Brian Greene Quotes

33 Sourced Quotes

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

Brian Greene
The boldness of asking deep questions may require unforeseen flexibility if we are to accept the answers.

Brian Greene
Nature does weird things. It lives on the edge. But it is careful to bob and weave from the fatal punch of logical paradox.

Brian Greene
The tantalizing discomfort of perplexity is what inspires otherwise ordinary men and women to extraordinary feats of ingenuity and creativity; nothing quite focuses the mind like dissonant details awaiting harmonious resolution.

Brian Greene
To open our eyes to the true nature of the universe has always been one of physics' primary purposes.

Brian Greene
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
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
Because observations are all we have, we take them seriously. We choose hard data and the framework of mathematics as our guides, not unrestrained imagination or unrelenting skepticism, and seek the simplest yet most wide-reaching theories capable of explaining and predicting the outcome of today's and future experiments.

Brian Greene
Calculations that merge the equations of general relativity and those of quantum mechanic typically yield one and the same ridiculous answer: infinity. Like a sharp rap on the wrist from an old-time schoolteacher, an infinite answer is nature's way of telling us that we are doing something that is quite wrong.

Brian Greene
When you know the answer you want, it is often all too easy to figure out a way of getting it.

Brian Greene
The arrow of time, through the defining role it plays in everyday life and its intimate link with the origin of the universe, lies at a singular threshold between the reality we experience and the more refined reality cutting-edge science seeks to uncover.

Brian Greene
Space and time capture the imagination like no other scientific subject. For good reason. They form the arena of reality, the very fabric of the cosmos.

Brian Greene
One measure of the depth of a physical theory is the extent to which it poses serious challenges to aspects of our worldview that had previously seemed immutable

Brian Greene
It took the brashness of a Newton to plant the flag of modern scientific inquiry and never turn back.

Brian Greene
Physicists spend a large part of their lives in a state of confusion. It's an occupational hazard. To excel in physics is to embrace doubt while walking the road to clarity.

Brian Greene
You must allow Nature to dictate what is, and what is not, sensible.

Brian Greene
Black holes have the universe's most inscrutable poker faces.

Brian Greene
Physicists are more like avant-garde composers, willing to bend traditional rules and brush the edge of acceptability in the search for solutions. Mathematicians are more like classical composers, typically working within a much tighter framework, reluctant to go to the next step until all previous ones have been established with due rigor. Each approach has its advantages as well as drawbacks; each provides a unique outlet for creative discovery. Like modern and classical music, it's not that one approach is right and the other wrong – the methods one chooses to use are largely a matter of taste and training.

Brian Greene
The real question is whether all your pondering and analyses will convince you that life is worth living. That's what it all comes down to.

Brian Greene
String theory has the potential to show that all of the wondrous happenings in the universe - from the frantic dance of subatomic quarks to the stately waltz of orbiting binary stars; from the primordial fireball of the big bang to the majestic swirl of heavenly galaxies - are reflections of one, grand physical principle, one master equation.

Brian Greene
Quantum mechanics—the physics of our world—requires that you hold such pedestrian complaints in abeyance.

Brian Greene
Assessing existence while failing to embrace the insights of modern physics would be like wrestling in the dark with an unknown opponent.

Brian Greene
Cosmology is among the oldest subjects to captivate our species. And it's no wonder. We're storytellers, and what could be more grand than the story of creation?

Brian Greene
You should never be surprised by or feel the need to explain why any physical system is in a high entropy state.

Brian Greene
Physicists have come to realize that mathematics, when used with sufficient care, is a proven pathway to truth.

Brian Greene
Evidence in support of general relativity came quickly. Astronomers had long known that Mercury's orbital motion around the sun deviated slightly from what Newton's mathematics predicted. In 1915, Einstein used his new equations to recalculate Mercury's trajectory and was able to explain the discrepancy, a realization he later described to his colleague Adrian Fokker as so thrilling that for some hours it gave him heart palpitations.

Brian Greene
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
Understanding requires insight. Insight must be anchored.

Brian Greene
A watch worn by a particle of light would not tick at all. Light realizes the dreams of Ponce de Leon and the cosmetics industry: it doesn't age.

Brian Greene
According to inflation, the more than 100 billion galaxies, sparkling throughout space like heavenly diamonds, are nothing but quantum mechanics writ large across the sky. To me, this realization is one of the greatest wonders of the modern scientific age.

Brian Greene