- A SKEPTICs GUIDE - A SKEPTICs GUIDE 
First let's examine some of the assumptions with which a physicist tries to comprehend the universe. The most important of these is the assumption that there is a universe. That is, that there is a real, substantial, external ``physical'' reality2.1 which is the same for everyone, which we interact with directly and perceive directly through our senses, which are usually fairly trustworthy as far as they go. In other words, the opposite of Solipsism (look it up if it's unfamiliar; you should know your enemy). This could be wrong, of course, but if you are really God in the universe of your own imagination, why not imagine an objective, consistent universe with other people in it so we can get on with this? I did, heh heh.
Given that assumption, we physicists go on to postulate that the universe obeys the same rules in all places and at all times. Yes, yes, there are lots of speculations about changes in the ``laws of physics'' as we know them now, such as Inflation in the Early Universe and all that, but if that was how it happened and if there was a good reason for it then those are the laws of physics; we just (once again) accept that what seem like laws today are just a local or temporary approximation or special case of something more general and more subtle. This happens all the time (on a scale of decades or centuries) in Physics.2.2 Whatever we observe, we have an unshakeable conviction that there is a perfectly sensible reason for it. That does not mean that we know the reason, or ever will, or are even capable of understanding it, but we try to.
These are the personality traits that make a physicist. First was the æsthetic commitment to the idea of a ``real world.'' Second is the urge to understand why things behave the way they do (or just are the way they are); this could be labelled curiosity, I suppose, but the physicist's trait is usually a bit more obsessive-compulsive than connoted by that innocuous word. Third is the arrogance to assume that we can understand virtually anything. There are examples of systems which can be proven to be intrinsically unpredictable, but that doesn't faze the physicist; we are smugly satisfied with our understanding of the unpredictability itself.
So how does this make us like poets? It's hard to explain, but for both physicists and poets there's a thrill in the moment of ``Aha!'' when all the grotty little details finally come together in our presumptuous little heads and synthesize a sense that we ``get it'' at last.2.3 And for both poets and physicists, the most common vehicle for this epiphany is the metaphor.
Therefore be not surprised when I haul out one bizarre image after another with great pride to show yet another way of looking at angular momentum, or waves, or Relativity. And remember, you don't have to be a good poet to love poetry....