Beethoven, Einstein and Mark Twain

In the late 1980's I was waiting for my bus, near a T-shirt imprint shop near the Pike Plade Market in Seattle when I noticed a large image of Einstein's head on one model. I'd begun to read some quantum physics authors (Paul Davies, David Bohn...) and had read 1,2,3, Infinity by George Gamow when I was in my mid twenties (1957) after my husband put it aside. But I had another reason for pausing to think about the 'head' of Einstein, so I decided to buy the T-shirt. As the clerk wrote the sales check I heard myself tell her that I'd had an unusual experience with Einstein, his name had begun to occur in my mind when I was very young when ever some association to Beethovens' name or his music played anywhere, came to my attention. But even odder was the addition of Mark Twain, so that I never 'thought' of Beethoven individually, three names occurred into my mind: "Beethoven, Einstein, and Mark Twain". I loved Beethoven (passionately, squared to infinity) so this re-occurrence happened often enough to make me curious, very curious eventually about the spontaneous, unwilled by me, re-generation of the three names behind Beethovens'. Without pausing or looking up the clerk laughed slightly as she said: " I know what you mean. I always wonder how Mark Twains' name could be associated with geniuses like Beethoven and Einstein. The same thing has happened to me for a long time. " That is exactly what I had experienced! A question occurred naturally immediately in my thought: "How did Mark Twains' name get associated with the two geniuses, Beethoven and Einstein?" What are the chances this was a random event? This event barely registered when it happened. I didn't think about that until years later, when suddenly a change occurred: In my thought; something triggered the occurrence of the three names but with a slight change: Beethoven, Einstein and Twain. I remember I was walking down a stairwell somewhere when it happened. Almost immediately I recognized (or was caused to recognize) the initials of the three men were spelling out BET, my family nickname. Years later I wondered if the clerks name was also Betty. his is a highly abbreviated version.... re-occurring thoughts somewhat similar and lots of context can and should be added...