Science Scientists and Fun

Here are some funny incidents that happened in the life of great scientists. Read it and enjoy it...

The great mathematician Waclaw Sierpinski had to move to a new place.They stood down on the street with all their things, his wife said: you stand here and watch our ten trunks, while I get a taxi. Some minutes later she returned with a taxi. Says Mr. Sierpinski : - I thought you said there were ten trunks, but I've only counted nine.
- No, they're TEN!
- No, count them: 0, 1, 2, ..."


Einstein never has to dress well. When Einstein's Wife told him to dress properly when going to the office he argued: "Why should I? Everyone knows me there." When he was told to dress properly for his first big conference: "Why should I? No one knows me there."


It was well known to Pauli's co-workers that Pauli should be kept away from experiments. When he came near any experiment it would go wrong and instruments would go broke. This became known as the Pauli Effect. One day an important experiment went wrong without any apparent reason. Pauli was not even around, so this was very strange until they discovered a few days later that Pauli was in the train that was passing the building at the time of the crash.


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.

A MIT student cornered the famous John von Neumann in the hallway:
Student: "Er, excuse me, Professor, could you please help me with a calculus problem?"
John: "Okay, sonny, Let's have a look." (brief pause) "Alright, sonny, the answer's two-pi over 5."
Student: " I'm having trouble deriving it, though."
John: "Okay, let me see it again. (another pause) The answer's two-pi over 5."
Student (frustrated): "Uh, sir, I just don't see how to derive it."
John: "Whaddya want, sonny, I worked the problem in two different ways!"


Norbert Wiener was very absent minded. When they moved from Cambridge to Newton; his wife was certain that he would forget that they had moved.So she wrote down the new address on a piece of paper, and gave it to him.

In the course of the day, he threw the paper away. As he went home (to the old address in Cambridge, of course),he realized that they had moved,and that the piece of paper with the address was long gone. There was a young girl on the steps and he thought of asking her, saying, "Excuse me young lady, perhaps you know me. I'm Norbert Wiener and we've just moved. Would you know where we've moved to?" To which the young girl replied, "Yes Daddy... mommy said this would happen.."


After the birth of his sister Maja, the two and a half year old Albert Einstein was told he would now have something to play with. After looking at the baby, young Albert complained "Yes, but where are its wheels?"


Proff. Dirac was was writing equations on the board. Turning around to a silent audience he asked for any questions.
A person in audience raised a hand and said "I do not understand such-and-such an equation". To which Dirac replies, "That's not a question, it's a statement."


George de Hevesey suspected that the leftovers from his dinner were not thrown away, but kept for the next day. To check that he added a minimal amount of a radioactive substance to his leftovers. The next day he tested the goulash soup that was served to him with a Geiger counter. The soup was indeed radioactive. And this way radioactive tracers were discovered.


Albert Einstein once went to a restaurant. The waiter placed menu-card before him. Unfortunately Einstein had left his reading-glasses (spects) at home, so he said to waiter," would you please read it out to me ?" The waiter hesitated a bit and then replied," I would have been glad to, Sir, but I am also an illiterate like you."