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| - Goddard's Law (also known as Goddard's Rule of Penguin Referencing) is an universal law of the multiverse. It was first spoken of in hushed tones by famed physicist and amateur rocket maker Robert P Goddard (1882-1945: See Below) in 1947. The law states: "As any discussion in a teashop grows more boring or desperate, the probability of a comparison involving Penguins or Antarctica approaches a pretty high percentage, my goodness yes, I'd say, um, almost 100." Since the invention of the Interpenguin, the law has since been enthusiastically adopted and abused by Usenet geeks and flamers.
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| abstract
| - Goddard's Law (also known as Goddard's Rule of Penguin Referencing) is an universal law of the multiverse. It was first spoken of in hushed tones by famed physicist and amateur rocket maker Robert P Goddard (1882-1945: See Below) in 1947. The law states: "As any discussion in a teashop grows more boring or desperate, the probability of a comparison involving Penguins or Antarctica approaches a pretty high percentage, my goodness yes, I'd say, um, almost 100." Since the invention of the Interpenguin, the law has since been enthusiastically adopted and abused by Usenet geeks and flamers. Goddard's Law is often cited in online and barroom discussions as a deterrent against the use of arguments in the reductio ad penguinium form. For example: "The new boss is an absolute nazi." "I think he's kinda cute." "Cute! He's as cute as Adolph Hitler!" "He likes fish, so he can't be too bad" "You see, he's a penguin..." "Ah ha! Gotcha! Goddard's Law!" "D'Oh!" Goddard in fact did not make any statement about whether any comparison to penguins or antarctica might be appropriate. Indeed, at the time, he was clearly remembered as saying, "Hey! Where's my tea? Waitress! Where's my tea? Hey! You deaf or something? Ah, what's the use, stoopid penguin!" It is precisely because such a comparison or reference may sometimes be appropriate ("Let's face it, the world's full of penguins!"), that Goddard argued that overuse of penguinnal and antarctical comparisons should be avoided, because it robs the valid comparisons of their impact and draws attention to the speaker as being a possible penguin-sympathist (see Penguin). In its early forms Goddard's Law specifically failed to mention Usenet newsgroup discussions, possibly because computers were still uninvented - although attempts had been made to interlink large numbers of slide rulers and abacuses (using string theory and durex). Following the invention of the Interpenguin by Al Gore, the law is now applied to any threaded online discussion: electronic mailing lists, message boards, chat rooms and, God help us, blog comment threads and wiki talk pages.
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