The basis of tragedy is man's helplessness against disease, war and death; the basis of comedy is man's helplessness against vanity (the vanity of love, greed, lust, power).
Bio: Yakov Borisovich Zel'dovich ForMemRS, also known as YaB, was a Russian physicist of Belarusian Jewish ethnicity, who is known for his prolific contributions in cosmology and the physics of thermonuclear and hydrodynamical phenomena.