| An absent-minded professor moved to a new house further along the same street. His wife knew that he was prone to forgetting things and so she wrote down the new address on a piece of paper before he went off to college. She handed him the paper and the key to the new house and reminded him not to go back to the old address. That morning, one of his students asked him a complex question and the professor wrote the answer down on the back of the slip of paper. The student asked whether he could keep the paper. Forgetting what was on the other side, the professor said, "Certainly." In the evening, he returned out of habit to the old house, tried the key and couldn't get in. Realizing his mistake, he searched in his pockets for the slip of paper with the new address, but of course there was no sign of it. So he wandered along the street and stopped the first reasonable-looking lad he saw. "Excuse me, I'm Professor Galbraith. You wouldn't happen to know where I live, would you?" "Sure, Dad," said the boy. |
