图书序言
你曾不曾才坐上马桶电话就来?才点菸你的公车就到?才洗车就下雨,才买伞雨就停?也许当时你明白,冥冥之中有个无所不在的原理在运转,非人力所能左右,教人恨不能有个名堂加以称唿。也许你已经听过莫非定律、某某原则、选择性重力等说法,想引述时才发现自己忘了确切的遣词用字。
本书破天荒完整蒐罗了疯癫成趣的科技人员、政府官员、人文学家、社会观察家的机智与智慧,编纂方式力求人人都能乐在其中,条列方式则尽可能明确。蒐寻这些跨学科的原则时,我们发现有许多是一说再说的(这也证明这些心得不假),也常遇到出处有争议的,还有不少佚名撰稿人。我们不得不承认无法模仿的 Zymurgy 先生所投的那则:
「虫罐子一旦打开,只有用更大的罐子才装得回去。」
把这则莫非小品应用到本书,我们便明白,编纂工作一旦展开,厚度与广度会一再增加,因为真理之光照出了更多有新有旧的原则。
Have you ever received a phone call the minute you sat down on the toilet? Has the bus you were waiting for ever appeared the instant you lit up a cigarette? Has it ever rained the day you washed your car, or stopped raining just after you bought an umbrella? Perhaps you realized at the time that something was afoot, that some universal principle was just out of your grasp, itching to be called by name. Or perhaps, having heard of Murphy’s Law, the Peter Principle, or the Law of Selective Gravity, you have wanted to invoke one of these, only to find that you have forgotten its exact wording.