Physics is the study of, well, everything. Time, space, matter, energy—whether it’s the gravity that keeps your coffee in your cup or the thermodynamics that heats up your lunch, physics isn’t the stuff of a faraway land filled with mathematicians and dusty blackboard erasers. It’s intertwined with every aspect of our lives.
Those lives currently feel like they’re at an inflection point. Volatile global politics, fracturing communities, horrific terrorism, humanoid robots—it can seem like the world as we know it is unravelling. But we haven’t actually known this world for very long. Relative to the billions of years of ebb and flow in the cosmos, Earth’s currently peaceful, mostly lava-less existence is actually fairly idyllic.
At a time when the world seems more perplexing than ever, understanding the laws and origins of the universe can give us some much-needed perspective. That’s where Brian Greene can help.
Greene is one of the most well-respected physicists of contemporary times. (But what is time, anyway?) He’s currently a professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University, where he continues to ponder the existence of the universe, but the ripples of his contributions over the past 30 years resonate more like gravitational waves. From helping popularize string theory, which aims to interconnect all the particles and fundamental forces of the natural world, to explaining complicated quantum concepts using whiskey glasses and cigars in books such as The Elegant Universe, The Hidden Reality, and The Fabric of the Cosmos, Greene effortlessly blends the galaxies’ most perplexing phenomena with our daily lives.
Quartz spoke with Greene ahead of his panels at the World Science Festival in New York, where he is shedding new light on black holes, exploring the enigma of antimatter, and discussing the neuroscience behind belief. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
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