h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I truly love Einstein for the contributions he has made in the way of science and math, but at times I feel deep concern over the attitudes his ideas have influenced in impresionable people. Last week I met a physics proffesor. This man followed the laws of math to such a degree that he would in no way entertain any ideas which conflicted with his deeply engrained formulas. I tried to pose a "what if" question concerning light speed and he continuously interupted my statements without hearing my ideas and directed me to a formula proveing the innability to reach the speed of light. His attitude reminded me of the poor shmucks seven hundred years ago who knew that it was impossible to sail to the west from the east without falling offf the edge of the Earth. As human beings we tend to love our ideas to such and extent that we hender our imaginations. This is why poets will write the future. Our convictions can become our crutches if we do not tend to them with kid gloves.

Ah if people would only allow their mind to unbend a little... Have you ever read "Enchantress From The Stars"? It's a fictional book that explores, in part, how "modern" societies are so unable to grasp some concepts that were a part of everyday life in their idea of "futuristic" societies, whereas in the "elder days," people would see something they didn't understand and call it "magic" and accept it much more readily and were even able to do it themselves more easily simply because they believed and were not inhibited by their own ideas of science.