Mad ScientistStereotype Outdated Do people still imagine a physicist as a bearded man inglasses or has the image of the mad scientist changed? The Institute of Physicsset

out to find outwhether the stereotype of a physics"boffin"（科学家） still exists by conducting asurvey on shoppers in London.The people were asked to identify the

physicist from aphotograph of a line-up of possible suspects.98 percent of those asked got itwrong.The majority of people picked a white male of around 60,wearing glasses

and with a whitebeard. While this stereotype may have been the image of an average physicistfifty years ago,the reality is now very different.Since 1960 the number of

young women enteringphysics has doubled and the average age of a physicist is now 3 Thestereotype of the absent-minded scientist has lasted a long time because the

media and Hollywoodhelp promote the image of men in white lab coats with glasses sitting byblackboards full of equations（等式） or working with fizzing（嘶嘶响）

test tubes.Thesestereotypes are really damaging to society.Very good school children are putoff studying science because they don't see people like themselves ontelevision

or in magazinesdoing science.They simply don't relate to the media's image of the madscientist. This is one reason why fewer young people are choosing to do scienceat

university.if wewant to encourage more young people to study science subjects,we need to changethis image of the scientist and make science careers more attractive.But we

must also developchildren's interest in science. In an attempt to change this negative image,anincreasing number of science festivals are being organized. Thousands of

people fromsecondary schools are also encouraged to take part in nationwide sciencecompetitions, of which the most popular are the National ScienceOlympiads.Winning

national teams thenget the opportunity to take part in the International Science Olympiads whichare held in a different country every year.These events are all interesting for

the young people whotake part in but they only involve a small proportion of students who arealready interested in science.It seems that there is a long way to go before

science becomesattractive as subjects like computer studies or fashion and design.The majority ofphysicists in Britain todayare, Cambridgegraduates.

A.Right

B.Wrong

C.Not mentioned