Who is E.T.

The Hungarian pysicist Leo Szilard and his colleague Enrico Fermi once fell into a discussion concerning the likelihood of the existence of other life in the cosmos. Fermi discoursed at length on the immensity and incredible age of the universe, the probability that other stars could support planetary systems, and the probability that intelligent beings would have developed the means of traveling to earth.

"If all this has been happening," Fermi asked, "how is it that they have not arrived? Where are they?" "They are already among us," Szilard replied, "but they call themselves... Hungarians!"

Hawking's eureka moment

Stephen Hawking, famed for his revolutionary cosmological theories, once gave a lecture on the joys of scientific discovery in which he touched upon the so-called "eureka" moment: the sense of being the first person to discover something about the nature of the universe. "This feeling might not quite be comparable to sex," Hawking declared, "but it lasts longer!"

Cosmic view

One day the classical scholar Gilbert Murray encountered Albert Einstein sitting deep in thought in the Christ Church quad at Oxford university.

Murray asked the physicist what he was thinking about. "I am thinking," Einstein replied, "that, after all, this is a very small star."

Einstein's wife

Einstein's second wife, Elsa, was once asked whether she understood her husband's theory of relativity. "No," she replied, "but I know my husband and I know he can be trusted."

On another occasion, Elsa was once given a guided tour of the Mount Wilson Observatory (in California), whose giant optical telescope was among the largest in the world.

"One of the principal functions of all this sophisticated machinery," an astronomer explained, "is to determine the extent and shape of the universe." "Oh," she replied, "my husband does that on the back of an old envelope."

Asymmetrical Speculation

Like many theoretical physicists, Wolfgang Pauli came to believe that the mathematics describing the universe should be beautiful in their simplicity. He was particularly dismayed by the many asymmetries which populate theoretical equations - for example, that between the amounts of matter and anti-matter in the universe (without which, it should be added, we would not exist) and that between the spins and charges of various particles. "I refuse to believe," he once declared, "that God is a weak left-hander!"

Scrach that

Although Carl Sagan enjoyed eating as much as the next famous astronomer, he never produced an apple pie to his satisfaction. "To make an apple pie from scratch," he once declared, "you first must create the universe."

Precision

Like every mathematician, Sir Arthur Eddington was a sucker for precision. "I believe there are 15,747,724,136,275,002,577,605,653,961,181,555,468,044,717,914,527,116,709,366,231, 425,076,185,631,031,296,296 protons in the universe," he declared during his Tarner lecture in 1938, "and the same number of electrons."

Talk show

Eddie Fisher once appeared on a television program during which entertainers sought romantic, spiritual, and other miscellaneous guidance from a group of panelists (among them the noted wit George S. Kaufman). Fisher's complaint concerned a certain chorus girl who refused to go out with him on account of his age.

"Mr. Fisher," Kaufman advised, "on Mount Wilson there is a telescope that can magnify the most distant stars up to twenty-four times the magnification of any previous telescope. This remarkable instrument was unsurpassed in the world of astronomy until the development and construction of the Mount Palomar telescope - an even more remarkable instrument of magnification. Owing to advances and improvements in optical technology, it is capable of magnifying the stars to four times the magnification and resolution of the Mount Wilson telescope." Here Kaufman paused, surveying the puzzled faces around him. "Mr. Fisher," he continued, "if you could somehow put the Mount Wilson telescope inside the Mount Palomar telescope, you still wouldn't be able to detect my interest in your problem."

The Andromeda Nebula

"The Andromeda Nebula is a beautiful pinwheel of stars and luminous clouds of gas located beyond the Milky Way. An editor friend of mine once showed a picture of the galaxy to the art director of a magazine. 'That's gorgeous!' said the art director. 'But can we get a shot of it from another angle?'"

Galileo's anagram

In 1610, Galileo used an anagram to announce his discovery of what he believed to be two moons orbiting another planet: smaismrmilmepoetaleumibunenugttauiras.
Remarkably, Johannes Kepler, after considerable effort, managed to decipher the code, Salve umbisteneum geminatum Martia proles ("Hail, twin companionship, children of Mars"), thereby confirming his own prediction that Mars has two moons.

More remarkable still, Galileo's cypher had in fact declared: Altissimum planetam tergeminum observavi ("I have observed the highest of the planets - Saturn - three-formed")!

The first satellite of Sweden

In July 1966, Michael Collins was selected to pilot NASA's three-day Gemini 10 mission. While the mission (to rendezvous and dock with an orbiting Agena rocket) was a success, Collins did make a minor blunder: during his historic space walk, he dropped a Swedish-made Hasselblad camera.

Back on earth, the astronaut was amused to learn that the Swedes had begun to refer to the camera as their country's first satellite.

Roosevelt's bed-side story

Before going to bed one night, Teddy Roosevelt joined the noted naturalist William Beebe for a bit of star-gazing.

"That is the Spiral Galaxy in Andromeda," Roosevelt declared, indicating a small patch of light near the constellation of Pegasus. "It is as large as our Milky Way. It is one of a hundred million galaxies. It consists of one hundred billion suns, each larger than our sun."

The president then turned to Beebe. "Now I think we are small enough," he declared. "Let's go to bed."

After all, Roosevelt is right on that Andromeda Galaxy is an ideal target to watch if you would like to know how small we are.

Anti-comet pills

Halley's comet, which also appeared in 1066, has a period of approximately 76 years. In 1910, superstitious people bought anti-comet pills at $1 a box.

Round as a button

As news of Sir William Herschel's astronomical discoveries spread in the 1780s, many observers were particularly fascinated that his powerful new telescopes revealed stars to be circular objects, rather than the pointy 'stars' seen by the naked eye.

Herschel once found himself seated next to the notoriously awkward physicist Henry Cavendish at a formal dinner: "Is it true," Cavendish slowly asked, leaning forward, "that you see the stars round?" "Round as a button," Herschel replied.

Cavendish then lapsed into a silence which lasted until the end of the meal, whereupon he leaned forward again. "Round as a button?" "Round as a button," Herschel replied with a nod. These seventeen words comprised their entire conversation.

Consider Betelgeuse

Albert Einstein was among the notable guests who attended the premiere of Charlie Chaplin's City Lights in 1931. While visiting Hollywood, the famed physicist attempted to explain his theories to a studio executive. "For instance, consider Betelgeuse," he remarked at one point. "Betelgeuse, one of the greatest stars in the whole system, can be photographed merely by means of one ray of light..."

Some time after Einstein left, the executive called his casting director. "Say," he shouted. "I want you should go out and sign up this feller Betelgeuse, and I want you should sign him up quick. Einstein, who knows everything, says he's one of the greatest stars in the business!"

Transit of Venus

Many 17th and 18th century astronomers tried to estimate the distance from Earth to the sun (the so-called "astronomical unit") by observing a "transit of Venus" across the face of the sun. Edmond Halley, England's second Astronomer Royal, once calculated that, by timing Venus's transit from widely separated points on Earth (making use of the "parallax" effect), the astronomical unit could, using the clocks of the day, be measured to within one part in 500. (Unfortunately Venus rarely transits the sun, typically doing so only twice every 130 years.)

"What followed was the 18th-century equivalent of the space race. Wealthy nations took up the challenge and competed for scientific prestige. The rivalry was especially intense between Britain and France, which were engaged in the Seven Years War at the time of the transit of 1761...

"The French had their share of troubles. The most pathetic of these were suffered by Guillaume Joseph Hyacinthe Jean-Baptiste Le Gentil de la Galaisiere. He was aiming for Pondicherry, a French colony in India, but he learned before arriving that it had been captured by the British. When the transit occurred, he was stuck on a pitching ship in an imprecisely known location, rendering his observations worthless. Undeterred, he decided to wait for the 1769 transit. He spent eight years on various Indian Ocean islands before making his way to Pondicherry, which had by then been returned to the French. On the day of the transit, however, it was cloudy. He then contracted dysentery, was shipwrecked, and finally returned home to find his estate looted."

Another story about transit of Venus

To better observe a "transit of Venus," Pierre Janssen, a French astronomer, invented the "revolver photographique" - a multi-exposure camera whose aperture was covered by a rotating slotted wheel which admitted light at regular intervals. This contraption, which influenced Etienne Jules Marey and the Lumine brothers, was the direct ancestor of the movie camera.

Abberation of light

While observing Gamma Draconis in 1725, the English astronomer James Bradley was puzzled to find that the star appeared to be moving in a direction opposite to that expected from parallax (the apparent change in the direction of an object caused by a change in the observer's location).

The explanation came to Bradley one day in 1728 while he was boating on the Thames. Watching a weather vane at the top of the mast, he noticed with surprise that the wind appeared to shift every time the boat changed direction. When Bradley shared his observation, the boatmen replied that the wind was constant, and that the apparent change was due entirely to the changing direction of the boat.

He quickly saw the analogy between wind blowing on a boat and light flowing from a distant star "blowing" on the earth. His discovery of so-called "Aberration of Light" was a triumph of exact observation and clear insight. Moreover, such was the accuracy of Bradley's observations that his determination of the value of the 'Constant of Aberration' (20.39") closely approximates the value accepted today (20.47").

Fraunhofer's problem

In the early 1800s, the German optician Joseph von Fraunhofer built magnificent retracting telescopes and conducted important research on light refraction. More importantly, his discovery of dark lines in the solar spectrum led to the foundation of the science of spectroscopy. Nonetheless, Fraunhofer was not allowed to address scientific meetings. The problem? He did not have a formal university education.

Meteorites

Though Thomas Jefferson did important scientific work (experimenting, for example, with new varieties of grain and studying and classifying various fossils), he refused to believe in meteorites. One day, it was reported that two professors had seen a meteorite land in Connecticutt. Jefferson remained unconvinced. "I would rather believe that two Yankee professors would lie," he declared, "than that stones fall from the sky."

Space cadet

Vice President Dan Quayle was among the early supporters of NASA's plans for a manned mission to Mars. "It's time," he enthused one day, "for the human race to enter the solar system!"

NASA's solution

In 1995, in a bid to protect the space shuttle from woodpeckers, NASA sent an employee to Wal-Mart. The solution? Six plastic owls.

Space lawyer

On April 28, 2001, Virgiliu Pop - a space lawyer and extraterrestrial property rights expert at Glasgow University - claimed ownership of the sun and also disavowed any liability for damage caused by his property. Pop pulled the stunt, he later explained, "to show how ridiculous a property-rights system in outer space would be if it were based solely on claims unsubstantiated by any actual possession."

In 1993, three Yemeni brothers, claiming to have inherited Mars from their ancestors 3,000 years before, filed a lawsuit against the United States for trespassing on the red planet. The Americans sent attorneys to Yemen and the case was ultimately dismissed.

Playing God

Though Werner Heisenberg was awarded a Nobel Prize for his elucidation of the "uncertainty principle" (in 1932), Albert Einstein never accepted it; its stipulation that the more carefully one measures the position of a given particle, the less certain its momentum becomes (and vice-versa) threatened to wreak havoc with the strict determinism in which he believed.  "God," he often declared, "does not play dice with the universe."

"Who are you," Niels Bohr once retorted, "to tell God what to do?" Years later Stephen Hawking also entered the fray: "God not only plays dice," he declared, "but sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen."

Human stupidity

"Only two things are infinite - the universe and human stupidity," Einstein once remarked, "and I'm not sure about the former."

Hypothesis

The French mathematician and astronomer Pierre Laplace was so inspired by the metaphor of the clockwork universe that when asked about the existence of God he famously replied: "I have no need of that hypothesis."

These pieces of anecdotes are citing from www.anecdotage.com.