  There is increasing circumstantial evidence that the cuprate superconductors,
and correlated-electron materials generally, defy simple materials
categorization because of their proximity to one or more continuous
zero-temperature phase transitions. This implies that the fifteen-year
confusion about the cuprates is not fundamental at all but simply
overinterpreted quantum criticality--an effect that seems mysterious by virtue
of its hypersensitivity to perturbations, i.e. to sample imperfections in
experiment and small modifications of approximation schemes in theoretical
modeling, but is really just an unremarkable phase transition of some kind
masquerading as something important, a sheep in wolf's clothing. This
conclusion is extremely difficult for most physicists even to think about
because it requires admitting that an identifiable physical phenomenon might
cause the scientific method to fail in some cases. For this reason I have
decided to explain the problem in a way that is nonthreatening, easy to read,
and fun--as a satire modeled after a similar piece of Lewis Carroll's I once
read. My story is humorous fiction. Any similarity of the characters to living
persons is accidental. My apologies to Henry W. Longfellow.
