Playwright Tom Stoppard, in Rosencrantz and Guildernstern are Dead, provides one of the best definitions of science: “The scientific approach to the examination of phenomena is a defence against the pure emotion of fear.”
Nowhere is this more true than in the study of electricity in the wild; namely, lightning. Primitive humans must have been terrified by lightning, so much so that it is built into many religions. Lightning is almost always associated with the most powerful gods.
