mad scientist, a major retcon of the character's origins in 1986 made Lex Luthor the head of a megacorporation who also plays a leading role in his R & D department. Also a prime example is Bob Morton, the young executive who masterminds the creation of Robocop by arranging the death of a decorated policeman and handing his still-warm body over to a more traditional team of white-coated mad scientists in a ruthless attempt to advance his career. Bob Page, the master villain in the computer game Deus Ex, is another example. Still, the pose has been used whimsically by popular science writers to attract readers.

The techniques of mad science also changed after Hiroshima. Electricity was replaced by radiation as the new tool to create, enlarge, or deform life (e.g., Godzilla). As audiences became more savvy, quantum mechanics, genetic engineering, and artificial intelligence have taken the spotlight (e.g., Blade Runner).

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Mad scientists

• Absent-minded professor
• Creativity techniques
• Boffin
• Crank (person)
• List of mad scientists

• Haynes, Roslynn Doris (1994). From Faust to Strangelove: Representations of the Scientist in Western Literature. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-4801-6.
• Christopher Frayling – Mad, Bad and Dangerous?: The Scientist and the Cinema (Reaktion Books, 2005) ISBN 1-86189-255-1
• Junge, Torsten; Doerthe Ohlhoff (2004). Wahnsinnig genial: Der Mad Scientist Reader. Aschaffenburg: Alibri. ISBN 3-932710-79-7.
• Tudor, Andrew (1989). Monsters and Mad Scientists: A Cultural History of the Horror Movie. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-15279-2.
• Weart, Spencer R. (1988). Nuclear Fear: A History of Images. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

• Analyzing the culture motif
  • Gary Hoppenstand, “Dinosaur Doctors and Jurassic Geniuses: The Changing Image of the Scientist in the Lost World Adventure”
  • The Scarecrow’s Brain – images of the scientist in film, Christopher Frayling
  • Breaking Down the Stereotypes of Science by Recruiting Young Scientists
  • The Mad Scientist Database with links and Looks

• Within the genre
  • Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists
  • The International Society of Mad Scientists
  • MAD About U. – A college for students of Mad Science.
  • The League of Mad Scientists
  • The Ernest Glitch Chronicles – fictional stories of a Victorian mad scientist discovering modern phenomena
  • Bookproject about the Difference between Madness and Science
  • Online community dedicated to the propagation of 'Mad Science'
  • MadSci Network - collective group of scientists answering science questions
  • Denver Mad Scientists Club – Developers of the "Critter Crunch", widely credited as the first real-life Robot combat contest
  • Homepage of a freelance mad scientist.
  • Girl Genius Eisner-nominated Web comic featuring "Adventure, Romance, and Mad Science", by Phil and Kaja Foglio.
  • Helen B. Narbon of Narbonic by Shaenon K. Garrity
  • Doctor Insano Web comic about a Mad Scientist and his family.
  • The Mad Optimist Mad Optimist Scientist.
  • The Mad Scientist in Japanese mysteries of the 1920s and 1930s
  • Jack London, The Enemy of All The World