A funny, but TRUE, story about a Nobel Prize announcement.

[CTyankee]

The late Professor James Tobin, an economist from Yale, told this story about his getting the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1981.

The call from the Nobel Prize committee came to the then-switchboard at Yale University. The switchboard operator rang the number of James Tobin. A sleepy 19 year old sophomore, Jim Tobin, answered the phone in his dorm and heard a deeply accented voice congratulate him on winning the 1981 Nobel Prize for Economics. Later, the young Tobin said, in a somewhat typical Yalie fashion, that he always "knew" he would win a Nobel Prize, he just was surprised he had won it so young...

I heard Tobin tell that delightful story when he was giving speeches around New Have after his retirement. Everyone, including Tobin, was chuckling...

[blogslut]

1. heehee

I like that story. :)

[eppur_se_muova]

2. Something similar happened to Donald Cram ...

When Dr. Cram was tapped for the Nobel Prize in 1987, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences mistakenly contacted Donald O. Cram, a 38-year-old man in the carpet cleaning business, and told him that he had won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Upon hearing of the mistake, Dr. Cram said: ''I'm really tickled. There is some chemistry involved in carpet cleaning, but it's a little different from my brand.''

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C07E1DC1E31F933A15755C0A9679C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print

[CTyankee]

5. That Tobin kid probably was thinking "Man, I really aced that Econ mid term!" n/t

[hedgehog]

3. WHen told he had won the Nobel Prize for Literature, as the caller

went on and on about what a personal honor it waws and what an honor for Ireland, William Butler Yeats could take it no more and burst out, "what about the money? How much money do I get?!?"

[crispini]

4. LOL. Very good.