thermodynamics, or the laws of everything.

I'm merely paraphrasing. These things are worth saying,
again and again and again, until we all get too cold.

from wikipedia:

* The first law of thermodynamics expresses the existence of a quantity called the internal energy of a system, and shows how it is related to the distinction between energy transfer as work and energy transfer as heat. The internal energy obeys the principle of conservation of energy but work and heat are not defined as separately conserved quantities.
* The second law of thermodynamics expresses the existence of a quantity called the entropy of a system and states that the entropy of an isolated macroscopic system never decreases.
* The third law of thermodynamics concerns the entropy of a perfect crystal at absolute zero temperature, and implies that it is impossible to cool a system to exactly absolute zero.



To restate more simply:
from Ugo Bardi and others:

1. You can't win
2. You can't get even
3. You can't quit the game

And, like the speed of light,
its not just a good idea, its the law.