Meet Mr. Nick Georgis

''Ask a group of teen-agers who their favorite scientist is, and they'll have to think awhile,'' says Mr. Georgis. ''About 50 percent of them will say Einstein, and the other 50 percent will say, 'I don't know.' ''

Dennis Rodman, Garth Brooks or Madonna? Few would have a problem picking them out of a crowd, says Mr. Georgis, a physics teacher of 34 years at Staples High School in Westport, now retired.

But Frederick Reines, Wilhelm Roentgen or Ernst Ruska? They would all have a hard time paying by check without the proper I.D., in spite of the fact that they all helped push civilization forward. Reines, who won the 1995 Nobel Prize in physics, is credited with discovering the subatomic particle called the neutrino. Roentgen discovered X-rays and Ruska is credited for the electron microscope. The reason they and a long list of other scientific luminaries are not household names, explains Mr. Georgis, is simple.

''They're nerds,'' he says, ''and nerds aren't cool.''

So, taking a cue from sports figures, Mr. Georgis has devoted the past few years to a seemingly quixotic venture -- publishing and promoting NerdKards, trading cards devoted to mathemeticians and scientists, a k a nerds.

A boxed set of 102 cards, with head shots and biographies, sells for $14.95.

''Stop dummying down America,'' Mr. Georgis states in his promotional material. ''It's time to start smartening up America. It's time for the nerds to come out of the closet.''

But after spending $30,000 of his own money printing the cards, and getting write-ups and moral support from around the country, Mr. Georgis has found the success of his home-based enterprise to be as elusive as Reines's neutrino.

Aside from a few sets sold to education-minded parents and grandparents and gift sets to those who seemed interested, Mr. Georgis has had no takers.

At his home he held up a huge cardboard filing box filled with rejection letters for his brainchild.

''This is my shot-down file,'' said Mr. Georgis. Major toy stores, sports card companies and fast food and bookstore chains are among the shooters.

Trading cards to promote celebrities, television shows and even serial killers, have made it, but the only stores that have shown any interest in selling NerdKards -- provided that Mr. Georgis handle all the printing and packaging, he said -- have been the cerebral science game shops such as ''The Age of Reason'' in Westport. And selling his cards to these stores would have been a wash. Mr. Georgis said their proposed wholesale price was about the same as it cost him to produce the cards.

So Mr. Georgis launched a full-scale marketing blitz by writing to lobbyists in Washington, D.C., last summer, he said.

His aim: to get a set of NerdKards into the hands of every legislator. He said he wants Congressmen who say they are pro-education to prove it by handing out NerdKards.

This past fall Mr. Georgis went so far as to drive to Westport the afternoon Vice President Gore was in town. With a box of NerdKards in hand, he walked into National Hall where the Democratic fund-raising event was scheduled for the evening, and handed the cards to a Secret Service agent.

''I said, 'I'm Nick Georgis, and these are NerdKards, and could you make sure the Vice President gets these?' '' he recalled. ''He was very nice and said he would give them to him.''

Mr. Georgis said he hoped Mr. Gore would prove that the Clinton Administration was pro-education by helping him to promote NerdKards. He said he has yet to receive a response. ''These are cards that parents can read to and share with their children,'' he said.

Mr. Georgis admits that his first set of NerdKards is heavy on white males when diversity would be a must for marketing. So he is busy at his home computer writing a second set that includes more women and minorities. He also plans a junior NerdKard set that would be less wordy, less encyclopedic and more graphically designed.

While Mr. Georgis has not gotten much encouragement from stores and publishers, he has received good wishes from people around the country who admire what he is trying to do. One person who lauds Mr. Georgis's goal is Dr. Henry Singer, a Southport resident who is executive director and honorary chairman of the American Nobel Committee.

''I think it's a great idea because we certainly need role models for kids, people who can do something more than throw a ball,'' said Dr. Singer. ''Unfortunately in America our priorities are all backwards. When they're paying $10 million a year to a baseball player, teen-agers have different priorities.''

Dr. Singer's marketing advice to Mr. Georgis?

''Go to a pharmaceutical company because they are interested in promoting their products and they have many Nobel laureates who work for them,'' he said. ''They have lots of money and they could even put their advertising on the backs of the cards.''

Another tip Dr. Singer suggested is changing the name. He, like many others, see the name NerdKards as a marketing blunder.

''It's a put-down,'' he said. ''It tends to put them down as one-dimensional, and they have a lot more depth than that.''

If anyone should know, it would be Dr. Singer, who for many years worked as Albert Einstein's assistant and is a friend of Leon Lederman, the atomic scientist and Nobel laureate who worked closely with Enrico Fermi.

''Einstein had a lot of wit and humor, he enjoyed the classics, played the violin and was a very charming, whimsical kind of guy always with a twinkle in his eye,'' recalled Dr. Singer. ''A better name for the cards would be 'World's Greatest Scientists.' ''

Mr. Georgis does not think so. Tenacious as ever, he is determined to re-cast the stereotypical nerd in a new light. ''Being called a nerd is a compliment,'' he insists, adding that the term should be thought of as an acronym for Names Earning Respect and Dignity. ''If it weren't for the nerds, we would still be living in caves. I want kids to know that being a nerd is cool.''