Brian Greene
Brian Greene
Brian Randolph Greeneis an American theoretical physicist and string theorist. He has been a professor at Columbia University since 1996 and chairman of the World Science Festival since co-founding it in 2008. Greene has worked on mirror symmetry, relating two different Calabi–Yau manifolds. He also described the flop transition, a mild form of topology change, showing that topology in string theory can change at the conifold point...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth9 February 1963
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
I think math is a hugely creative field, because there are some very well-defined operations that you have to work within. You are, in a sense, straightjacketed by the rules of the mathematics. But within that constrained environment, it's up to you what you do with the symbols.
One of the strangest features of string theory is that it requires more than the three spatial dimensions that we see directly in the world around us. That sounds like science fiction, but it is an indisputable outcome of the mathematics of string theory.
When general relativity was first put forward in 1915, the math was very unfamiliar to most physicists. Now we teach general relativity to advanced high school students.
When I give this talk to a physics audience, I remove the quotes from my 'Theorem'.
Physicists are more like avant-garde composers, willing to bend traditional rules... Mathematicians are more like classical composers.
In my own research when I'm working with equations, I never feel like I really understand what I'm doing if I'm solely relying on the mathematics for my understanding. I need to have a visual picture in my mind. I'm constantly translating from the math to some intuitive mind's-eye picture.
Over the centuries, monumental upheavals in science have emerged time and again from following the leads set out by mathematics.
We had guys in the past who wanted to win; now we have guys who expect to win. It's an attitude shift in the way we think about ourselves.
Jake finished close behind Ben White of eventual team champion Liverpool. Jake has been looking forward to this race against one of the top runners in New York and came away disappointed. I think this set back will fuel Jake to beat White next time.
Science is a self-correcting discipline that can, in subsequent generations, show that previous ideas were not correct.
We know that if supersymmetric particles exist, they must be very heavy; otherwise we would have spotted them by now.
There may have been many big bangs, one of which created our universe. The other bangs created other universes.
What makes a Beethoven symphony spectacular, what makes a Brahms rhapsody spectacular is that the patterns are wondrous.
I think the appropriate response for a physicist is: 'I do not find the concept of God very interesting, because I cannot test it.'