Danny Finkelstein in The Times:
LET no one say that working in politics leaves you without useful skills when you leave it.
At the weekend my five-year-old son looked at me earnestly and said: “Daddy, why is water wet?”
Now I’ve since put this question to all manner of scientists and
moral philosophers and, I have to say, their answers wouldn’t have
helped.
Fortunately, I was able to draw on years of political experience. I avoided the question.
Well, what would you have said?
There’s a lovely story floating around out there and I’m sorry that I cannot provide the attribution. (It might turn up in the Richard Feynman memoirs, not sure.)
A theoretical physicist, who’s father was also such, is talking to a friend about boyhood memories. He tells of asking his father, when he was five, just why water was wet. He remembers the answer perfectly, and a very long answer it was as well. It’s just that he was 30, with his own PhD in theoretical physics, before he actually understood it.
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