Word: vleck
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
With the understandable gruffness of one deprived of sleep, Van Vleck, Hollis Professor of Mathematics and Natural Science Emeritus, answered the phone and found, of all things, a Boston Globe reporter at the other...
...eager reporter asked Van Vleck for his reaction to the news, but the half-asleep physicist, who had not made much news since his retirement in 1969, had no idea what the journalist meant...
Within minutes the puzzle, like so many puzzles Van Vleck had confronted in a half-century of scientific work, was solved. Van Vleck had won the Nobel Prize for Physics, the reporter told...
...startled and asked him, 'Are you sure?' because I remembered what happened to Bridgeman," Van Vleck said yesterday. Percy W. Bridgeman, who preceded Van Vleck as Hollis Professor, once received an erroneous report of his selection for a Nobel Prize. The incident proved quite embarrassing when the Swedish Academy officially announced a different winner for that year, although Bridgeman did receive the award several years later...
Remembering the Bridgeman affail, Van Vleck accepted the reporter's congratulations with a healthy skepticism...