One day...

One of the inventors of reinforced concrete, Joseph Monier, being a simple garden worker, was not well-versed in structural mechanics.

In the 1930s, it was discovered that the rectangular joint between an airplane’s wing and fuselage could cause the separation of air vortices, accompanied by strong vibrations of the entire aircraft structure.

 «ENGLAND expects that every man will do his duty!» — This signal from Admiral Nelson before the Battle of Trafalgar is considered a model of courageous brevity in military orders and instructions.

Once, at a reception with the famous German professor of medicine L. Schleich (1859-1922), a high-ranking official decided to make a joke.
- Tell me, professor, - he asked, - doesn't your profession remind you of the role of a railway conductor, carefully accompanying passengers on their journey to the next world?
- No, what are you saying, - Schleich immediately answered. - I am more inclined to compare my modest role in that trip you are talking about with a BRAKE...

The famous Italian physicist Alessandro Volta (1745–1827) was no stranger to wit. When Voltaire congratulated him on the successful invention of the "Voltaic pile," he suddenly laughed and said:
— It is not for nothing that my name is Volta. It means: half of Voltaire!

Professor V. Rdultovsky of the F. E. Dzerzhinsky Artillery Academy, a leading specialist in fuzes and time fuzes, who had repeatedly shown remarkable courage while dismantling unexploded shells, was very much afraid of high-ranking superiors. Once, at the training ground after work, his colleagues asked him:
— Vladimir Iosifovich, why are you not afraid of a fuze that threatens your life every second, yet you are timid in front of your superiors?
— Because, — he replied, — when I dismantle a fuze that failed to function upon firing, I know what it can do to me, and I know how to handle it so that no disaster occurs. I control everything myself, and only my own mistake can destroy me. But I fear my superiors because they control me according to their own judgment, and I cannot even imagine what they intend to do with me at any given moment...