There was a great mathematician named Hilbert, who telegraphed Berlin saying he had proved the outstanding unsolved problem in mathematics, a thing called Riemann's conjecture. It has to do with the roots of a well known function.
He sends this telegram to Berlin, where he's going to give a speech. Everybody gets really excited. So Hilbert shows up and talks, but says nothing about the problem.
Somebody comes up to him after the speech and says, what about Riemann's conjecture, what's the solution?
Hilbert says he hasn't got one. This was his first airplane trip and he was pretty nervous, so he sent the telegram in case he got killed, so that he would die famous.
Posted by notGeorge at November 7, 2003 12:00 AM | TrackBackHah, good story Tig.
Posted by: Sophorist at November 7, 2003 01:21 AM