Every now and then one of my classes — for mysterious reasons — will turn to a discussion of, well, Life, the Universe, and Everything. Usually this involves me giving an impromptu lecture on quantum physics and/or how very bitty we are in comparison to the Universe.
In honor of that, here’s a link to a nice summary of some of the currently leading candidates for a “Theory of Everything.” Love it.
When I was at the UR, my physics TA was a grad student specializing in String Theory, and every now and then we'd divert our attention away from our task at hand that usually involved boxes moving up ramps and other such wonderful Newtonian physics problems and talk about black holes and how when "things" get sucked into black holes they come out the other side "spaghetti-fied". Clearly, discussing the unknown and mystifying is more fun than pushing boxes up ramps or coefficients of friction.
I wish I took such a class!