Here is another Stephen Hawking limerick by Laetitia. This one is based on Hawking’s observation that academic smugness hinders advances in knowledge. An example of this is that in the late nineteenth century, professors of physics discouraged students from entering the field because Newton, Maxwell and others had answered all the questions. This illusion was shattered in the early twentieth century by discoveries that led to quantum mechanics and general and special relativity.
On knowledge, the views in profusion
Says Hawking, are fraught with confusion
For ‘tis not ignorance
That is mankind’s hindrance
But ‘tis knowledge’s self-smug illusion.