Rocket Scientist

rocket scientist (rok it si en-tist) n. One who is smart. Used in a sarcastic fashion, often in the negative to exaggerate the simplicity of a concept. For example "You don't have to be a rocket scientist to..."

"consider the termRocket Surgery my buddy overheard this at a bar and i think that is has something to it... the absurdity of meshing a brain surgery with rocket science in a haphazard way... " Anyone care to place the origin of this phrase?

The Space Race pops to mind..

I'm fairly sure this originated in the finance industry, round about the time that Black and Scholes used Ito calculus to calculate the correct price for share-options. The Ito calculus was originally developed for studying stochastic processes (Ito being interested in them for their own sake, as a pure mathematician) but its previous application to rocketry was widely known. -- ChrisBooth with GarethMcCaughan

Actually, that's not quite what I said. I am not convinced that Ito calculus has any application to rocketry. Perhaps someone who remembers more accurately what ChrisBooth wrote would care to re-refactor? Better still, if someone can find out definitively whether Ito calculus has anything at all to do with rocket science, this could be rewritten altogether. --GarethMcCaughan

I am not an expert (though noticing the money that quants earn, I am studying hard!) but I would expect that Ito calculus has a lot to do with rocket science, in the guise of guidance systems. AFAIK It(o) is about stochastic differential equations. Surely control systems are about stochastic differential equations too? --BillWeston

I can't confirm this as the origin of the term outside of rocketry but I can certainly recall one of the leading quants, as they would be called today, in the TSB Treasury Team in London in 1988 being introduced to me as a RocketScientist. Paul knew the BlackScholes? stuff backwards of course. I also believe I heard the term used of similar folk on one of the first derivatives desks in London at Bankers Trust in 1986. --RichardDrake

An acquaintance who works for part of what was GEC as manager of a missile development project describes himself as a RocketScientist on that basis. He feels that this "impresses chicks". -- KeithBraithwaite

Does this work? -- proto RocketScientist

"Frogger", as he is known, remains a single divorcee. Draw your own conclusions... -- KB

WernherVonBraun would have to be the prototypic rocket scientist. In addition to technical knowhow, the term has always carried with it negative connotations of someone who has become overly specialized at the expense of, say, moral character. -- WardCunningham

: Don't say that he's hypocritical,
: Say rather that he's apolitical.
: "OnceRocketsGoUpWhoCaresWhereTheyComeDown?
: That's not my department," says Wernher von Braun.
: TomLehrer