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I'm not sure whether this question suits this website, however, I don't know where else I could ask it. It is no mathematical problem or something similar, still I hope it won't be closed.

A few weeks ago, our assistant professor in physics told us a story about Maxwell when we came to speak about Maxwell's equations. He said rumour has it that once in an exam, Maxwell faced a differential equation or integral - at that time thought unsolvable - and solved it.

I wonder whether there are more famous rumours or anecdotes about mathematicians or physicists (and which of them are true and which not). I believe everyone knows the story of how Gauss computed

$$\sum_{n=1}^{100} n$$

an exercise his teacher gave to his class to keep it busy. Or a more famous example: Everyone knows how Newton discovered gravity (is that one actually true?). Or how Archimedes found Archimedes' principle. So, to put it into a single line:

Do you know any other noteworthy anecdotes about famous mathematicians or physicists?

EDIT: In case you provide an answer, please also state whether the anecdote is true or not, if possible. Thanks a lot for the hitherto existing answers!

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    Do they need to be relevant to math or just interesting/funny? I can think of a few of the latter.2011-03-24
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    @Brandon: Like what? The examples I provided also are not directly related to maths but more to physics...2011-03-24
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    @Huy: Anecdotes from the personal lives of mathematicians or physicists, unrelated to their scholastic achievements.2011-03-24
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    I have voted to close, as I don't think this is an appropriate question for this site.2011-03-24
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    @Brandon: Of course I would also love to learn about anecdotes from the personal lives of mathematicians. :)2011-03-24
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    See my [post here](http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/7071/sum-of-primes-up-to-p-is-multiple-of-p/7077#7077) for a link to an interesting article on the Gaussian fable.2011-03-24
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    see also http://mathoverflow.net/questions/53122/mathematical-urban-legends2011-03-24
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    I've heard one about a mathematician who repeatedly said that he was going to do a talk on Fermat's last theorem, but wanted the hosts to keep it under their hats. However, I can't manage to google it.2011-03-25
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    @AndrewGrimm Maybe that one is [David Hilbert](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hilbert). I've heard about a rumor that he would give a lecture about the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem but it turned out that was a *lie* or he just made up a joke or something2014-09-25
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    http://mathoverflow.net/questions/53122/mathematical-urban-legends (cited in a previous comment) is locked, and has an annotation saying it is off-topic. Where, then, are stories such as this about mathematicians on-topic?2014-12-22
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    @GPerez I wanted to know which stackexchange site (if any) considered this question OK. I probably should have asked a question on meta instead. Perhaps I will.2015-05-05

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