The central idea of string theory is quite straightforward. If you examine any piece of matter ever more finely, at first you'll find molecules, atoms, sub-atomic particles. Probe the smaller particles, you'll find something else, a tiny vibrating filament of energy, a little tiny vibrating string.

Brian Greene

Categorized in : Ideas Energy Molecules

I like to think that Einstein would look at string theory’s journey and smile, enjoying the theory’s remarkable geometrical features while feeling kinship with fellow travelers on the long and winding road toward unification.

Brian Greene

journey long thinking

My best teachers were not the ones who knew all the answers, but those who were deeply excited by questions they couldn't answer.

Brian Greene

best-teacher answers teacher

Science is the process that takes us from confusion to understanding.

Brian Greene

confusion understanding process

Free will is the sensation of making a choice. The sensation is real, but the choice seems illusory. Laws of physics determine the future.

Brian Greene

choices real law

When kids look up to great scientists the way they do to great musicians and actors, civilization will jump to the next level

Brian Greene

musician civilization kids

No matter how hard you try to teach your cat general relativity, you're going to fail.

Brian Greene

cat matter trying

Exploring the unknown requires tolerating uncertainty.

Brian Greene

exploring uncertainty

We're on this planet for the briefest of moments in cosmic terms, and I want to spend that time thinking about what I consider the deepest questions.

Brian Greene

moments want thinking

All you are is a bag of particles acting out the laws of physics. That to me is pretty clear.

Brian Greene

bags acting law

Intelligence is the ability to take in information from the world and to find patterns in that information that allow you to organize your perceptions and understand the external world.

Brian Greene

patterns perception world

I have long thought that anyone who does not regularly - or ever - gaze up and see the wonder and glory of a dark night sky filled with countless stars loses a sense of their fundamental connectedness to the universe.

Brian Greene

stars dark night

Physics grapples with the largest questions the universe presents. Where did the totality of reality come from? Did time have a beginning?

Brian Greene

totality physics reality

The universe is incredibly wondrous, incredibly beautiful, and it fills me with a sense that there is some underlying explanation that we have yet to fully understand. If someone wants to place the word 'God' on those collections of words, it's OK with me.

Brian Greene

explanation want beautiful

The beauty of string theory is the metaphor kind of really comes very close to the reality. The strings of string theory are vibrating the particles, vibrating the forces of nature into existence, those vibrations are sort of like musical notes. So string theory, if it's correct, would be playing out the score of the universe.

Brian Greene

musical would-be reality

Sometimes nature guards her secrets with the unbreakable grip of physical law. Sometimes the true nature of reality beckons from just beyond the horizon.

Brian Greene

motivation nature inspiration

In the far, far future, essentially all matter will have returned to energy. But because of the enormous expansion of space, this energy will be spread so thinly that it will hardly ever convert back to even the lightest particles of matter. Instead, a faint mist of light will fall for eternity through an ever colder and quieter cosmos.

Brian Greene

space light fall

Every moment is as real as every other. Every 'now,' when you say, 'This is the real moment,' is as real as every other 'now' - and therefore all the moments are just out there. Just as every location in space is out there, I think every moment in time is out there, too.

Brian Greene

space real thinking

Science is the greatest of all adventure stories, one that's been unfolding for thousands of years as we have sought to understand ourselves and our surroundings.

Brian Greene

stories adventure years

Sometimes attaining the deepest familiarity with a question is our best substitute for actually having the answer.

Brian Greene

answers sometimes science

That is, you can have nothingness, absolute nothingness for maybe a tiny fraction of a second, if a second can be defined in that arena, but then it falls apart into a something and an anti-something. And that something is then what we call the universe. But can we really understand that or put rigorous mathematics or testable experiments against that? Not yet. So one of the big holy grail of physics is to understand why there is something rather than nothing.

Brian Greene

holy-grail tiny fall