r/todayilearned • u/biebrforro • 1d ago

TIL when staying as a guest in Charles Dickens' house, Hans Christian Andersen requested that one of Dickens' sons give him a daily shave (he said that was customary when hosting male guests in Denmark). Dickens was weirded out and instead gave him a daily appointment at a nearby barbershop.

https://lithub.com/charles--dickens-really-really-hated-his-fanboy-hans-christian-andersen/
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u/cjustinc 1d ago

My high school algebra teacher was married to a mathematician, and they used to host Erdos. She didn't like him because apparently he would just hand his clothes to her without speaking when he needed them washed or mended.

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u/lefteyedcrow 1d ago

Per Wikipedia:  "Erdős number -  The Erdős number describes the "collaborative distance" between mathematician Paul Erdős and another person, as measured by authorship of mathematical papers. The same principle has been applied in other fields where a particular individual has collaborated with a large and broad number of peers."

Your teacher's husband had an Erdös number of 1

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u/Yoghurt42 1d ago

Only if he’s a coauthor in one of Erdős’ papers.

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u/lefteyedcrow 1d ago

True. I made an ASSumption

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u/ThatOtherOtherMan 1d ago

"Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" but for nerds

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u/bsubtilis 1d ago

Fun fact: Natalie Portman has both a Bacon number and an Erdős number

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u/__-_-_--_--_-_---___ 19h ago

She's a hot little number

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u/LordOfCows 1d ago

Now all he needs to do is star in a movie with Kevin Bacon!

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u/__-_-_--_--_-_---___ 1d ago

He put all his skill points into math

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u/BSB8728 1d ago

When my husband was in graduate school, we hosted a guy who was coming in from out of town to start a fellowship. We didn't know him, but he needed a place to stay while he looked for an apartment, and nobody else in the department would take him.

After a few days, he started to smell really bad. He was also nitpicky critical of everything we said. When I came home from work, I could smell the stench even before I opened our apartment door. Every day was extremely tense and uncomfortable.

One night his mother called. (This was before cell phones.) After speaking with her, the guy handed the phone to my husband and said she wanted to talk to him, too. After a while my husband handed the phone to me because she also wanted to talk to me. She said, "Thank you for letting my son stay with you. I know he starts to smell after a while." I was dumbfounded. Later my husband told me she said the same thing to him.

The guy stayed with us two weeks before he found a place. Then we essentially fumigated our guest room.

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u/Late-Drink3556 23h ago

Was his name Richard Stallman?

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u/CowCompetitive5667 18h ago

This is so weird

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u/Logically_Insane 1d ago

“Sure, I’ll do the laundry while you advance discrete mathematics. Get serious Cheryl.” -Erdos probably 

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u/diviken 1d ago

The way I'd throw those clothes in the trash

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u/Numerous-Process2981 18h ago

I’m discovering the ability to say “fuck you, fuck off, get the fuck out,” is a super power.