Happiness is a real objective phenomenon scientifically verifiable. That means people and whole societies can now be measured over time and compared accurately with one another. Causes and cures for unhappiness can be quantified.

It has long been known for sure that the sight of tasty food makes a hungry man's mouth water also lack of appetite has always been regarded as an undesirable phenomenon from which one might conclude that appetite is essentially linked with the process of digestion.

Wherever there is a design that is highly successful in a broad range of similar environments it is apt to emerge again and again independently - the phenomenon known in biology as convergent evolution. I call these designs 'good tricks.'

Humanity should question itself once more about the absurd and always unfair phenomenon of war on whose stage of death and pain only remain standing the negotiating table that could and should have prevented it.

My dad tells me that he took us to a pantomime when I was very very small - panto being a sort of English phenomenon. There's traditionally a part of the show where they'll invite kids up on the stage to interact with the show. I was too young to remember this but my dad says that I was running up onstage before they even asked us.

And of course I've got kids of my own now and they love me being in the Harry Potter films. I'm now part of a phenomenon. You become incredibly cool to your kids and you get a young fan base. So you became the cool dad at school. You're suddenly hip.

Perhaps the single most dramatic example of this phenomenon of software eating a traditional business is the suicide of Borders and corresponding rise of Amazon.

The phenomenon of home schooling is a wonderful example of the American can-do attitude. Growing numbers of parents have become disenchanted with government-run public schools. Many parents have simply taken matters into their own hands literally.

Part of our western outlook stems from the scientific attitude and its method of isolating the parts of a phenomenon in order to analyze them.

It's just amazing to do something that's part of a pop culture phenomenon.