In 1956, while preparing breakfast, American physicist and electrical engineer John Bardeen heard the news on the radio that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, together with Walter Brattain and William Shockley, "for their research on semiconductors and their discovery of the transistor effect".
In surprise, he dropped the eggs he was cooking for his family on the floor!
The ceremony in Stockholm was a disaster: Bardeen showed up with an embarrassing green-stained shirt and vest due to a mistake in washing his clothes, and the King of Sweden, Gustav VI, did not appreciate the fact that the physicist had left his family behind on such an important occasion, gently scolding him for not having brought all three of his children with him (Bardeen did not want to disturb the studies of his two sons, who were busy with university exams at Harvard, and so he took only his third and youngest son with him to Stockholm).
“I’ll bring them when I win the next Nobel,” Bardeen replied, reassuring the king.
And it wasn’t a joke.
He kept his promise, winning again in 1972, this time with John Schrieffer and Leon Cooper, “for their theory of superconductivity.”
On this occasion, as he had promised, he brought all three of his children to the gala ceremony!