In the final panel, the second sign reads: “Johnny Carson – What’s the best way an aspiring starlet can get into Hollywood? Bette Davis – ‘Take Fountain.’” This refers to Fountain Avenue. The story, which has been circulating since the late 1990s, is probably apocryphal.
I don’t suppose that anyone really thought the word was onomatopoeic, but I was curious as to the actual origin. It derives from the Russian for “white.”
Asimov was an educated and respected scientist. Clark was not a scientist in the traditional sense, but he was a futurist whose writings were respected and influential. Heinlein was not a scientist. He was an aeronautical engineer of no special distinction, with the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree.
Neither Batman nor Iron Man is a scientist as such, although they both have quite a bit of scientific knowledge. There are a lot of superhero scientists, though. Some that immediately come to mind: Mr. Fantastic, Ant Man, the Flash (though he is a forensic chemist, not a research scientist), the Hulk (though only in his Bruce Banner persona). There must be many others.
Up until the 1970s, weather forecasting was basically an educated guess. And then weather satellites and sophisticated computers came into use and there was a stunning increase in accuracy. I always assumed it was the weather satellites and not the computers that were primarily responsible.
I was curious about the odd original. The running man is not George Washington but Baron Munchausen. This is a picture from Mr. Munchausen, by J.K. Bangs, which Peter Newell illustrated, https://www.google.com/books/edition/Mr_Munchausen/1vAoAQAAIAAJ.
They have truckers in Id?