Jesus Is Our Big TOE

Most of us are happy just to have a theory about where the second sock goes after disappearing in the wash. But could a theory explain everything?

At the 87^th Academy Awards in March 2015, Eddie Redmayne won the Oscar for Best Actor for his role in “The Theory of Everything,” a fluffy biopic about the life and times of the renowned theoretical-physicist Stephen Hawking. The irony is that the movie said little about Hawking’s theory of everything, perhaps because the audience would be hopelessly lost.

There’s an interesting exchange in the film between he and his wife at the time, Jane Hawking. She asks him, “What about you? What are you?” and Stephen Hawking replies, “Cosmologist, I’m a cosmologist.”

Confused, Jane asks, “What is that?”

“It is a kind of religion for intelligent atheists.”

Whatever. It’s just a cool idea that there could be a theory of everything — a concept that would explain all, tell all, bring congruent and incongruent particles together, and merge them into a single explanation. Wouldn’t it be great if we...