Once, the German chemist, Bunsen, met a lady that confused him with another Bunsen that had already died. “Pray sir,” asked the lady, “have you not yet finished your great work on God and history?” “Alas no, madam,” replied Bunsen, “my untimely death prevented me from completing my task.”
Once, the famous German physicist, Wilhelm Röntgen, got a letter with a request to send a few X-rays to be sent with an explanation on how to use them. The person was complaining about poor health and lack of time, so Röntgen said that such a parcel would be complicated and that it would be easier if the patient sent him his chest instead.
There’s a legend about how Haydn composed the “Surprise Symphony.” Once, the musician was conducting an orchestra in London. He knew that many English people often attended concerts not to listen to music but just because of tradition. And some viewers even fell asleep in their comfortable chairs. So the composer decided to troll the listeners and made a new symphony. At the most critical moment when some people had already started falling asleep, there was a loud kettledrum stroke. His biographer George August Griesinger asked him whether he wrote this “surprise” to awaken the audience. Haydn replied, “No, but I was interested in surprising the public with something new.”

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