Disciplined Minds is a book by physicist Jeff Schmidt, published in the year 2000. The book describes how professionals are made; the methods of professional and graduate schools that turn eager entering students into disciplined managerial and intellectual workers that correctly perceive and apply the employer's doctrine and outlook. Schmidt uses the examples of law, medicine, and physics, and describes methods that students and professional workers can use to preserve their personalities and independent thought.

Schmidt was fired from his position of 19 years as Associate Editor at Physics Today

Physics Today

Physics Today, created in 1948, is the membership journal of the American Institute of Physics. It is provided to 130,000 members of twelve physics societies, including the American Physical Society...

for writing the book on the accusation that he wrote it on his employer's time. In 2006, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, it was announced that the case had been settled, with the dismissed editor receiving reinstatement and a substantial cash settlement. According to the article, 750 physicists and other academics, including Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky

Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...

, signed public letters denouncing the dismissal of Dr. Schmidt.

The book was read, with the exclusion of chapter 5, from 2003-2004 for the Unwelcome Guests radio show.

External links

• Web site for the book
• Audiobook available as MP3, read by Lyn Gerry.