The other day I was reading an interview in the "Smithsonian" with the great singer/songwriter Rosanne Cash. She talked a lot about her music...and theoretical physics. Little did I know that's a subject that absolutely fascinates her.

I don't know about you, but I would never call myself a science nerd. However over the years I've been searching for a way to dig deeper into science. I love the history of it, and I think it's eye opening stuff, I just rarely find books or essays that describe the wonders of it all in language that I understand.

It all just made me think: In the last few years I have been captured by these mind-boggling concepts brought up in physics and quantum mechanics. And this was only because of "Nova, C-Span, TED, "Bill Nye the Science Guy," and historical and personal journeys through science like "Parallel Universes, Parallel Lives." This was just me hearing people who were passionate about their life's work speak about it in a natural, engaging, and even humorous way. Why don't you see that very often any more? Why so many dry, dense books and scientists? Granted, I fully acknowledge that something as complicated as astrophysicss or quantum mechanics is not the easiest thing to explain to me, a nonlinear-thinking musician who Waaaaaay back during the baby years of science, there was a different approach to learning about it. There was a conscious link in everyone's minds between the fantastic unknown world and a certain spiritual reverence towards that unknown, and the beauty of it. It seemed you couldn't explain scientific ideas without the use of poetry. Speaking about this very subject, in a column in "The Guardian," Ruth Padel says, "Both [science and poetry] depend on metaphor, which is as crucial to scientific discovery as it is to lyric."

Parallel universes, time travel, aliens, black holes and wormholes: These are things that inspire science fiction,"A Wrinkle in Time," "Star Trek" and "Lost." They grab our attention and make us not-so-scientifically-inclined people to see beyond ourselves in a new context, and ponder how incredibly huge and mysterious our world is.

I will never become a scientist. But I like finding things that remind me that I am one piece of the jigsaw puzzle of the world. God does that for me, music, and I increasingly find that science also does that for me. It is humbling. I only hope that since more schools these days are focusing on math and science, that they are teaching it in a way that can inspire that same sense of awe, because I am lucky enough to have found a way for science to connect to me.

In this interview, Cash talked about a BBC documentary called "Parallel Universes, Parallel Lives." It follows the journey of Mark Everett, frontman of one of my favorite bands, Eels. In the film, he strives to understand more about his father, Hugh Everett, a Princeton professor and the scientist who is known for introducing the theory of parallel universes. Imagine being the kid of the guy who came up with the biggest scientific idea since Einstein and relativity--and not really caring about science at all. Needless to say there was tension between the two.