I would like to take this moment to damn Edmond Halley for publishing his Astronomiæ cometicæ synopsis three months before he presented on that topic at the Royal Society. Because of him, I’m having to rewrite this prologue (originally drafted as part of my submission packet for the book, i.e. before I really did my research), and it’s just annoying. Why couldn’t he have had a nice rousing argument at a Society meeting first?