The Theory of Everything and Yada, Yada, Yada

Abstract

THE FIRST thing I do every morning is check for education news. This morning my eyes were drawn immediately to headline that read, Trio Wins Prize for 'Theory of Everything.' Wow, I thought as I clicked on link. theory of everything . . . that's a lot of stuff. I waited with anticipation as my dial-up connection loaded story. Perhaps I would finally be able to understand some of things that have puzzled me for a lifetime -- like why we have a national holiday to celebrate Columbus' miscalculated route to Asia. Or how it is that, generation after generation, millions of people successfully conspire to perpetuate Santa Claus hoax. When page finally loaded, a quick scan of article left me disappointed. The trio's theory doesn't answer my questions. It explains things like asymptotic freedom, quarks, coins spinning on a table, and way subatomic particles behave with gravity -- all things I admit I've never spent a second wondering about. Still, I really do admire their theory -- or think I would if I understood anything at all about it. Turns out trio, David Gross, David Politzer, and Frank Wilczek, won Nobel Prize for physics with an idea they began to explore more than 30 years ago. As a result of their tenacity, Finnish physicist Stig-Erik Starck reports that scientists have built a model of how universe was born, how it works, and how it will ultimately die. These guys didn't just think outside box. They invented a whole new box and then thought outside of it. One of winners said his wife was putting champagne on ice. I think most of us would agree that a Nobel Prize is champagne-worthy. But even more than that, it must be vindicating. It might even be worth going to a high school reunion. I bet guys who ridiculed their idea as outlandish back in Seventies are feeling pretty silly now. I have a new theory, too. It isn't as big as theirs -- but what could be? I think it would be fair to call it the theory of some things. I know I won't win a Nobel or even enough money to buy champagne. But in little world where I live, work, and worry, my theory explains a lot. I have named it Yada Yada Yada Theory or, in abbreviated form, 3Y Theory. 3Y Theory goes like this: putting phrase yada, yada before or after any word or concept renders it so simplified, so unexamined, and so absent of substance that it loses all value. Moreover, it actually diminishes possibility of understanding concept by creating and perpetuating myths about it and promoting shallow thinking. When 3Y Theory presented itself, I was under influence of certain drugs and was engaged in a conscious effort to go to my happy place. I was getting a root canal, and dentist had pumped enough Novocain into my gums and roof of my mouth to numb every cell on left side of my brain. I think that put my right brain into overload. As a result, a rambling conversation between my dentist and his technician collided with plot of an old TV show, and 3Y Theory was born. Let me explain. My dentist is a history lover and a Civil War buff. I had guessed as much when I saw waiting-room photographs of his children dressed in full ante-bellum regalia. So while he drilled and poked and prodded, he and technician carried on an animated conversation about American history and how it is taught. We never made it all way through history books, dentist explained. We always stopped around World War The technician, a woman barely out of her teens, responded, We went up to Second World War, or maybe it was World War I. I'm not sure. I know it was one of those. I could see how it would be tough to tell World War I and World War II apart, with only a Roman numeral distinguishing them . . . I think my eyes started spinning around time discussion wove its way to political correctness in textbooks. …