i can't say i understand it...

I'm reading Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe, a book on string theory for interested non-physicists. And I can't really say I understand either quantum theory or string theory*... but the book is helpful in describing how both string theory and quantum theory work. The book makes a distinction between a deep understanding and an "owner's manual", that gives you enough knowledge to get something to work, or to make predictions about how it will act. (Frankly, this distinction reminds me of one of my complaints about the classroom scenes in the Harry Potter movies: there's all this rote memorization of spells, but no theory - no grammar, if you will - of why magic works).

*Richard Feynman wrote in The Character of Physical Law:

There was a time when the newspapers said that only twelve men understood the theory of relativity. I do not believe there ever was such a time. There might have been a time when only one man did, because he was the only guy who caught on, before he wrote his paper. But after people read the paper a lot of people understood the theory of relativity in some way or other, certainly more than twelve. On the other hand, I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.

Anyway, The Elegant Universe is a cool book, and I got a version for my Nook on sale!