A cockroach is stuck in a washbasin. The cockroach expends all its energy trying to get out. Runs around blindly at the bottom feeling the porcelain with its antennae, trying to identify a climbable substance but faced with an impenetrable, impregnable wall, wherever it goes. The harder it tries to climb out, the more it slips back. If only it could understand the fact that the washbasin curves in an increasingly convex gradient, so that the farther it reaches, the greater are the forces pulling it back. Cockroaches, simply put, are not designed to get out of washbasins. But of course, its only a simple-minded cockroach that doesn't understand all these mysterious laws. It just knows that it wants to get out. So it keeps trying. And then, at one point, it seemingly defies the laws of physics and refuses to slip back as it reaches the edge. Or perhaps its just pure luck that it hasn't slipped yet. At any rate, it works its six legs hard, pushing, pushing with every ounce of stre...