I am currently being fascinated by M-theory, which is an elaboration of String Theory, which is an elaboration of Supersymmetry, which is what Stephen Hawking came up with when he tried to apply Quantum Mechanics at, or very near to, the event horizon of a Black Hole (a gravitationally collapsed region in spacetime), in an attempt at moving on with Albert Einstein's Unified Field Theory.

So far so good.

Let me just assure y'all that this is the kind of stuff that will make you break a sweat when you try to grasp WTF they are talking about. In order to reach M-theory, you need to cover a lot of base first. You need to understand (by "understand" I mean to have a reasonable comprehension of what it is) both the General Theory of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. You need to accept the counterintuitive nature of these abstractions. You need to understand Black Holes. You need to read yourself up on how "stuff" was created in The Big Bang and how it was since distibuted and altered in physical processes of the Universe. Then you need to throw it all away, empty your mind, and prepare to be left in a state of "say what?" dizzyness.

So far so good.

Personally, I take perverse pleasure in wrestling with things that are bordering on the impossible to comprehend. A byproduct of this is that I have a pretty good comprehension of things on a simpler level. This, however, leads me into a paradox. It becomes hard to lead a maningful conversation about said issues with people who absolutely do NOT understand diddely squat about jack shit when it comes to physics.

Let me give you an example.

Just today I winded (wound?) up in a discussion with a female friend of mine who were trying to explain some idea of hers to me. She kept on using the word Quantum Mechanics to illustrate her point. I just couldn't get it. I mean... I have a reasonable understanding of what QM means but what she was saying just didn't compute. I had to ask questions all the time in order to try to understand her language. We finally arrived at a point when she exclaimed in an annoyed tone of voice that surely I must understand how Quantum Mechanics cannot possibly have any effect on Biology?

I was dumbfounded.

It turned out that her whole point the entire time was that there are systems that are so complicated that we can't make any equations for true predictability within them. You just gotta love those "say what?" moments. People pick up concepts and words from high end physics, then apply any goddamned arbitrary meaning to them that they bloody well please, before hurtling them at you as "explanations" for this or that wacked out idea that they in their innocence believe to be profound. This is especially true for that particular flavour of he lunatic fringe that we often label New Agers (as was the case in this here example). How the fuck is it possible to be that stupid and still think that you are smart?