• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Scientist has universe on string

Posted on: Tuesday, 28 October 2003, 06:00 CST

NEW YORK - What could account for how the universe ticks?

Could it be love? Money? Or, maybe, infinitesimal quivering strands whose vibration patterns define all the universe's forces and matter?

That last one is the hot, new Theory of Everything, otherwise known as string theory. And now Brian Greene, long absorbed in the quest to tie up all its loose ends, has tackled a challenge almost as impressive: He helps viewers understand what string theory is.

One of the world's leading physicists, Greene untangles strings in a mind-expanding "Nova" called "The Elegant Universe," based on his 1999 best seller of the same title. It airs 8 to 10 p.m. Tuesday on PBS, with a final hour airing Nov. 4.

"The Elegant Universe" is full of clear talk, lively visuals and whimsical demonstrations. And it's mercifully free of math.

"We worked hard to get at the core ideas," says Greene, "and to strip away the details that are important to the science but not important to the understanding of the science."

For years a vegan, Greene is lunching on salad at a restaurant near Columbia University, where he works, as he speaks of mysteries beyond mortal grasp or are they?

"For thousands of years," he says, "people have wondered what the universe is made of, how it came to be and what its future looks like. But recent breakthroughs are giving us some very sharp insights into those questions."

The first moments of "The Elegant Universe" find Greene at the front door of the Princeton, N.J., house where Albert Einstein lived and worked. And where, with Einstein's passing a half-century ago, he left unfulfilled his dream of finding a unified theory that could govern everything in the universe.

In his earthshaking theory of general relativity, published in 1916, Einstein argued that the three dimensions of space and the single dimension of time are woven into an orderly, smooth fabric of "space-time," against which gravity asserts itself like someone on a trampoline.

This was a revolutionary way to express the behavior of big and heavy objects, such as stars and galaxies.

Then, in the 1920s, another camp of physicists had a breakthrough they called quantum mechanics. This theory proved useful at the subatomic level, a realm it characterizes as jittery and unpredictable.

But, to put it mildly, the two theories were at odds.

What's the problem with that? Exhibiting his flair for shaping complex ideas into everyday terms, Greene whisks his viewers to Times Square.

"Imagine," he says from a street corner, "you lived in a city ruled not by one set of traffic laws, but two sets of laws that conflicted with each other."

We see "Walk" and "Don't Walk" signs simultaneously flashing. Then we hear a crash

Wanted: An all-encompassing formula.

String theory, says Greene in the film, proposes that "everything in the universe, from the tiniest particle to the most distant star, is made from one kind of ingredient: unimaginably small, vibrating strands of energy called strings."

Turns out the subatomic billiard balls we learned about in school might be composed of even smaller animated pasta. "As they vibrate in a multitude of different ways, they are making not notes but all the constituents of nature."

A sort of "cosmic symphony," string theory can signal a major shift in thinking.

"Sometimes," grins Greene, now casting an eye at his meal, "I ask myself why am I vegan? My salad is just little strings vibrating in one particular way. If they were vibrating a different way, my lunch would be something else."

Boyish-looking at 40, the Harvard- and Oxford-educated Greene is, in many ways, a regular guy, wearing jeans, a denim shirt and a couple of days' stubble. He recalls how, growing up just a few blocks away, he planned to be a professional bowler. Then he discovered wrestling. And he fell in love with math.

"I was so impressed by the ability of math to make sense of things, without your hardly knowing anything at all," he says.

"It's rare that you have a kid who's a history prodigy or a psychology expert," he notes. "You need maturity, you need experience. But for math, you don't need anything. You just need to know the rules, and then you can go."

As an adult, Greene is helping rewrite rules to fine-tune string theory "this one powerful, elegant notion that gives rise to everything we see." By explaining how on "The Elegant Universe," he brings us into the equation.

For more information, visit www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant

More News in this Category