This collection makes me want to walk around Prague and bite somebody!

The title is a quote from yesterday’s New York Times. In “My Must-Have Looks for This Fall ,” a fashion designer called Zaldy described with wit and relish the clothes he wants to own this coming season. The one-named designer continued: “And I know they’re crazy, but some pieces from Bernhard Willhelm—you never know when you’ll need a color-blocked crotchless Lycra wrestling suit!”

When I encountered Zaldy’s remarks, my reaction—after choosing purple and chartreuse for my crotchless wrestling suit—was how utterly unlike a physicist Zaldy is when it comes to clothes. The massed physicists I saw last March at the American Physical Society’s meeting in Portland, Oregon, were not badly dressed. Rather, in their jeans, sneakers, and T-shirts, they dressed with attention to comfort and indifference to fashion.

There are, and were, exceptions. Every photo I’ve ever come across of J. Robert Oppenheimer, including the one below, shows a man who chose clothes that fitted and flattered him. And some physicists take the trouble to develop a signature look. Four come to mind who habitually wear all black.

But most physicists don’t follow Oppenheimer’s example. The most extreme example of sartorial insouciance I’ve witnessed was that of James Heath, a pioneer of molecular computing (and who would probably call himself a chemist, I should point out).

One November, Heath flew from Los Angeles to Boston to give an invited talk at the Materials Research Society meeting. He showed up in the convention center wearing a brightly colored short-sleeved shirt, shorts, and, if I remember correctly, sandals. Not only had he forgotten to dress for Boston’s weather, he’d also left his laptop in California.

Did those mental slips matter? Hardly. Using hastily prepared, hand-written viewgraphs, he gave one of the best talks of the meeting. Indeed, it’s conceivable that in creating his viewgraphs, Heath was forced to focus more on his message than on its presentation.

And it’s also conceivable that the trust physicists and other scientists enjoy in the eyes of the public arises in part from their being above looking nice for TV cameras. After all, one of the most credible physicists of all, Richard Feynman, titled one of his books What Do You Care What Other People Think? Further Adventures of a Curious Character.