Object  - The Parent Class of All and Every Java Class

The object class in Java is the parent class of all classes.
Everything is an object.  Everything is derived from an object.
All classes automatically inherit the object class and methods that are in it.

Methods that are in the Object class and that all other classes automatically
inherit are:

boolean equals(Object obj)
//by default it check to see if two object share the same memory address
//are they aliases of each other
//the String class, for example, overrides the normal behavior of the equals //method and checks to see if the characters in both strings are the same

String toString()
//by default the toString method is invoked when you ask System.out.print or
//System.out.println to print out an object reference
//default behavior is to print out the memory address of the object
//to use make sure, your return a String, here is an example:

public String toString() {
   String hold;
   hold="hi there..";
   return hold;
}