“Some people say: You know professor, when I see a chair I know what a chair is, I can feel a chair/touch a chair, but you physicists when you talk about string what the hell is that? Well yes we are all agreed what a chair is…..its made of wood or metal and has atoms inside. However,  what makes up the atoms? Well if you look inside the atoms, there are electrons whizzing around the nucleus. Well, what are they made out of?  You can smash them apart, inside the nucleus there are protons and neutrons. Well we’ve smashed them, what’s inside protons and neutrons? Well we think there are something called quarks. Well does it stop there, does it stop at the quarks? We now believe if you had a microscope it could look at the quarks themselves, we would realize that they are nothing but little loops.  Little tiny vibrating loops vibrating at a certain mode…….in other words, we are talking about an elemental, uber-form of matter.  One object, such that if it simply vibrates in a different way, it can create all the things we see around us. Therefore, instead of having this whole zoo of subatomic particles we just have the string.”

(Watch The Whole Series)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9xXWPy3Z6A&feature=related