Re: To start off with a cliche'...
Okay, okay! I did say it was a cliche`, didn't I? = ) How about this one:
You've been sentenced to death in an obscure foreign country which has a strange law: Before the sentence is carried out, two papers - one with "LIFE" written on it and one with "DEATH" written on it - are folded up and placed into a hat. You are permitted to pick out one of the papers (without looking), and if you choose the one inscribed with "LIFE", you are set free. Otherwise, the death sentence is carried out. On this occasion, a mean-spirited acquaintance of yours, bent on your demise, has substituted the paper with "LIFE" written on it with another one with "DEATH" written on it. This person gleefully informs you of what he has done and that you are doomed to die. You are not permitted to speak to anyone about this misdeed, nor will you be able to have a chance to switch the papers or the hat yourself in time. How will you avoid certain death?
Is that better? = )
"Physics is like sex. Sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it." - R. Feynman
"Yet if there really is a complete unified theory, it would also presumably determine our actions. And so the theory itself would determine the outcome of our search for it!" (Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time, p13)