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  • Jun 11, 2026, 8:13 PM
    retooted Weekend Editor

    @johncarlosbaez @dougmerritt

    I was a grad student at MIT, when Viki Weisskopf was still a professor, though elderly.

    He was invariably a gentleman, at least as far as I could observe.

    An example:

    Physics department colloquia were held in 26-100, a huge lecture hall, in those days. All the senior profs, particularly theorists, sat down front, stage left.

    One day a visiting physicist giving the colloquium apologized for being so elementary, reminding us all of the basics of.... something or other.

    Viki stood up and *interrupted*, something he *never* did. In his lovely Mittel-Europe accent, he shook his finger and grinned, saying: "Young man, you should never underestimate the pleasure of a physicist at being told something he already knows!"

    Then he sat down, there was applause, and the talk went happily on from there.

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