I remember back to when I watched the NBC mini-series "Merlin" back in 1998. At one point, Merlin had to study the art of magic under Frick, the servant of Merlin's creator, Queen Mab. Merlin, as the narrator, recalled during one of these scenes that he was made to study all the unseen forces that hold the universe together. Years later, I think back to that and realize, "holy cow, he was studying physics!"

The Wizard of fantasy and the Physicist of the real world share more in common than many of us realize, for like the Wizard of fantasy, the Physicist devotes his life to the study of extraordinary forces of nature not usually directly observed in everyday life. Like the Wizard of fantasy, the Physicist has learned to harness these laws to allow visual and auditory communication at significant distances. Like the Wizard of fantasy, the Physicist has made available a constant on-demand stream of incredible amounts of energy, capable of powering great machines and lighting the night sky. Like the Wizard of fantasy, the Physicist has made available vast virtual environments limited solely by the imagination.

The only reason why such things fail to interest us in the real world yet captivate us in the context of fiction is that for us, the real world is nothing new. If the roles of reality and fiction were reversed, and one residing in a fantasy world were to come across the fundamental laws of nature unique to our universe, they would be captivated; for them, it would be as magic.