His name is synonymous with
genius. His work revolutionized science. His home on Mercer Street
is the most popular tourist attraction in town - even though
it is a private residence and can only be viewed from the outside.
His name is synonymous with
genius. His work revolutionized science. His home on Mercer Street
is the most popular tourist attraction in town - even though
it is a private residence and can only be viewed from the outside.
Princeton's most famous resident wasn't born here, but it could be said that by living here, this Nobel Prize laureate helped build Princeton's reputation as a place for research and scientific study.
Amusing stories abound about him. He supposedly traded help with homework for a supply of fudge. At times he didn't wear socks because he didn't like the feel of wool. The image of the absent-minded professor was born from his early days in Princeton, when, lost in thought as he walked around town, he literally became lost - and had to ask directions to Nassau Hall in his German-accented English to figure out his way home.
He didn't understand his popularity and he didn't seek to advance it, insisting, for example that his home not become a museum to his memory after he died. His opinions, however, were sought on topics as diverse as politics and pacificism, civil liberties and harmony in the Middle East.
His popularity also led to strange requests from admirers and criticism from others. Once he was asked to donate his right shoe to an organization of tanners, manufacturers and merchants; at least three marriage proposals arrived by mail. He was the butt of anti-Semitic attacks on occasion. A letter writer once took him to task for his informal style of dress.
In his most recent incarnation, fictionalized as a matchmaker in a movie filmed partly in Princeton, he is portrayed by actor Walter Matthau. Matthau has the scientist imagining heaven as "an enormous library, only you can't take out 'zee' books."
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