Readers offer their own magic moments with John Bell

Here are some memories of my own “magic moments” with John Bell . I first met John in 1962, when I spent a sabbatical year at CERN from MIT. We had fruitful discussions on longitudinal sum rules arising from moments of the density–density correlation function in N-body systems, which were later incorporated into my book on statistical mechanics. ¹

The second time I saw John was in 1964, I think, at the physics summer school at the University of Washington in Seattle. Rudolf Peierls was also present, and the three of us discussed a question I brought up: why a point source of light on a lake shore produces a point image in calm water but a long pencil of light when there are ripples. We did not reach a conclusive answer.

On a weekend trip, I drove John and his wife, Mary, to visit Olympic National Park in Washington State. Coming back from a rest stop, John reported that a group of children had pointed at his beard and said, “Look! Hippie! Hippie!” John said children learn things fast because “childhood is boring.” We talked about various subjects on that trip. He was a vegetarian because of Mary, but one time on the road he had no choice but to stop at McDonald’s for a hamburger. “It was delicious,” he said.

At the Pacific Ocean shore in the park, John decided he had to take a dip. We both waded in but could only stay a few minutes because the water was very cold. When we walked back to the car, there was another car beside mine, and an elderly couple had gotten out, apparently waiting to speak to us. The wife said that they saw the MIT parking sticker on my car; did I happen to know their son, a senior in physics at MIT? His name is Ising. I said, as a matter of fact, I did know a student named Ising. And she said, “This is my husband, Dr. Ising. He teaches physics at the Central College in Peoria, Illinois. Have you heard of the Ising model?” I said, “Of course! I wrote a textbook with a chapter devoted to it.” Dr. Ising was diffident and embarrassed.