THOMAS AQUINAS may never have actually wondered how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but his tortured musings about metaphysical issues associated with the non-corporeality of angels (and the related issue of whether there is excrement in heaven) stretched the limits of reasonable rational inquiry so far that later scholars invented the phrase to mock him.
My thoughts turned to Aquinas last week as I sat through a lengthy seminar on the subject of Boltzmann brains. The speaker decided his ruminations were so important that he needed 90 minutes rather than the customary hour. To…
