In science, fame is based only on publications, but celebrity also depends on TV

"While there is certainly a strong correlation between fame and celebrity, the two are clearly different. Albert Einstein is almost 8 dBLw more famous than Carl Sagan, but his CI is .43 dM lower. A preliminary conclusion would be that, in science, fame is based only on publications, but celebrity also depends on TV appearances. A comparison of Bills Gates and Clinton suggests that, in this era of blogging, celebrity depends more on how often one is seen on the computer screen than on the TV screen. Now that celebrity can be measured scientifically, we expect sociologists to study the phenomenon in greater depth."

Measuring Celebrity. Leslie Lamport. Annals of Improbable Research 12, 1 (Jan/Feb 2006), 14–15. A version of this paper has been published elsewhere.