MarginalDevolution.com?

…if the atoms obeyed Newton’s laws, they would disintegrate whenever they bumped into another atom.  What keeps two atoms locked in a stable molecule is the fact that electrons can simultaneously be in so many places at the same time that they form an electron "cloud" which binds the atoms together.  Thus, the reason why molecules are stable and the universe does not disintegate is that electrons can be many places at the same time.

But if electrons can exist in parallel states hovering between existence and nonexistence, then why can’t the universe?  After all, at one point the universe was smaller than an electron.  Once we introduce the possibility of applying the quantum principle to the universe, we are forced to consider parallel universes.

That is from Michio Kaku’s Parallel Worlds: A Journey Through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos.  The book offers the best popular explanation I have seen of why we may be living in a hologram.  But if you wish to feel better about your intellect, and baffle your friend with a Ph.d. in physics, buy him Douglass North’s new Understanding the Process of Economic Change.