Brian Greene

Physicist, Mathematician, String Theorist, Author

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Brian Greene is a theoretical physicist, mathematician, string theory expert, and author.   He has written many books on string theory, cosmology and quantum mechanics.   He has appeared in various documentaries and films about physics and string theory.   He is one of the most well known physicists of the past fifty years, and a gifted science communicator.

Through his lectures and books, he presents analysis of a variety of different interpretations and theories about quantum mechanics and the nature of reality.  While the ConscioCentric view aligns with a majority of his interpretations, it does not always align with his views.  Primarily, ConscioCentrism proposes that we consciously exist in *all of* the Many Worlds of Relative State Formulation simultaneously, rather than branching into *separate paths*, and that they can be thought of like semi-transparent layers of the 4D block universe, existing in a 5D canvas.   Our consensual, collective consciousness traverses this canvas of Everett's many worlds on a daily basis.   What we experience as the "moment of now" is a highly aligned composite image of this - we see a single solid reality in the moment of now, however, we are really viewing a stacked many worlds block that is very closely aligned on the arrow of time, and following causality.   

Greene's viewpoints and interpretation have been invaluable in sharpening the arguments for the ConscioCentric paradigm, and we recognize him as one of the most gifted educators on the topics of quantum mechanics and cosmology.

Quotes by Brian Greene

"Just as we envision all of space as really being out there, as really existing, we should also envision all of time as really being out there, as really existing too." - Brian Greene

"The ability to manipulate the environment thoughtfully provides the capacity to shift our vantage point, to hover above the timeline and contemplate what was and imagine what will be." - Brian Greene

"When you realize that quantum mechanics underlies all physical processes, from the fusing of atoms in the sun to the neural firings that constitutes the stuff of thought, the far-reaching implications of the proposal become apparent. It says that there’s no such thing as a road untraveled. Yet each such road—each reality—is hidden from all others." - Brian Greene

"Remember ... that in the Many Worlds framework, every potential outcome embodied in a quantum wavefunction—a particle’s spinning this way or that, another particle’s being here or there—is realized in its own separate, parallel universe. The universe we’re aware of at any given moment is but one of an infinite number in which every possible evolution allowed by quantum physics is separately realized." - Brian Greene

"Special relativity declares a similar law for all motion: the combined speed of any object’s motion through space and its motion through time is always precisely equal to the speed of light." - Brian Greene

"So, whereas Bohr argued away by fiat all but one outcome in a measurement, the Many Worlds approach, combined with decoherence, ensures that within each universe it appears as though the other outcomes have vanished. Within each universe, that is, it's as if the probability wave has collapsed. But, compared with the Copenhagen approach, the "as if" provides for a very different picture of the expanse of reality. In the Many Worlds view, all outcomes, not just one, are realized." - Brian Greene

"... the comings and goings we observe in the three dimensions of day-to-day life might themselves be holographic projections of physical processes taking place on a distant, two-dimensional surface." - Brian Greene

"Not only is mind our tether to reality, perhaps it is our tether to eternity." - Brian Greene

"No deviations from the predictions of general relativity have been found in experiments performed with our present level of technology." - Brian Greene

"As we have seen, humans prevailed in no small part because our species has the capacity to pool brain and brawn, to live and work in groups, to divvy up responsibilities and effectively meet the needs of the collective. The greater social cohesion of those in a religiously bound group would have made them a more formidable force in the ancestral world, and according to this line of argument, securing an adaptive role for religious affiliation." - Brian Greene

"Whereas Bohr and the Copenhagen gang would argue that only one of these universes would exist (because the act of measurement, which they claim lies outside of Schrodinger's purview, would collapse away all the others), and whereas a first-pass attempt to go beyond Bohr and extend Schrodinger's math to all particles, including those constituting equipment and brains, yielded dizzying confusion (because a given machine or mind seemed to internalize all possible outcomes simultaneously), Everett found that a more careful reading of Schrodinger's math leads somewhere else: to a plentiful reality populated by an ever-growing collection of universes." - Brian Greene

"If we envision that, somehow, the surface area of a black hole is a measure of the entropy it contains, then the increase in total surface area could be read as an increase in total entropy." - Brian Greene

"Of the many strange things Einstein’s work revealed, the fluidity of time is the hardest to grasp. Whereas everyday experience convinces us that there is an objective concept of time’s passage, relativity shows this to be an artifact of life at slow speeds and weak gravity. Move near light speed, or immerse yourself in a powerful gravitational field, and the familiar, universal conception of time will evaporate. If you’re rushing past me, things I insist happened at the same moment will appear to you to have occurred at different moments. If you’re hanging out near the edge of a black hole, an hour’s passage on your watch will be monumentally longer on mine." - Brian Greene

"Somehow, though, the photons always get it right. Whenever the detector is on—again, even if the choice to turn it on is delayed until long after a given photon has passed through the beam splitter—the photon acts fully like a particle...   It’s as though the photons have a “premonition” of the experimental situation they will encounter farther downstream, and act accordingly. It’s as if a consistent and definite history becomes manifest only after the future to which it leads has been fully settled." - Brian Greene

"How utterly wondrous it is that a collection of the universe’s particles can rise up, examine themselves and the reality they inhabit, determine just how transitory they are, and with a flitting burst of activity create beauty, establish connection, and illuminate mystery." - Brian Greene

"When the brain’s penchant for simplified schematic representations is applied to itself, to its own attention, the resulting description ignores the very physical processes responsible for that attention. That is why thoughts and sensations seem ethereal, as if they come from nowhere, as if they hover in our heads. If your schematic representation of your body were to leave out your arms, the motion of your hands would seem ethereal too." - Brian Greene

"Quantum mechanics challenges this view by revealing, at least in certain circumstances, a capacity to transcend space; long-range quantum connections can bypass spatial separation. Two objects can be far apart in space, but as far as quantum mechanics is concerned, it’s as if they’re a single entity." - Brian Greene

"Bohr advanced a heavyhanded remedy: evolve probability waves according to Schrodinger's equation whenever you're not looking or performing any kind of measurement. But when you do look, Bohr continued, you should throw Schrodinger's equation aside and declare that your observation has caused the wave to collapse.  Now, not only is this prescription ungainly, not only is it arbitrary, not only does it lack a mathematical underpinning, it's not even clear. " - Brian Greene

"General relativity then establishes that objects move toward regions where time elapses more slowly; in a sense, all objects “want” to age as slowly as possible. From an Einsteinian perspective, that explains why an object falls when you let go of it." - Brian Greene

"Everett's approach, which he described as "objectively deterministic" with probability "reappearing at the subjective level," resonated with this strategy. And he was thrilled by the direction. As he noted in the 1956 draft of his dissertation, the framework offered to bridge the position of Einstein (who famously believed that a fundamental theory of physics should not involve probability) and the position of Bohr (who was perfectly happy with a fundamental theory that did). According to Everett, the Many Worlds approach accommodated both positions, the difference between them merely being one of perspective. Einstein's perspective is the mathematical one in which the grand probability wave of all particles relentlessly evolves by the Schrodinger equation, with chance playing absolutely no role. I like to picture Einstein soaring high above the many worlds of Many Worlds, watching as Schrodinger's equation fully dictates how the entire panorama unfolds, and happily concluding that even though quantum mechanics is correct, God doesn't play dice. Bohr's perspective is that of an inhabitant in one of the worlds, also happy, using probabilities to explain, with stupendous precision, those observations to which his limited perspective gives him access." - Brian Greene

"The skyscraper is but a physical realization of the information contained in the architect's design." - Brian Greene

"Since gravity and acceleration are equivalent, if you feel gravity’s influence, you must be accelerating. Einstein argued that only those observers who feel no force at all—including the force of gravity—are justified in declaring that they are not accelerating." - Brian Greene

"General relativity provides the choreography for an entwined cosmic dance of space, time, matter, and energy." - Brian Greene

"There's a difference between making predictions and understanding them. The beauty of physics, its raison d'etre, is that it offers insights into why things in the universe behave the way they do. The ability to predict behavior is a big part of physics' power, but the heart of physics would be lost if it didn't give us a deep understanding of the hidden reality underlying what we observe. And should the Many Worlds approach be right, what a spectacular reality our unwavering commitment to understanding predictions will have uncovered." - Brian Greene

"The very existence of galaxies, stars, planets, and life itself derives from microscopic quantum uncertainty amplified by inflationary expansion." - Brian Greene

"According to special relativity, no longer can space and time be thought of as universal concepts set in stone, experienced identically by everyone. Rather, space and time emerged from Einstein's reworking as malleable constructs whose form and appearance depend on one's state of motion." - Brian Greene

"An everyday hologram bears no resemblance to the three-dimensional image it produces. On its surface appear only various lines, arcs, and swirls etched into the plastic. Yet a complex transformation, carried out operationally by shining a laser through the plastic, turns those markings into a recognizable three-dimensional image. Which means that the plastic hologram and the three-dimensional image embody the same data, even though the information in one is unrecognizable from the perspective of the other. Similarly, examination of the quantum field theory on the boundary of Maldacena's universe shows that it bears no obvious resemblance to the string theory inhabiting the interior. If a physicist were presented with both theories, not being told of the connections we've now laid out, he or she would more than likely conclude that they were unrelated. Nevertheless, the mathematical dictionary linking the two-functioning as a laser does for ordinary holograms-makes explicit that anything taking place in one has an incarnation in the other. At the same time, examination of the dictionary reveals that just as with a real hologram, the information in each appears scrambled on translation into the other's language." - Brian Greene

"In Plato's parable of the cave, our senses are privy only to a flattened, diminished version of the true, more richly textured, reality. Maldacena's flattened world is very different. Far from being diminished, it tells the full story. It's a profoundly different story from the one we're used to. But his flattened world may well be the primary narrator." - Brian Greene

"Although it may not be immediately apparent, we have now come to an intriguing point. The second law of thermodynamics seems to have given us an arrow of time, one that emerges when physical systems have a large number of constituents. “For things with many constituents, going from lower to higher entropy—from order to disorder—is easy, so it happens all the time. Going from higher to lower entropy—from disorder to order—is harder, so it happens rarely, at best." - Brian Greene

"Physicists traced the failure to the jitters of quantum uncertainty. Mathematical techniques had been developed for analyzing the jitters of the strong, weak, and electromagnetic fields, but when the same methods were applied to the gravitational field-a field that governs the curvature of spacetime itself-they proved ineffective. This left the mathematics saturated with inconsistencies such as infinite probabilities." - Brian Greene

"The uncertainty principle establishes that regardless of what equipment you use or what techniques you employ, if you increase the resolution of your measurement of one property, there is an unavoidable cost: you necessarily reduce how accurately you can measure a complementary property. As a prime example, the uncertainty principle shows that the more accurately you measure an object’s position, the less accurately you can measure its speed, and vice versa." - Brian Greene

"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. " - Brian Greene

"When you buy a jacket, you pick the size to ensure it fits. Similarly, we live in a universe in which the amount of dark energy fits our biological make-up. If the amount of dark energy were substantially different from what we've measured, the environmental conditions would be inhospitable to our form of life." - Brian Greene

"The revelation we've come to is that we can trust our memories of a past with lower, not higher, entropy only if the big bang - the process, event, or happening that brought the universe into existence - started off the universe in an extraordinarily special, highly ordered state of low entropy." - Brian Greene

"Kaluza revealed that in a universe with an additional dimension of space, gravity and electromagnetism can both be described in terms of spatial ripples. Gravity ripples through the familiar three spatial dimensions, while electromagnetism ripples through the fourth. An outstanding problem with Kaluza's proposal was to explain why we don't see this fourth spatial dimension. It was here that Klein made his mark by suggesting the resolution explained above: dimensions beyond those we directly experience can elude our senses and our equipment if they're sufficiently small." - Brian Greene

"Schrödinger raised some eyebrows when he invoked the Hindu Upanishads to suggest that we are all part of an “omnipresent, all-comprehending eternal self,” and the freedom of will we each exert reflects our divine powers." - Brian Greene

"But a proper exegesis of the second law of thermodynamics renders an intelligent designer unnecessary. As surprising as it is remarkable, regions containing concentrated energy and order (stars being the archetypal example) are a natural consequence of the universe diligently toeing the second law’s line and becoming ever more disordered. Indeed, such pockets of order prove to be catalysts that facilitate the universe, over the long run, to reach its entropic potential. Along the way, and as part of this entropic progression, they also facilitate the emergence of life." - Brian Greene

"(Regarding recreating primordial soup RNA/DNA protein evolution)  To date, laboratory attempts to recreate these processes are intriguing but inconclusive. We have yet to create life from scratch. I have little doubt that one day, perhaps not far off, we will." - Brian Greene

"Within the modified equations, Kaluza found the ones Einstein had already used successfully to describe gravity in the familiar three dimensions of space and one of time. But because his new formulation included an additional dimension of space, Kaluza found an additional equation. Lo and behold, when Kaluza derived this equation he recognized it as the very one Maxwell had discovered half a century earlier to describe the electromagnetic field." - Brian Greene

"I expect that regardless of where the search for the foundations of space and time may take us, regardless of modifications to string/M-theory that may be waiting for us around the bend, holography will continue to be a guiding concept." - Brian Greene

"The first variation is called the delayed-choice experiment and was suggested in 1980 by the eminent physicist John Wheeler. The experiment brushes up against an eerily odd-sounding question: Does the past depend on the future?" - Brian Greene

"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

"The genius of inflation's pioneers was to provide an answer. They showed that the negative pressure required for an antigravity burst naturally emerges from a novel mechanism involving ingredients known as quantum fields." - Brian Greene

"The world of the everyday suddenly seemed nothing but an inverted magic act, lulling its audience into believing in the usual, familiar conceptions of space and time, while the astonishing truth of quantum reality lay carefully guarded by nature’s sleights of hand." - Brian Greene