People always seem surprised to discover that institutions of higher learning tend to be raging battlegrounds of clashing egos on an epic scale.

The common stereotype of the professor is of a vague, mild-mannered oldster in an incorrectly buttoned sweater, blinking vaguely as he searches for the glasses that sit perched atop his forehead. In fact, scholars tend to be people who have all their lives been the smartest people in the room, suddenly thrust together into a single institution with a bunch of other people who’ve also always been the smartest people in the room, and resenting it. Add to this the fact that really smart people tend to grow up too busy with their interior worlds to bother with mundane exercises of basic interpersonal skills, and you’ve got the ingredients of gunpowder.

Finding Atlantis: A True Story of Genius, Madness, and an Extraordinary Quest for a Lost World tells the story of a man of extraordinary intellect and achievement who grew so enamored of his revolutionary theories that he failed in humility, university politics, and the judgment of posterity.

Olof Rudbeck (1630-1702) was a Swede, the son of Gustavus Adolphus’ personal chaplain. As a young medical student he dissected a calf, in order to discover the source of a milky substance he saw in the carcass. The result was the discovery of the lymphatic system (although there is controversy as to who identified it first), and Rudbeck became a scientific celebrity. Appointed to the University of Uppsala, he oversaw the construction of a large dissection theater and a botanical garden (botany was another of his specialties). He was also much admired as a musician and singer. Continue reading Finding Atlantis, by David King →