Nobel Prize–winning chemist and Yale professor Lars Onsager died 40 years ago today, an event that led to a classic exemplar of a genre we might retroactively call cemetery trolling. Onsager was buried in the Yale section of the Grove Street Cemetery, right next to his friend and faculty colleague James Gamble Kirkwood, who had died several years earlier. Kirkwood’s memorial includes a long list of achievements and honors; Onsager’s listed only his faculty title and the words “Nobel Laureate.” Years later, his children added an asterisk leading to a devastatingly dry “etc.” below.
loading
1 comment
Print
Email
1 comment
-
Christian Onsager, 11:58am October 06 2016 | 
Flag as inappropriate
The comment period has expired.Our mother wouldn't let us do this while she was alive. We consider the joke to be emblamatic of our father's sense of humor.