What's the best degree path for a potential mad scientist?

[GentlemanVoodoo]

Not sure on the science degrees, but any mad scientist is going to need major bank role for their projects. So Accounting or Finance is a must.

[Peelee]

Well, what you do want to do with your mad science? Chemical engineering, for instance, is the "blow stuff up" field. Possibly structural engineering as well if you want to be incredibly efficient at it.

[Fyraltari]

Pet peeve: Victor Frankenstein never earned his PhD even though he clearly has the skills.

I don’t think any field is better than the other. What makes a mad scientist is turning whatever their field is into a weapon.

[gomipile]

Biochemistry, microbiology, and most if not all types of engineering all come to mind.

[Erloas]

I think it is also worth considering if this is the classical mad scientist or a more modern one, or even a futuristic one.

Classical tended towards biological, or occasionally mechanical because that was a more recognized source of power. But now there are a lot of mad scientist archetypes that are much more machine, or machine/man (cyborgs), and more and more a completely software based crazy power is believable. And really at this point you could create a mad scientist based on software engineering that could write AI/machine learning that could incorporate pretty much any other field in the process. You don't need to know biology to write a machine that can learn all about it for you, etc.

[Peelee]

Pet peeve: Victor Frankenstein never earned his PhD even though he clearly has the skills.

Don't most medical doctors not bother with a Ph.D?

[warty goblin]

For the classic 'playing God' variety of mad scientist:
Double major in chem/bio in college. Try to have a senior thesis project that's both brilliant and very slightly disturbing, but not enough so that anybody would really notice. A study of which Toxoplasmosis strains have the most profound effect on behavior in animal trails for instance; fascinating, but clearly has substantial creepy potential. Or an attempt to link a set of genes to a particular behavior by breeding a better botfly.

On the back of this, and your excellent recommendations, all of which note your long hours in the lab and extreme dedication to science, get into the best grad school possible. You should do extremely well in all your course work, but generally seem a bit distracted or bored. Try to find an adviser with a reputation for encouraging really boundary-pushing research, so they can later be horrified at just how far you went. Ideally by your third year you get expelled for serious IRB violations, then accept a large check from some shady defense contractor to weaponize your research. Disappear from public for several years... at least until the specimens 'escape' containment at the first live demonstration. And by then it will be far too late.


For your more mathematically focused mad scientist, it's too easy to get directly involved in weapons research, which is just too straightforwards. No, you want to mathematically prove something deeply alarming, or get in touch with an Elder God via blasphemous geometries. Try to find a somewhat younger person in your classes who struggles with the work, and take them under your wing. Encourage this person to keep a diary, and have them over for dinner at least semi-frequently. Make sure that there's a blackboard covered with strange equations visible somewhere, and never allow them in The Room where you do your true research. Make elaborate excuses involving plumbing problems, messes, etc.

Eventually one of two things will happen: you solve The Necronomic Equations, find the limits of The 13 Sequences of True Madness, or some other bit of eldritch numerology, and go mad as a result, or your continued failure drives you insane. Either way, make sure to die - or at least disappear - young, feverish, gibbering, and under suspicious, potentially tentacle-related circumstances. Leave just enough of your final equations intact that your carefully cultivated protege can be driven mad by the mystery of it.

[LibraryOgre]

Robotics.

After all, it's going to be the future soon.

[Mando Knight]

Well, what you do want to do with your mad science? Chemical engineering, for instance, is the "blow stuff up" field. Possibly structural engineering as well if you want to be incredibly efficient at it.

Some universities offer degrees specifically in Explosives. If you want to be a Doctor of Blowing Stuff Up, you can.

[Radar]

An academic degree? Feh! They all know nothing, content to be stagnant, unable to appreciate the true genius, too fearful to make bold steps into the unknown! But they will see the Truth once my work is complete. Soon... I will show them all! Muahahahahaha!!!!!

[NichG]

None of these fields have anything on machine learning, where 'I'm going to scrape people's tweets to build a machine capable of controlling the outcomes of elections' is an exercise for the introductory level course.

[Peelee]

None of these fields have anything on machine learning, where 'I'm going to scrape people's tweets to build a machine capable of controlling the outcomes of elections' is an exercise for the introductory level course.

Your machine is blown up by the guy with a BS in Chemical Engineering and an MD and Ph.D in Explosives Engineering. Also the election.

[wumpus]

Don't most medical doctors not bother with a Ph.D?

Except that I'm pretty sure Frank didn't complete his M.D. If he was in in the modern US, he wouldn't have completed his pre-med, but I think in nineteenth century Switzerland (or was it Austria?), things were different and he was already studying medicine.

And mad scientists rarely put much stock in the actual degree (although if you can't self-fund, one will come in handy in finding funding). They tend to see all professors who issue such things as short-sighted and wrong and only themselves with the correct truth (real academic groups are likely to assign grad students (and the occasional undergrad) to deal with this type of crank, they are all too common).

[NichG]

Your machine is blown up by the guy with a BS in Chemical Engineering and an MD and Ph.D in Explosives Engineering. Also the election.

Blowing up the election, sure, but the 'machine' here is just a few hundred megabytes of weights that could run on anyone's laptop - or even cellphone.

[Fyraltari]

Don't most medical doctors not bother with a Ph.D?

His degree, whatever it was, he left the uni because of post life-creating nervous breakdown and then the creature killed his little brother. anyway he isn't allowed to be called doctor.

Except that I'm pretty sure Frank didn't complete his M.D. If he was in in the modern US, he wouldn't have completed his pre-med, but I think in nineteenth century Switzerland (or was it Austria?), things were different and he was already studying medicine.

He's a Swiss that sutdied abroad, either Germany or Austria, I'm not sure which.

[Iruka]

His degree, whatever it was, he left the uni because of post life-creating nervous breakdown and then the creature killed his little brother. anyway he isn't allowed to be called doctor.

He's a Swiss that sutdied abroad, either Germany or Austria, I'm not sure which.

University of Ingolstadt, so in Bavaria.

[Peelee]

Blowing up the election, sure, but the 'machine' here is just a few hundred megabytes of weights that could run on anyone's laptop - or even cellphone.

The Internet is just a bunch of connected computers. And coputers can be blown up.

Dr. Explodey is on a mission, I tells ya!

[The Glyphstone]

The fields of Mad Sociology and Mad Psychology don't get any respect these days.

[Peelee]

The fields of Mad Sociology and Mad Psychology don't get any respect these days.

They got blown up, is why.

[warty goblin]

The fields of Mad Sociology and Mad Psychology don't get any respect these days.

So if you're a mad sociologist who studies the society of other mad scientists, does that make you a mad mad scientist scientist?

[Peelee]

So if you're a mad sociologist who studies the society of other mad scientists, does that make you a mad mad scientist scientist?

Well, "scientist."

Apologies to sociologists.

[gomipile]

The fields of Mad Sociology and Mad Psychology don't get any respect these days.

So if you're a mad sociologist who studies the society of other mad scientists, does that make you a mad mad scientist scientist?

Well, "scientist."

Apologies to sociologists.

Don't even get started on mad political scientists.

[warty goblin]

Well, "scientist."

Apologies to sociologists.

Since mad mad scientist scientist = (mad scientist)², we're left with one very important question. Does the average mad scientist have a mad science rating of greater than one?

Don't even get started on mad political scientists.

We'll see who's crazy when I've used my Overton Window Hypno-Ray to shift public opinion on electing my cyber-ape god-emperor!

[snowblizz]

Well, "scientist."

Apologies to sociologists.

Pistols at dawn natural science boy.

[Kato]

I think there are three paths for a modern mad scientist..
A) as has been mentioned IT, going for skynet as the big goal
B) robotics, aiming for grey goo or such, but this seems more far fetched to me
C) biology / genetic engineering, going from super slave soldiers over super durable pests / parasites to just the ultimate humanity destroying disease. ("it cures cancer by curing you of life!")

[Knaight]

As long as we're talking soft sciences - mad science traditionally involves stretching what science can realistically do in a lot of ways (starting with the amount of times the first or second attempt at something works, which for anyone who has ever done lab work is hilarious). That gets really scary when applied to sociology and psychology. There's even a short story involving a mad psychiatrist which nicely illustrates that.

As for degree paths, getting an arbitrary bachelors with way more credits than it takes to effectively get a basic grounding in a lot of fields seems solid. That gives you a strong basis for later self study, and mad scientists are autodidactic by nature.

[Brother Oni]

Pistols at dawn natural science boy.

My money's on Snowblizz as he knows how to make a smoothbore pistol shoot accurately.

[snowblizz]

My money's on Snowblizz as he knows how to make a smoothbore pistol shoot accurately.

The Real World Weapons and Technology thread has many uses.

[2D8HP]

Drama major, with an emphasis on comedy.

"They laughed at me at the University, I'll show them!

I'll show them all!"

[Peelee]

Pistols at dawn natural science boy.

My money's on Snowblizz as he knows how to make a smoothbore pistol shoot accurately.

He can use a smoothbore, then.

Still good money on him, though, I stink at pistols. Cant change to rifles?