Brian Greene · 425 pages
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“The boldness of asking deep questions may require unforeseen flexibility if we are to accept the answers.”
― Brian Greene, quote from The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory
“...things are the way they are in our universe because if they weren't, we wouldn't be here to notice.”
― Brian Greene, quote from The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory
“...quantum mechanics—the physics of our world—requires that you hold such pedestrian complaints in abeyance.”
― Brian Greene, quote from The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory
“We all love a good story. We all love a tantalizing mystery. We all love the underdog pressing onward against seemingly insurmountable odds. We all, in one form or another, are trying to make sense of the world around us. And all of these elements lie at the core of modern physics. The story is among the grandest -- the unfolding of the entire universe; the mystery is among the toughest -- finding out how the cosmos came to be; the odds are among the most daunting -- bipeds, newly arrived by cosmic time scales trying to reveal the secrets of the ages; and the quest is among the deepest -- the search for fundamental laws to explain all we see and beyond, from the tiniest particles to the most distant galaxies.”
― Brian Greene, quote from The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory
“Sometimes attaining the deepest familiarity with a question is our best substitute for actually having the answer.”
― Brian Greene, quote from The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory
“Experience informs intuition. But it does more than that: Experience sets the frame within which we analyze and interpret what we perceive. You would no doubt expect, for instance, that the "wild child" raised by a pack of wolves would interpret the world from a perspective that differs substantially from your own. Even less extreme comparisons, such as those between people raised in very different cultural traditions, serve to underscore the degree to which our experiences determine our interpretive mindset.”
― Brian Greene, quote from The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory
“For string theory to make sense, the universe should have nine spacial dimensions and one time dimension, for a total of ten dimensions.”
― Brian Greene, quote from The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory
“As Feynman once wrote, "[Quantum mechanics] describes nature as absurd from the point of view of common sense. And it fully agrees with experiment. So I hope you can accept nature as She is—absurd.”
― Brian Greene, quote from The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory
“Even if we choose to use the nonstandard notion of distance and thereby describe the radius as being shorter than the Planck length, the physics we encounter—as discussed in previous sections—will be identical to that of a universe in which the radius, in the conventional sense of distance, is larger than the Planck length”
― Brian Greene, quote from The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory
“According to string theory, if we could examine these particles with even greater precision—a precision many orders of magnitude beyond our present technological capacity—we would find that each is not pointlike, but instead consists of a tiny one-dimensional loop. Like an infinitely thin rubber band, each particle contains a vibrating, oscillating, dancing filament that physicists, lacking Gell-Mann's literary flair, have named a string.”
― Brian Greene, quote from The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory
“…The wonders of life and the universe are mere reflections of microscopic particles engaged in a pointless dance fully choreographed by the laws of physics.”
― Brian Greene, quote from The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory
“Far from being accidental details, the properties of nature's basic building blocks are deeply entwined with the fabric of space and time.”
― Brian Greene, quote from The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory
“Now, from special relativity we know that energy and mass are two sides of the same coin: Greater energy means greater mass, and vice versa. Thus, according to string theory, the mass of an elementary particle is determined by the energy of the vibrational pattern of its internal string. Heavier particles have internal strings that vibrate more energetically, while lighter particles have internal strings that vibrate less energetically.”
― Brian Greene, quote from The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory
“If string theory is right, the microscopic fabric of our universe is a richly intertwined multidimensional labyrinth within which the strings of the universe endlessly twist and vibrate, rhythmically beating out the laws of the cosmos.”
― Brian Greene, quote from The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory
“at high enough energy and temperature—such as occurred a mere fraction of a second after the big bang—electromagnetic and weak force fields dissolve into one another, take on indistinguishable characteristics, and are more accurately called electroweak fields.”
― Brian Greene, quote from The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory
“First, gravity and quantum mechanics are part and parcel of how the universe works and therefore any purported unified theory must incorporate both. String theory accomplishes this. Second, studies by physicists over the past century have revealed that there are other key ideas—many of which have been experimentally confirmed—that appear central to our understanding of the universe. These include the concepts of spin, the family structure of matter particles, messenger particles, gauge symmetry, the equivalence principle, symmetry breaking, and supersymmetry, to name a few. All of these concepts emerge naturally from string theory. Third, unlike more conventional theories such as the standard model, which has 19 free parameters that can be adjusted to ensure agreement with experimental measurements, string theory has no adjustable parameters. In principle, its implications should be thoroughly definitive—they should provide an unambiguous test of whether the theory is right or wrong.”
― Brian Greene, quote from The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory
“For instance, a black hole as light as a small asteroid would emit about as much radiation as a million-megaton hydrogen bomb, with radiation concentrated in the gamma-ray part of the electromagnetic spectrum.”
― Brian Greene, quote from The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory
Brian Greene
Born place: in New York City, The United States
Born date February 9, 1963
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“... now and again we would happen to step out of the familiar universe into a sudden sharp shock of sweetly scented air, sudden as spilled perfume, piercing as crystal, dark and sweet as the sound of oboes.”
― Steven Millhauser, quote from Edwin Mullhouse: The Life and Death of an American Writer 1943-1954 by Jeffrey Cartwright
“Hell, we make our own ifs. I had better things to think about than what could have happened”
― Roger Zelazny, quote from The Guns of Avalon
“In the wake of World War I, however, the British and French took out their imperial pens and carved up what remained of the Ottoman dynastic empire, and created an assortment of nation-states in the Middle East modeled along their own. The borders of these new states consisted of neat polygons—with right angles that were always in sharp contrast to the chaotic reality on the ground. In the Middle East, modern Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine, Jordan and the various Persian Gulf oil states all traced their shapes and origins back to this process; even most of their names were imposed by outsiders. In other words, many of the states in the Middle East today—Egypt being the most notable exception—were not willed into existence by their own people or developed organically out of a common historical memory or”
― quote from From Beirut to Jerusalem
“In the long run, the map was a triumph of marketing as much as empirical science. It helped a good idea find a wide audience.”
― Steven Johnson, quote from The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic - and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World
“Work never failed to give me that same ego boost I had experienced when filming that first cereal commercial. People bent over backward to give me what I wanted. And what kid doesn’t want adults eating out of his hand, catering to his every wish? Because life was all about getting to the place where I could be happy all the time, acting was the perfect venue. It wasn’t only the ego boost that kept me going. I truly loved what I did.”
― Kirk Cameron, quote from Still Growing: An Autobiography
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