I Heart J.B.S. Haldane

There are some people you wish you could have met. There are some people who you love across time... for their stories... for their words... for their shear audacity... for the life that still flares and flickers brightly across the universe despite the dark impenetrable truth of their proven mortality. I discovered one such character last night while reading an anthology of stories compiled by Jacques-Yves Cousteau & James Dugan. The story was a nonfictional account of how one man's "job during the war [WWII] was to tackle the physiological dangers to which divers and men trying to escape from submarines were exposed". The autobiographical author was JBS Haldane.

To begin with... if you have never thought much about how dive pressure tables were developed... all I can say is that you should! It is an wild story... full of Nitrogen Narcosis induced near-death inanity & even some full-blown bends driven demise. Mr & Mrs (#1) JBS Haldane were among the primary guinea pigs who willingly self-pressurized themselves over and over again in the Siebe Gorman's Chamber No. 3 in an effort to discover the true resiliency and limitations of mankind when living a "Life Under Pressure"(title of the article reproduced in the anthology).

But... as if this epic contribution to the winning of WWII wasn't enough... the rest of Haldane's life compounds my admiration. Richard Milner descibes the man as "one of the great rascals of science—independent, nasty, brilliant, funny and totally one of a kind". His interests and actions ranged all over the map. He was one of the best geneticists of his time. He inspired literary escapades of men like Aldous Huxley & (nemesis) C.S. Lewis. He served as a spy for Russia in part due to a passionate political dogmatism and belief in dialectical materialism . He wrote and wrote and wrote in an effort to popularize science.

He was simply: Ruthless. Fearless. Passionate. Brilliant.

Wish I could have been him for a day.