By David Berman, Daily Nebraskan
March 5, 2019
For as long as he can remember, Dan Claes has loved comic books. Growing up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Claes got his first comics as beat-up hand-me-downs from his neighbor across the street.
He credits those stories as the foundation for his interest in science, which bloomed into a long career in physics and his current position as chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
“A lot of these superhero stories are, on some level, science fiction stories,” he said. “These people were capable of breaking the laws of physics, but they had some background story that made it, at least to the little kid I was, somewhat plausible. My own interest in science might have started by reading those sorts of stories.”
While reading comic books as a kid, he found himself relating to Peter Parker, the brilliant, socially awkward teenager bitten by a radioactive spider, turning him into the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.
“I was a dorky, nerdy high-school kid,” Claes said. “I could see myself in him.”
But it wasn’t until high school when Claes picked up a different kind of book for the first time, a physics book. This launched his passion for and later career in science. Because of his extensive comic book consumption, he said he had blended scientists into one multifaceted, fantastical sort of person in his mind, somebody who mixes chemicals in a lab and builds spaceships. Once he realized that scientists are distinguished in their own separate fields, he immediately gravitated toward physics due to his success in math classes.
Read more:
http://www.dailynebraskan.com/culture/comic-books-inspire-unl-professor-s-love-for-physics-art/article_26ddb400-3ee1-11e9-800e-771789b44589.html