Brian Greene Quotes

Exploring the unknown requires tolerating uncertainty.

My best teachers were not the ones who knew all the answers, but those who were deeply excited by questions they couldn't answer.

Science is the process that takes us from confusion to understanding.

I like to think that Einstein would look at string theory’s journey and smile, enjoying the theory’s remarkable geometrical features while feeling kinship with fellow travelers on the long and winding road toward unification.

When kids look up to great scientists the way they do to great musicians and actors, civilization will jump to the next level

The universe is incredibly wondrous, incredibly beautiful, and it fills me with a sense that there is some underlying explanation that we have yet to fully understand. If someone wants to place the word 'God' on those collections of words, it's OK with me.

Intelligence is the ability to take in information from the world and to find patterns in that information that allow you to organize your perceptions and understand the external world.

I have long thought that anyone who does not regularly - or ever - gaze up and see the wonder and glory of a dark night sky filled with countless stars loses a sense of their fundamental connectedness to the universe.

All you are is a bag of particles acting out the laws of physics. That to me is pretty clear.

Understanding requires insight. Insight must be anchored.

Physics grapples with the largest questions the universe presents. Where did the totality of reality come from? Did time have a beginning?

We're on this planet for the briefest of moments in cosmic terms, and I want to spend that time thinking about what I consider the deepest questions.

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

The bottom line is that time travel is allowed by the laws of physics.

Free will is the sensation of making a choice. The sensation is real, but the choice seems illusory. Laws of physics determine the future.

I was holding [my four-year-old daughter] and I said, 'Sophia, I love you more than anything in the universe.' And she turned to me and said, 'Daddy, universe or multiverse?'

In the far, far future, essentially all matter will have returned to energy. But because of the enormous expansion of space, this energy will be spread so thinly that it will hardly ever convert back to even the lightest particles of matter. Instead, a faint mist of light will fall for eternity through an ever colder and quieter cosmos.

Physicists are more like avant-garde composers, willing to bend traditional rules... Mathematicians are more like classical composers.

Science is very good at answering the 'how' questions. 'How did the universe evolve to the form that we see?' But it is woefully inadequate in addressing the 'why' questions. 'Why is there a universe at all?' These are the meaning questions, which many people think religion is particularly good at dealing with.

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

No matter how hard you try to teach your cat general relativity, you're going to fail.

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?

There may be many Big Bangs that happened at various and far-flung locations, each creating its own swelling, spatial expanse, each creating a universe - our universe being the result of only one of those Big Bangs.

I believe the process of going from confusion to understanding is a precious, even emotional, experience that can be the foundation of self-confidence.

Our eyes only see the big dimensions, but beyond those there are others that escape detection because they are so small.