“M-Theory has certainly got intellectuals thinking; that is, thinking differently. What would it mean if there were a theory that explained EVERYTHING? And just what does “everything” actually mean, anyway? Would this new theory in physics explain, say, the meaning of human poetry? Or how economics works? Or the stages of psycho-sexual development? Can this new physics explain the currents of ecosystems, of the dynamics of history, or why human wars are so terribly common?

In the interior of quarks, it is said, there are vibrating strings, and these strings are the fundamental units of everything. Well, if so, it is a strange everything, pale and anemic and alien to the richness of the world that daily presents itself to you and me. Clearly strings are an important PART of a larger world, fundamental to it, but not that significant, it seems. You and I already know that strings, should they exist, are only a tiny part of the picture, and we know this every time we look around, listen to Bach, make love, are caught transfixed at the sharp crack of thunder, sit rapturous at sunset, contemplate a radiant world that seems made of something so much more than microscopic, one-dimensional, tiny rubber bands…