LARS ONSAGER - The National Academies Press

216 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS
Onsager's sense of humor occasionally verged on the mischievous,
especially when he felt the urge to deflate a pompous
colleague. At the 1948 I.U.P.A.P. meeting in Florence a
lecture was delivered by an eminent British physical chemist
who had a reputation for making cutting remarks in public,
especially about the work of younger scientists. The blackboard
was rapidly covered with symbols; Onsager reposed in
the front row, apparently asleep. At the end of the talk, the
chairman of the session asked for questions or comments.
Onsager awoke and raised his hand. The chairman eagerly
gave him the floor. Onsager walked to the blackboard and
picked up the eraser; silently, with back to the audience and
starting at the top left-hand corner, he erased every formula,
figure, and comment recorded during the lecture. Having
completed his handiwork, he turned to the audience,
grinned, and sat down. The chairmen sensed that justice had
been done and hastily terminated the discussion.
Another story, which we owe to Sir Denys Wilkinson, concerns
a paper that Onsager was asked to referee at the beginning
of his year in Cambridge. Months passed, but no report
was forthcoming. Eventually, just before he left, Onsager was
prevailed upon to return the paper. His report consisted of
the single word "Somehow."
It is hardly surprising that the journals eventually stopped
asking him to act as a referee. But a personal approach might
yield dividends; on rare occasions (we know of at least two),
an aspiring young scientist would receive a terse but encouraging
letter of reply to a suggestion or idea that caught
Onsager's fancy.
Between 1955 and 1965 Onsager's thoughts turned repeatedly
to his first scientific problem—the properties of electrolytes.
Raymond Fuoss, the New Boy at Brown, had joined
the department at Yale in 1945, and the two of them continued
to develop the ideas they had first expounded in 1932