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Fresnel handed Laurie another mug-glass-cup. “You're right again. Things are what they are,
no matter what names people give them.”
“But aren't names important?” Laurie asked, checking her new glass-cup-mug carefully for
holes. Luckily, this one had a bottom.
“Names go only so far. And many names are actually the same thing in disguise.”
“Really?”
“Surely. Are you Laurie or Lauren?”
“Well, both. But I like Laurie. When Mom is really mad, she calls me Lauren.” She put her
hands on her hips and threw her head back. “ Lauren Ipsum, come downstairs NOW!
Fresnel laughed like a horse would laugh, if the horse had heard the joke. “A full name is a
powerful thing. But you're the same person either way. And sometimes different things have
the same name. You call your mom 'Mom,' but I call my mom 'Mom,' too.”
“But I wouldn't call your mom 'Mom'!” said Laurie. How weird would that be?
“There you go. It's only logical. You have to look past the name to see things as they really
are. That's Fresnel's First Law.”
“You sound just like Eponymous Bach,” Laurie said.
“Really? Well, I'm a Composer too,” said Fresnel. “I start with big ideas and make them
smaller.”
“Make them smaller? Why?”
“Why not? Only people with small minds think Big Problems need Big Ideas.”
Laurie wasn't sure what he was talking about. “How do you make an idea smaller?”
“By De composing. How would you talk about a lighthouse without using the word light-
house ?”
“Well, it's a tall white tower near the sea, with a room full of windows at the top, and a big
light on top of that, and a long twisty staircase inside.”
“That's very good,” Fresnel said. “Now look at each part and see if it's essential. If your tall-
tower-by-the-sea-with-windows-and-big-light-and-staircase were pink , would it work just the
same?”
“I guess so. I've never seen a pink lighthouse,” she said.
“Neither have I! But if everything already existed, life would be pretty boring. Why is your
lighthouse tall?”
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