Physics, beehive hairdos are total mysteries

Recently, I received a phone call from my son, Rob. It was a phone call that every parent dreads.

That's right: My son told me that the universe does not exist. Or at least it does not in any way resemble my concept of it. According to Rob, I understand the universe about as well as a barnacle understands a nuclear aircraft carrier.

I blame college. That's where Rob is getting these ideas, which have to do with the Theory of Relativity and something called "quantum physics." Rob and his roommate, Hal, stay up all night discussing Deep Questions and figuring out the universe, and when they have it nailed down — The Rob and Hal Theory of Everything — Rob calls me up, all excited, and starts talking about time travel, the Fifth Dimension, the Big Bang, etc. I try to follow him, but I am hampered by a brain that for decades has firmly believed that the Fifth Dimension is the musical group that sang "Up, Up and Away."

So I quickly become confused and testy, and Rob gets frustrated and says, "Don't you understand? THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS TIME!" And I'll say, "YES THERE IS, AND RIGHT NOW IT'S FIVE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING!"

(At one point, I swear this is true — we got into a bitter argument about whether people in Minneapolis age at the same rate as people in Miami.)

When I was in college, during the '60s, there was no such thing as "quantum physics." Or, if there was, nobody told ME about it. Back then, when we stayed up all night, we were not trying to figure out the universe: We were trying to figure out how to operate the phone, so we could order pizza. (Note to young people: Phones were MUCH more complicated in the '60s.)

I was an English major, and when we English majors thought about physics, we were trying to solve problems like: "You are required to turn in a 15-page paper on 'The Brothers Karamazov.' You have written a grand total of 311 words on this topic. How big do you have to make your margins to make these words stretch over 15 pages? Do you think the professor will notice that your "paper" is a little anorexic worm of type running between margins wide enough to land an airplane on? Do you think that anybody in history has ever actually read all the way to the end of 'The Brothers Karamazov'? Why?"