12
Issues for the Future
12.1 Doppelbelcher and the OOO
Felix Doppelbelcher Jr was a very disgruntled young man. He
had just learned that his stipendium at the prestigious Fachgeplonk University in Omsk had been terminated. Not many in
the general public had ever heard of this Institute, or indeed of
Omsk for that matter, so he knew his termination would cause
little stir in the world at large. However, within the small circle
of Omphaloskepsis graduates, or OOO (i.e. the Omphaloskeptics of Omsk), as they liked to call themselves, his expulsion
was a major talking point. (Omphaloskepsis, a widely pursued
activity in many academic circles, is usually known by its alternative name of “navel-gazing”. Only at Fachgeplonk University is
it recognised with its own Faculty.)
The aim of the OOO was to return physics to the embrace of
philosophy, from which they believed it had unwisely departed,
shortly after the debunking by Galileo of so many of Aristotle’s
assertions. The normal OOO modus operandi therefore involved
the execution of thought experiments, and the development of
mathematical models of imposing complexity. In this regard, the
Dean was typical of most old-school OOOs, who regarded any
knowledge obtained by experimentation as somehow of a lesser
worth than that derived from purely cerebral processes. Doppelbelcher, however, was a reactionary who maintained that the
© The Author(s), under exclusive license
to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
R. Barrett and P. P. Delsanto, Don’t Be Afraid of Physics,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63409-4_12
235
Issues for the Future
12.1 Doppelbelcher and the OOO
Felix Doppelbelcher Jr was a very disgruntled young man. He
had just learned that his stipendium at the prestigious Fachgeplonk University in Omsk had been terminated. Not many in
the general public had ever heard of this Institute, or indeed of
Omsk for that matter, so he knew his termination would cause
little stir in the world at large. However, within the small circle
of Omphaloskepsis graduates, or OOO (i.e. the Omphaloskeptics of Omsk), as they liked to call themselves, his expulsion
was a major talking point. (Omphaloskepsis, a widely pursued
activity in many academic circles, is usually known by its alternative name of “navel-gazing”. Only at Fachgeplonk University is
it recognised with its own Faculty.)
The aim of the OOO was to return physics to the embrace of
philosophy, from which they believed it had unwisely departed,
shortly after the debunking by Galileo of so many of Aristotle’s
assertions. The normal OOO modus operandi therefore involved
the execution of thought experiments, and the development of
mathematical models of imposing complexity. In this regard, the
Dean was typical of most old-school OOOs, who regarded any
knowledge obtained by experimentation as somehow of a lesser
worth than that derived from purely cerebral processes. Doppelbelcher, however, was a reactionary who maintained that the
© The Author(s), under exclusive license
to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
R. Barrett and P. P. Delsanto, Don’t Be Afraid of Physics,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63409-4_12
235