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Michael Wertheimer, "Musings of Max Wertheimer's Octogenarian Son" in Gestalt Theory. Vol 35 No 2 (2013), p. 118 (recalling a story told by his father)—
Part of the duty of certain officials in the Ministry of Education in the old Austrian empire was to make periodic inspections of the schools. An inspector arrives at a village schoolroom, and at the end of the hour of observing the class, he stands up and says, "I am happy to see you children doing so well in your studies. But before I leave, there is one question I would like to ask: How many hairs does a horse have?" To the astonishment of both teacher and inspector, a little nine-year-old boy raises his hand. He stands up and says, "The horse has 543,871,962 hairs." Bewildered, the inspector asks, "And how do you know that this is the correct number?" The boy replies, "If you don't believe me, you can count them yourself." The inspector laughs out loud, thoroughly enjoying the boy's remark. As the teacher escorts the inspector to the door, the inspector says, "What an amusing story! I must tell it to my colleagues when I return to Vienna. They enjoy nothing better than a good joke." And with that he takes his leave.
A year later the inspector is back again at the village school for his annual visit. The teacher asks the inspector how his colleagues liked the story of the horse and the number of hairs. The inspector, a bit chagrined, says, "You know, I was really eager to tell the story—and a fine story it is—but, you see, I couldn't. When I got back to Vienna, I couldn't for the life of me remember the number of hairs."
