Physicists Are No Phun

ninme found a point by point scientific debunking of Hollywood's most fun special effects. Actually, it's kind of fun (lifting the Golden Gate Bridge is a serious calorie burn if you need to fit into wedding attire in a jif), but it reminded me of an evening at university when a bunch of us were cramming for our Philosophy of Being final. Pre-Socratics. Plato. Aristotle. Spinoza. A dense unpublished text from the Prof., who was given to statements such as:

Being is and Non-Being isn't, except with respect to the once was and the not yet, neither of which are.

(I re-payed him by composing a lengthy bit of doggerel that is fortunately lost to time, but I do remember this couplet:

who, philosophic relic, he,
rants on without entelechy.

But I digress.)

About 2:00 am, when fear, caffeine and prolonged mental exertion make ridiculous remarks seem hilarious, someone interrupted the silence with the question,

What if gravity reversed itself this very instant?

Everyone looked at the dilapidated ceiling above us and laughed. Except, of course, our Physics Major friend, who launched unsmilingly into a lecture about why that could never happen. Yes, dear. We're using our imaginations.