A woman, under the mistaken impression that Isaac Newton was an astrologer, once asked him to help her find her purse - lost, she said, somewhere between London Bridge and Shooters' Hill.Newton declined and sent her away, but the woman proved tenacious, returning more than a dozen times. Finally, exasperated, Newton donned an eccentric sorcerer's costume, chalked a figure on the ground, and intoned, "Abracadabra! Go to the facade of Greenwich Hospital, third window on the south side. On the lawn in front of it I see a dwarfish devil bending over your purse."
The excited woman then scurried off and - according to legend - found her purse on the Greenwich Hospital lawn!
No comments:
Post a Comment