Urban Legends (David Hilbert)

Hilbert was very absent-minded (what famous mathematician isn't?). During one of the parties he held at his house with his wife, Frau Hilbert noticed that her husband forgot to put on a fresh shirt. "David," she said sternly, "go upstairs and put on another shirt."

David, as befitting a married man, meekly obeyed and went upstairs. However, he did not come back.

Five minutes pass... ten minutes pass... and yet David failed to reappear downstairs to greet his guests.

Finally, Frau Hilbert went upstairs to see what was taking her husband so long. She entered the room and found him tucked in bed, quietly asleep.

You see, it was the natural sequence of things: take off the coat, take off the tie, take off the shirt, and so on, and then go to bed.

-- Told by George Poyla in "Some Mathematicians I Have Known," Amer. Math. Monthly 76 (August-September 1969) 752.