Nathaniel Boyd was an American physicist and avid alcoholic. He would spend many of his weekends roughing it up in the town of Atlantic City, New Jersey and would often drink himself into either a temporary coma or into bankruptcy. On particularly good weekends he could accomplish both. On one weekend in 1921 Boyd was exceptionally intoxicated in the city of Montreal, Canada. He was there on a formal invitation from the International Guild of Extremely Hip Physicists for a conference on the effects of sunlight on the severity of one's hangover. Boyd was in attendance of a rather good physicists party when he suddenly realized that he was completely out of money, could not afford any more alcohol, and was not having a very smashing time. As the level of alcohol approached zero, he was force