-- I remember spinning a top when I was a kid. I would watch it, in awe of its smooth, silent, and almost flawless twirling. When I close my eyes, I can visualize it - how it almost appeared to my child mind to be entirely motionless. When it's balanced like that, even though it's spinning, it's silent and still. And every part of itself is designed for this very behavior. A beautiful, flawless spin like this is its entire purpose. I can remember a time when, with my eyes focused intently on my spinning top, I witnessed the fraction of a second in which it lost balance. I didn't see why. Maybe it was a simple grain of sand on the floor. But the top, it waivered. And that grain of sand had ended things. It was only a fraction of a second - a moment of contact between the sand and the top. But I can remember how it flew wildly and erratically in all directions. And now our top is knocking and hitting and spinning. It will likely stop any secon...