"Knowledge for free people" was the maxim that ruled Paul Feyerabend's philosophical thinking. In a society of free people, knowledge would prevail and establish itself only in an interplay of diverse traditions. The world should not be defined by the abstract knowledge of a supposedly "objective" science, but looked at from the points of view of different cultures. In his anxieties about the predominance of rationality, it seems to have escaped Feyerabend's notice that modern society's variegated culture imbibed the natural sciences a long time ago, and stages science as a myth with great enthusiasm. Apparently, as an upright advocate of education, Feyerabend had only the dry transmission of scientific knowledge at schools and training in mind or the views of specialists in politics and society. Yet in the market's popular culture the freedom of the individual, earnestly advocated by the liberal philosopher, had already become radical reality, long ago.

At the very latest when Albert Einstein's protruded tongue greeted the world from colossal posters and billboards, it became clear that the freedom of consumerism does not stop for the venerated world of science. For whatever reason, the grand old man of physics seems to be the most popular subject of science to be accorded a firm place in mass culture. He is quite charming to behold, for example, on the postcard motif, sold thousandfold, of "Einstein meets Monroe". Decked out in a Basque cap and armed with a violin case, Einstein gazes benevolently at Marylin Monroe sitting indolently on a park bench looking up at him with admiration. "Wisdom and Beauty" an artist called the picture that was taken up again as a motif in 1999 in oil on canvas.

"Einstein meets Monroe"

What does it take to turn a scientist into a pop icon and his formula, E=mc2, to an eye-catching slogan – which does not even need to be understood – on many posters and collages? We are living in a mass consumer society and scientific knowledge itself has become a consumer product. It is common knowledge that modern consumerism satisfies an entire arsenal of identity-building and status-giving requirements. Goods have become the conveyance devices of entertainment and life-style building, and have ceased to be the mere vehicles of prosaic necessities. They are objects of multifaceted dreams and wishes. Albert Einstein has become the icon of academic wisdom, and the popularisation of natural science and technology to a standard ingredient of entertainment culture.

The marketing of scientific representations requires personalisation and the leading actor or actress must have more to offer than brilliant scientific achievement. This is why not every academically brilliant scientist is granted entry into the realm of the collective consciousness. The manifest increase in enthusiasm to use the anniversaries of the birth or demise of famous scientists to organise commemorative events, worldwide clearly shows that the staging of their personalities and ideas is much more than academe dutifully remembering its leading lights. Under the spotlight of popular events and publications scientists have become idols of a scientific-technological generation. They are the material of which national heroes are made: Louis Pasteur for the French, Michael Faraday for the Brits or Alexander von Humboldt for the Germans. The personalities of Jewish intellectuals, like Albert Einstein, Lise Meitner or Wolfgang Pauli did not readily lend themselves to this kind of prominence.

Barbara Orland, head assistant at the ETH Institute of History.

That a physical blemish need not necessarily be a hindrance in constructing a public legend can be seen in the person of Stephen Hawking. Time and again, Hawking is effectively used in the media to restart the discussion on the age-old theme of "genius and illness". Innumerable photographs and television programmes have turned the serious disability of this astrophysicist into the trademark of his genius. As a consequence of his intellectual capacity the demi-god (superman) is stripped of his corporeality.

"Hawking meets Monroe"

In all this we must not give in to the illusion that scientists are helpless victims of the media age. On the contrary, many of them have learned to play the keyboard of public opinion very proficiently. Some have even been persuaded by their colleagues or external associations to step outside the academic ivory tower. As early as the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries the American Association for the Advancement of Science & Technology, for instance, financed programmes aimed at bringing the work of renowned scientists nearer to a wider public.

Albert Einstein was thoroughly aware of his publicity value. It was not only by bequeathing his brain to science that he lent a helping hand to the building of the legend. The history of the origin of the popular book "The Evolution of Physics", which he published jointly with Leopold Infeld in 1938, gives some information on the variety of motives for profitably marketing his own name. The idea for the book was born in 1936/37 after Einstein was unsuccessful in obtaining a salary for Infeld, whom he wanted to employ as his second assistant at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton. Amazed by this failure, Einstein first thought of paying the stipend, of 600 dollars, out of his own pocket. However, Infeld was too proud to accept this and suggested another way of raising the money. He asked Einstein to co-author a popular book on physics. Infeld wrote the book alone. When it was published a year later both authors had very quickly earned a lot more than 600 dollars.

Numerous intermediaries, all with their own rules and production constraints, stepped in to fill the gap between knowledge production and its ultimate consumers. This comes back to influence science in so far as it is no longer led solely by the offer of a suitable production structure but also by the demand structure of consumerism. Following this turning point the popular product of "natural science" has to explain itself detached from and independent of the producers of its ideas.