Anecdotes

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Let us add anecdotes.
h1.

Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937) New Zealand physicist

One student in Rutherford's lab was very hard-working.
Rutherford had noticed it and asked one evening:
- Do you work in the mornings too?
- Yes, - proudly answered the student sure he would be commended.
- But when do you think? - amazed Rutherford.

n1.

One of the (many) difficulties that plagued the Austrians in the Seven Weeks War were the multiplicity of languages used by the various nationalities that made up the army. Officers spoke German, the language of command. Unfortunately the soldiers often did not speak German; nor did the regimental commanding officers speak the regiment's native tongue. Understandably this made communication difficult. One regiment at Münchengrätz was accused of cowardice after the regiment did not obey an ordered bayonet charge at the Prussian positions. One officer retorted, "The regiment fought bravely until nightfall, when the officers could no longer pantomime examples [of what was needed]."

h2.
On one occasion, Paul Erdös (Hungarian mathematician, 1913-1996) met a mathematician and asked him where he was from.
"Vancouver," the mathematician replied.
"Oh, then you must know my good friend Elliot Mendelson," Erdös said.
The reply was "I AM your good friend Elliot Mendelson."

n2.

Irwin Edman, brilliant author and professor of philosophy at Columbia University, is that stock comedy character, the absent-minded pedagogue, in actuality. Beloved by his students for his wit, erudition, and uncanny ability to make the most abstruse subject sound easy, he is also the source of a whole saga of campus humor. One day he stopped a student on Riverside Drive and asked, "Pardon me, but am I walking north or south?" "North, Professor," was the answer. "Ah," said Edman, "then I've had my lunch."

h3.

The story is that Albert Einstein's driver used to sit at the back of the hall during each of his lectures, and after a period of time, remarked to AE that he could probably give the lecture himself, haveing heard it several times.
So at the next stop on the tour, AE & the driver switched places, with AE sitting at the back, in driver's uniform.
The driver gave the lecture, flawlessly.
At the end, a member of the audience asked a detailed question about some of the subject matter, upon which the lecturer replied, 'well, the answer to that question is quite simple, I bet that my driver, sitting up at the back, there, could answer it...'.

4.And the sooner you know it the better.

n3.

A man walked to the top of a hill to talk to God.
The man asked, "God, what's a million years to you?"
And God said "A minute."
Then the man asked:
"Well, what's a million dollars to you?"
And God said: "A penny"
Then the man asked:
"God... can I have a penny?"
And God said:
"Sure... In a minute."

h4.

Pauli asks Heisenburg the big one ..............
Wolfgang Pauli: "Do you believe in a personal god?"
Heisenburg: "May I rephrase your question? "I myself should prefer the following formulation: Can you, or anyone else, reach the central order of things or events, whose existence seems beyond doubt, as directly as you can reach the soul of another human being? I am using the term "soul" quite deliberately so as not to be misunderstood. If you put your question like that, I would say yes."

Werner Heisenburg (Physics and Beyond) New York: Harper & Row, 1971 - Page 215

n4.

A man approached Mother Teresa and said, Mother, I want to do something great for God, but I don't know what. Should I start a school, be a missionary in a foreign land, build up a charitable agency? He had great visions. Mother Teresa looked at him closely, with kindness, and responded: What you need to do is make sure that no one in your family goes unloved.

n5.
Eugene d'Albert (noted German composer) was married six times. At an evening reception which he attended with his fifth wife shortly after their wedding, he presented the lady to a friend who said politely, "Congratulations, Herr d'Albert; you have rarely introduced me to so charming a wife."

h5.
I am standing on the treshold about to enter a room.
It is a complicated business.
In the first place I must shove against an atmosphere pressing with a force of fourteen pounds on every square inch of my body.
I must make sure of landing on a plank travelling at twenty miles a second round the sun - a fraction of a second too early or too late, the plank would be miles away.
I must do this whilst hanging from a round planet, head outward in space, and with a wind of aether blowing at no one knows how many miles a second through every instice of my body.

-- Arthur S. Eddington (British Astrophysicist, 1882-1933) in The nature of the Physical World (1928)

n6.

In "The Greatest Story Ever Told," John "Duke" Wayne played a cameo role as the centurion who leads Jesus to his Crucifixion and has one line to deliver: "Truly, this was the Son of God." According to a popular, but apocryphal, story, when Wayne delivered his line for the first time, director George Stevens cut the action and told Wayne: "You're referring to the Son of God here, Duke. You've got to deliver the line with a little more awe." Whereupon Wayne announced on the next take: "Aw, truly this was the Son of God."

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