"That's why it's always worth having a few philosophers around the place.
One minute it's all Is Truth Beauty and Is Beauty Truth, and Does A Falling
Tree in the Forest Make A Sound if There's No one There to Hear It, and
then just when you think they're going to start dribbling one of 'em says,
Incidentally, putting a thirty-foot parabolic reflector on a high place to
shoot the rays of the sun at an enemy's ships would be a very interesting
demonstration of optical principles."
-- The many and varied advantages of philosophy
(Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)
--[discworld]--