'pataphysics

thumb|250px|Alfred Jarry in Corbeil in 1898 ''''Pataphysics''' () is a sardonic "philosophy of science" invented by French writer Alfred Jarry (1873–1907) intended to be a parody of science. Difficult to be simply defined or pinned down, it has been described as the "science of imaginary solutions".

== Introduction == 'Pataphysics was a concept expressed by Jarry in a mock-scientific manner, with undertones of spoofing and quackery, as expounded in his novel Exploits and Opinions of Dr. Faustroll, Pataphysician. Here, Jarry toyed with conventional concepts and interpretations of reality. Another attempt at a definition interprets 'pataphysics as an idea that "the virtual or imaginary nature of things as glimpsed by the heightened vision of poetry or science or love can be seized and lived as real". Jarry defines 'pataphysics in a number of statements and examples, including that it is "the science of imaginary solutions, which symbolically attributes the properties of objects, described by their virtuality, to their lineaments". A practitioner of 'pataphysics is a pataphysician or a pataphysicist.