I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to any members of the School of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Sydney who happen to read this story. I have nothing against the School, the University, or Sydney for that matter. I just needed an academic setting that was far away (from New Jersey) and that was likely, even in the 23rd century, to be attended for the most part by people without much interest in metaphysics. In my experience, the latter has been true of mechanical engineers.

Feel free to correct me if this does not apply to Australian mechanical engineers.

---John J. Reilly