An absurdity is a state or condition of being extremely unreasonable, meaningless or unsound in reason so as to be irrational or not taken seriously. "Absurd" is an adjective used to describe an absurdity, e.g., "Tyler and the boys laughed at the absurd situation." It derives from the Latin absurdum meaning "out of tune", hence irrational. The Latin surdus means "deaf", implying stupidity. Absurdity is contrasted with being realistic or reasonable In general usage, absurdity may be synonymous with fanciful, foolish, bizarre, wild or nonsense. In specialized usage, absurdity is related to extremes in bad reasoning or pointlessness in reasoning; ridiculousness is related to extremes of incongruous juxtaposition, laughter, and ridicule; and nonsense is related to a lack of meaningfulness. Absurdism is a concept in philosophy related to the notion of absurdity. History Absurdity has been used throughout history regarding foolishness and extremely poor reasoning to form belief. Ancient Greece In Aristophanes' 5th century BC comedy The Wasps, his protagonist Philocleon learned the "absurdities" of Aesop's Fables, considered to be unreasonable fantasy, and not real. Plato often used "absurdity" to describe very poor reasoning, or the conclusion from adopting a position that is false and thus reaching a false conclusion, called an "absurdity" (argument by reductio ad absurdum). Plato describes himself as not using absurd argumentation against himself in Parmenides. In Gorgias, Plato refers to an "inevitable absurdity" as the outcome of reasoning from a false assumption. Aristotle rectified an irrational absurdity in reasoning with empiricism using likelihood, "once the irrational has been introduced and an air of likelihood imparted to it, we must accept it in spite of the absurdity. He claimed that absurdity in reasoning being veiled by charming language in poetry, "As it is, the absurdity is veiled by the poetic charm with which the poet invests it... But in the Epic poem the absurdity passes unnoticed." Renaissance and early modern periods Michel de Montaigne, father of the essay and modern skepticism, argued that the process of abridgement is foolish and produces absurdity, "Every abridgement of a good book is a foolish abridgement... absurdity [is] not to be cured... satisfied with itself than any reason, can reasonably be." Francis Bacon, an early promoter of empiricism and the scientific method, argued that absurdity is a necessary component of scientific progress, and should not always be laughed at. He continued that bold new ways of thinking and bold hypotheses