Questions tagged [anecdote]
The anecdote tag has no summary.
15 questions
1 vote
1 answer
176 views
What was this mathematical colloquium event at Tulane and what year did it take place?
Steven Krantz in his book Mathematical Apocrypha on page 14 writes: A famous mathematician was once invited to give a colloquium at Tulane University in New Orleans. During the ceremonial dinner, the ...
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21 votes
1 answer
4k views
What did Gell‐Mann dislike about Feynman’s book?
An anecdote attributed to Al Seckel relates: There was another lunch conversation that involved Gell-Mann that took place right after the publication of Surely You’re Joking. Gell-Mann, who I was ...
1 vote
1 answer
231 views
Who was this scientist who saw his whole theory(ies) demolished by a publication
I once read somewhere that, in the beginning of the XXth century -if I'm not mistaken- a scientist saw his whole assumptions or theory utterly refuted by the publication of a book by a mathematician......
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1 vote
0 answers
137 views
Seeking quote about Georges Lemaître and visualization of 4 dimensions
I have been trying for some time to track down a quote about Georges Lemaître, which I recall reading a few years ago. The author was another cosmologist, who met Lemaître at a conference. Lemaître ...
- 159
4 votes
1 answer
535 views
Source for a story about algebraic number theory?
I once read that Hilbert and Hurwitz (I think it was them) once discussed the theorem about unique factorization of ideals/divisors in algebraic number fields in one of their walks. They, the story ...
- 188
3 votes
0 answers
859 views
Did Isaac Newton boil his watch?
Through Google Gemini I was referred to a weird anecdote about Isaac Newton. The story goes more or less like this: Newton was absent-minded, he wanted to boil an egg, and ended up boiling his watch. ...
- 7,199
3 votes
0 answers
117 views
Which scientist had hard time shortening his paper?
A couple of years ago I read an anecdote (amounting to a few sentences, very similar to this very paragraph) about a prominent scientist (most likely a mathematician or a physicist) who submitted a ...
- 131
4 votes
0 answers
266 views
Is there existing footage of Stanislaw Mazur giving Per Enflo a live goose for solving the approximation problem?
There is a famous incident in the history of mathematics involving the mathematician Per Enflo being awarded a live goose by Stanislaw Mazur for solving problem 153 in the Scottish Book by ...
- 141
0 votes
0 answers
307 views
Anecdote about a seemingly possible, but actually impossible task given to students
There is a story I often tell my students about tasks that seem possible but are actually impossible, but I can hardly remember the details, and I am hoping that someone here would remember. Here is ...
- 1
4 votes
0 answers
179 views
Who bet against the usefulness of matrix inversion – or is it a myth?
In my linear-algebra and numerics courses, I frequently heard an anecdote about some professor betting – literally, with money – that there would never be any application where computing the actual ...
- 1,082
1 vote
1 answer
166 views
Stories about the consequences of statistical simplification?
I am currently preparing a presentation about the value of more complex (specically: non-Gaussian) statistical inference. I thought it might be interesting to start the presentation with a small real-...
- 111
3 votes
2 answers
400 views
Cosmic microwave background and "white dielectric"
Arno Allan Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson were awarded (one half of) the 1978 Nobel prize in Physics, "for their discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation", https://www....
- 255
4 votes
0 answers
136 views
Reference Request: Comment about Contradictions Proof Method Related to John G. Thompson
I read in a PDF document where the author made a comment that it is “dangerous” to use indirect proof method/contradiction proof method (as far as I can remember, and of course I am paraphrasing) as ...
- 141
4 votes
2 answers
477 views
How long would it have taken Cole to multiply the factors of $M_{67}$ on a blackboard?
The famous anecdote of the 1903 announcement of the factorization of $2^{67}-1$ by Frank Nelson Cole has recently been discussed, for example in light of the announcement of another "twitter-sized" ...
- 253
33 votes
5 answers
7k views
In a popular anecdote, who took 20 minutes to decide that a thing was obvious?
The joke is found on this comment chain on Reddit. One user told the joke: The version I heard is that Pauli was lecturing, and he said "this is obvious". A student raises his hand and says "sorry ...
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