Physicists are notorious for self-flattery; they think they (can) (in principle) understand everything based on first principles. A friend recently encapsulated it in a joke she quoted, playing off the fact that beyond the simplest single-atom quantum-mechanical systems the equations are usually far too complex to solve exactly:
| "Physicists say a diatomic molecule is a molecule with one too many atoms." |
Hmmm, maybe to a normal person that's also an example of physicists' (lack of a) sense of humor?!
(cf. PhysicsEnvy (2001-04-11), ...) - ^z - 2012-07-14