Scientifically speaking, a butterfly is at least as mysterious as a superstring. When something ceases to be mysterious it ceases to be of absorbing interest to scientists. Almost all things scientists think and dream about are mysterious. Infinite in All Directions (1988)
Lawrence Bragg, a shrewd observer of the birth of quantum mechanics, summed up the situation in a few words: "Everything in the future is a wave — everything in the past is a particle."
I hope we still have some bright twelve-year-olds who are interested in science. We must be careful not to discourage our twelve-year-olds by making them waste the best years of their lives on preparing for examinations.