Latest Brian Greene Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• General relativity is in the old Newtonian framework where you predict what will happen, not the probability of what will happen. And putting together the probabilities of quantum mechanics with the certainty of general relativity, that's been the big challenge and that's why we have been excited about string theory, as it's one of the only approaches that can put it together.

  Brian Greene

  Challenges, Together, Excited

  "Professor Brian Greene answers everything you wanted to know about string theory and the multiverse". www.abc.net.au. February 26, 2016.

• So many galaxies, so many planets out there in the universe circling so many stars... it just feels like there's a very good chance that there is another Earth-like planet out there that is able to support some kind of life similar to what we're familiar with.

  Brian Greene

  Stars, Support, Earth

  "Professor Brian Greene answers everything you wanted to know about string theory and the multiverse". www.abc.net.au. February 26, 2016.

• In quantum mechanics there is A causing B. The equations do not stand outside that usual paradigm of physics. The real issue is that the kinds of things you predict in quantum mechanics are different from the kinds of things you predict using general relativity. Quantum mechanics, that big, new, spectacular remarkable idea is that you only predict probabilities, the likelihood of one outcome or another. That's the new idea.

  Brian Greene

  Real, Ideas, Issues

  "Professor Brian Greene answers everything you wanted to know about string theory and the multiverse". "Lateline", www.abc.net.au. February 26, 2016.

• 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

  Reality, Musical, Would Be

  "Professor Brian Greene answers everything you wanted to know about string theory and the multiverse". www.abc.net.au. February 26, 2016.

• In essence, we string theorists have been trying to work out the score of the universe, the harmonies of the universe, the mathematical vibrations that the strings would play. So musical metaphors have been with us in science since the beginning.

  Brian Greene

  Essence, Play, Work Out

  "Professor Brian Greene answers everything you wanted to know about string theory and the multiverse". www.abc.net.au. February 26, 2016.

• 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

  Fall, Holy Grail, Tiny

  "Professor Brian Greene answers everything you wanted to know about string theory and the multiverse". www.abc.net.au. February 26, 2016.

• But if you think about a practical implication of enriching your life and giving you a sense of being part of a larger cosmos and possibly being able to use this [gravitational waves] as a tool in the future maybe to listen not just to black holes colliding, but maybe listen to the big bang itself, those kind of applications may happen in the not too distant future.

  Brian Greene

  Thinking, Giving, Black

  "Email Professor Brian Greene answers everything you wanted to know about string theory and the multiverse". "Lateline", www.abc.net.au. February 25, 2016.

• We do not know whether there are extra dimensions or multiverse. Let's go forward with the possible ideas that come out of the mathematics. It's hard for us to imagine a universe that would have no time at all.

  Brian Greene

  Ideas, Dimensions, Imagine

  "Professor Brian Greene answers everything you wanted to know about string theory and the multiverse". www.abc.net.au. February 26, 2016.

• Time allows change to take place and the very evolution of the universe is what requires some conception of time. Mathematically can we write down a universe that doesn't have time? Sure. Do we think that would be realised in the larger reality that is out there? None of us take that possibility seriously.

  Brian Greene

  Writing, Reality, Thinking

  "Professor Brian Greene answers everything you wanted to know about string theory and the multiverse". "Lateline", www.abc.net.au. February 26, 2016.