Science is generally believed to be made of sterner stuff, but during the course of discoveries, men of science have had their share of lighter moments
Neil Bohr, the great Danish Professor, though not as absent-minded as Newton and the others, was very slow in thinking and comprehension. His slowness used to be a big problem for everyone present in scientific meetings of the Physics Institute.
Many a times, a visiting professor would deliver a brilliant talk about his recent calculation or some intricate problem of quantum theory. Everybody in the audience would understand the arguments expect Dr Bohr, so they would all start to explain to him the simple point he had missed. In the resulting turmoil, they would cease to understand anything. After some time, Bohr would begin to understand and, to the surprise of the audience, what he understood was quite different and correct, while the visitor’s interpretation was wrong.
Dr Gamow (late) was once Bohr’s pupil. He tells a story, in one of his popular books on science, about Bohr’s slowness of comprehension. Once, Bohr Rosenfeld (a physicist) and Gamow worked all day long on a very important paper on the uncertainty principle for electromagnetic field. After dinner, since everybody was exhausted, Dr Bohr suggested a crossword puzzle from a British magazine for relaxation. They tried it but it didn’t go so well, and Mrs Bohr suggested that they should go to bed. Gamow and Rosenfeld went to their room (they were sharing the same guest room), leaving Bohr juggling with the puzzle. Later in the night, Gamow and his roommate were awakened by severe knocking at the door. Jumping out of their beds, they shouted simultaneously: “What, what’s happened?”
“It’s me, Bohr,” came the muffled voice through the door. “I didn’t mean to disturb you, but I just found out that the English industrial town with seven letters and ending in ‘ich’ is Ipswich.”
Bohr was very fond of seeing Western (cowboy) movies in which gun duels are quite common. In all such duels, the villain draws his gun but the hero always shoots down the scoundrel first. Bohr had an explanation for this phenomenon, ascribing this as the difference between wilful and conditioned thinking. “The scoundrel has to think and decide when to go for his gun, which slows his action, while the hero acts faster because he acts, without thinking, the moment he sees the scoundrel reaching for his gun.” When nobody agreed with his theory, he bought a pair of toy guns and playing the hero, tried duels with his pupils. Surprisingly, he ‘killed’ everybody who tried to take a shot at him first.
It is a fact that all clever experimental physicists, in the course of their planned investigations, always look for some accidental discovery. Such discoveries have caused great revolution in the history of physics. Hertz, Roentgen, Bacquerel and many others had experienced such thrilling games of chance. But sometimes, bad luck marred their pre-planning and place them, instead, in desperate and awkward situations.
Dr Arther Compton, the great investigator of cosmic rays, once went to Mexico to study the intensity of the rays somewhere in the southern part of the country. In order to avoid electrical disturbances caused by power lines and heavy traffic, the site had to be far away from principal towns. He chose a monastery some distance away form the main capital. Compton arrived at the railway station closest to the monastery, with all the necessary equipment carefully packed in wooden boxes about the size of medium-sized suitcases with wooden handles. Four electrometers, looking like black spheres with a little window though which to observe the movement of filaments registering electric charge, were packed into two boxes. The rest of the boxes were loaded with lead bricks for radiation shielding.
At the station, a gang of smart coolies who foresaw a handsome tip from the wealthy-looking American tourist surrounded him. Dr Compton picked up the two boxes which contained the delicate electrometers and nodded to the coolies to take the rest. And here was a procession: an American walking along the platform, swinging two boxes in his hands, and a big line of Mexican coolies, two to each box, bending and buckling under their weight.
Things became very complicated when the loaded truck carrying Dr Compton and his equipment was stopped by the armed police who demanded inspection. As a matter of fact, the Government of Mexico, in those days, was engaged in a great quarrel with the Catholic Church, under the suspicion of acting against the government. Heavy guards had been posted around all Catholic monasteries. On opening the boxes, they found “four black bombs” and lots of lead for “making bullets.” Poor Compton was taken for a CIA agent and handcuffed. It took the American embassy a couple of weeks to clarify the matter and prove him innocent.
In the summer of 1970, Shirley McLean, the renowned Hollywood film star, happened to be on vacation in Tokyo, Japan. She was staying in a top-class hotel where there was a heated swimming pool for the guests. Prof Macmillan, head of the Department of Chemistry, University of California, USA, was also staying at the same hotel. One day, they both met at the swimming pool. They sat by the pool side and chatted for a while, discussing sports, movies, politics and other things of mutual interest. Soon, they became good friends and as long as they were staying at the hotel, they used to come to the pool to talk to each other.
Japan is a country where not much discrimination exists between the sexes. The same bathrooms are used by ladies and gentlemen alike. In some of the swimming pools, particularly those in five-star hotels, the guests are not allowed to use swimming robes, trunks, etc. The guests staying at the hotels normally remove their clothing in the bedrooms, put on bathroom gowns and then on reaching the swimming pool premises, remove the gowns and enter the pools.
A couple of years later, Prof Macmillan and Shirley McLean met once again at a Hollywood event. The professor, looking closely at the film star, said: “ I think I remember having seen your face somewhere.” To this, Shirley said with a smile: “Well, professor, it’s pity that you remember my face only.” The absent-minded professor failed to understand the true meaning of the remark.
Science is generally believed to be made of sterner stuff, but during the course of discoveries, men of science have had their share of lighter moments 
