jj: Girls and Boys Together (Reader Comments and Addenda)
Darren Rigby writes: "I found the anecdote in What Is The Name Of This Book?, and [Smullyan] seems to suggest that it predates him. He also tells the story about Norbert Wiener, not John von Neumann, so you're probably safe. (It's part 228 in that book, if you'd care to check.)"
Thanks much for checking on this! I'm obviously so absent-minded myself that I got the absent-minded professor's name wrong... Or else someone else told me this anecdote as being about von Neumann. I forget. Oh, well; given the lack of veracity checks here, I suppose it could just as well be about anyone...
(Last updated: 16 March 1998)