The Variational Principles of Mechanics, Cornelius Lanczos (University of Toronto Press, 1949).While sailing a little boat the other day, I thought of a new way to troll the Aristotelians. I love it when my hobbies converge like that, and if the second one sounds a little mean-spirited, well, remember that they deserve it. If humanity has learnt anything in the past few thousand years, it’s to be wary of playing language games with words signifying abstract concepts, and then telling yourself th...