With all the 'urban legends' floating on PHYS-L, I though it would be a
change of pace to post a true story that "came straight from the horse's
mouth."
Many years ago I had the pleasure of working with Sherman Fried at Argonne
National Laboratory. Fried (now retired) was a radiochemist who first
prepared metallic plutonium (another story itself) during the Manhattan
Project and was a co-discoverer of einsteinium and fermium. For those who
have not met him, one of his obvious features, beside his wit, is his black
bushy eyebrows (See 2nd pic at http://www-library.lbl.gov/photo/gallery/clients/Seaborg/index-9.html). The
following is one of many stories I heard during our lunches in the main ANL
cafeteria. I have put it in the first person, but the words are mine as I
remember the story Sherman told:
A number of years ago I had attended a presentation at the
University of California-Berkeley by John Wheeler on nuclear testing. One
of the other attendees, a professor from Sweden who had made some minor
comments during the talk, came to me afterwards and introduced himself by
noting that we had previously met in some other city. I had no recollection
of having met him, though I had been in that city before. We stopped at a
place on campus to have a cup of coffee. As we talked, the stranger
mentioned several mutual acquaintances (these people I happened to know to
varying degrees) and referred to my trip to a city in Europe (which I had,
in fact, been to). Yet none of these names or places connected my memory
to my previous meeting with this person.
During our conversation, the Swedish professor occasionally
was stuck on the right English word to use, and, in its place, would
substitute a German phrase. Though I hardly knew any German I did happen to
know those particular phrases, but did not question him about using them
with me. The stranger also commented briefly on some nuclear physics work
he was familiar with and I responded with a similar comment about a project
I was working on at the time. Again, none of these comments gave me a clue
as to where and under what circumstances we had previously met.
After we had finished the coffee and were leaving, the
stranger again thanked me for the opportunity to have such a pleasant
conversation with me and wished me well. As we walked away from each
other, I was left dumbstruck when the stranger closed with, "Goodbye, Dr.
Teller."
Sherman told me that he later wrote the professor about the mixup, and
received a very nice letter in reply. I don't think he ever told Edward
Teller.
Rick Strickert, Ph.D.
Radian International
Austin, TX