that all objects must have
such as the ability to compare oneself to another object, to convert to
a string, to wait on a condition variable, to notify other objects that
a condition variable has changed, and to return the object's class. For
more information about the Object class, see <a href="../../MissingPage.html">missing page</a>.
<p>
In Java, every class must have a superclass. If you do not specify a 
superclass for your class, it is assumed to be the Object class.
To specify an object's superclass 