You Can't Live With 'em...

Dude, I'm a physicist. Nothing can surprise me.
Dr. Guess, _The Computer Connection_ by Alfred Bester

Reading this, I wondered how many physicists would believe that nothing could surprise them. I also wonder why a physicist might think that nothing could surprise them.

Now, first off, I know that even though he may claim that nothing can surprise him, at this point in the book he's had a couple of major surprises, throwing him into massive shock requiring specific treatment to get better. Including killing him to force him out of his shock. And I'm fairly sure that there are many things that /would/ surprise the general physicist.

But knowing How Things Work has got to remove a lot of the mystery in the world. Of the people that would bother to think (if you don't think about something, it can't well surprise you), I'd guess that those that understand at some level the workings of the universe would live with much less surprise. A magician's assitant isn't amazed by his ability to levitate an angry tiger once they know it's really just a rabbit hanging onto some fishing line.

But without the people that understand at least the basics of How Things Work, very little progress can be made. So I'm willing to accept their little foibles, I will let them continue to believe that they cannot be surprised, as payment for them improving my way of life.

I'm still debating introducing them to Zifnab, but I fear the possible resulting explosion of anti-probability or such.