Brian Greene

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Brian Greene

Brian Greene at Harvard University
Born	February 9, 1963 New York City, USA
Residence	United States
Nationality	American
Field	Physics
Institution	Cornell University Columbia University
Alma mater	Harvard University Oxford University
Known for	String theory The Elegant Universe The Fabric of the Cosmos
Religion	Vegan

Brian Greene (born February 9, 1963), is a physicist and one of the best-known string theorists. Since 1996 he has been a professor at Columbia University. Born in New York City, Greene was a prodigy in mathematics. His skill in mathematics was such that by the time he was twelve years old, he was being privately tutored in mathematics by a Columbia University professor because he had surpassed the high-school math level. His father, Alan, was a one-time vaudeville performer and high school dropout who later worked as a voice coach and composer. [1]. In 1980, Brian Greene entered Harvard to major in physics, and with his bachelor's degree, Greene went to Oxford University in England, as a Rhodes Scholar.

His book The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory (1999) is a popularization of superstring theory and M-theory. It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction, and winner of The Aventis Prizes for Science Books in 2000. The book talks about and opens an argument on how Calabi-Yau manifolds, as the multi-dimensional (11D, 16D, 26D) points, may comprise our space-time. The Elegant Universe was later made into a PBS television special with Dr. Greene as the narrator. His second book, The Fabric of the Cosmos (2004), is about space, time, and the nature of the universe. Aspects covered in this book include non-local particle entanglement as it relates to special relativity and basic explanations of string theory. It is an examination of the very nature of matter and reality, covering such topics as spacetime and cosmology, origins and unification, and including an exploration into reality and the imagination.

Brian Greene also dabbles in acting; he helped John Lithgow with scientific dialogue for the television series 3rd Rock from the Sun, and he had a cameo role in the film Frequency. Recently, he was a consultant in the time-travel movie Déjà Vu which used some theoretical physics terms. He also had a cameo appearance as an Intel Engineer in 2007's "The Last Mimzy".

[edit] Trivia

• Brian Greene graduated in 1980 from Stuyvesant High School in New York City, where he was a classmate of Lisa Randall.
• He earned a Ph.D. from Oxford in 1986.
• He joined the physics faculty of Cornell University in 1990.
• Was appointed to a full professorship at Cornell University in 1995.
• Joined Columbia shortly afterward in 1996.
• He has lectured at both a general and a technical level in more than twenty-five countries and is widely regarded for a number of groundbreaking discoveries in superstring theory.
• In his research, Professor Greene has focused on the extra dimensions required by string theory, and sought to understand their physical, mathematical, and observational consequences.
• Professor Greene has had many media appearances including Charlie Rose, Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, The Century with Peter Jennings, CNN, TIME, Nightline in Primetime, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, The Late Show with David Letterman, and he recently hosted a three-part Nova special based on his book.
• Currently, Professor Greene is co-director of Columbia's Institute for Strings, Cosmology, and Astroparticle Physics (ISCAP), and is leading a research program applying superstring theory to cosmological questions.
• He is a vegan.
• He is one of very few people to have an Erdős–Bacon number -- both an Erdős number, connecting him to Paul Erdős by authorship of a mathematics paper, and a Bacon number, connecting him to Kevin Bacon because he appeared in a film, Frequency (2000).
• He worked with Roger Penrose as graduate student who was his graduate school supervisor before he changed supervisors.
• He was a consultant in the movie Déjà Vu starring Denzel Washington.
• Greene was mentioned in the 2002 Angel episode "Supersymmetry".

[edit] Important contributions to physics

• Brian Greene has worked on mirror symmetry, relating two different Calabi-Yau manifolds (concretely, relating the conifold to one of its orbifolds).
• He (and David Morrison and Paul Aspinwall) also understood the flop transition, a mild form of topology change.
• Together with David Morrison and Andrew Strominger, he showed that topology in string theory can change at the conifold point.
• He currently studies string cosmology, especially the imprints of trans-Planckian physics on the cosmic microwave background, and brane-gas cosmologies that could explain why the space around us has three large dimensions.
• Expanded on the suggestion of a black hole electron, namely that the electron may be a black hole.

[edit] Publications

• R. Easther, B. R. Greene, M. G. Jackson and D. Kabat, "String windings in the early universe. JCAP {0502}, 009 (2005).
• R. Easther, B. Greene, W. Kinney, G. Shiu, "A Generic Estimate of Trans-Planckian Modifications to the Primordial Power Spectrum in Inflation". Phys. Rev. D66 (2002). 023518.
• R. Easther, B. Greene, W. Kinney, G. Shiu, "Inflation as a Probe of Short Distance Physics". Phys. Rev. D64 (2001) 103502.
• Brian R. Greene, "D-Brane Topology Changing Transitions". Nucl. Phys. B525 (1998) 284-296.
• Michael R. Douglas, Brian R. Greene, David R. Morrison, "Orbifold Resolution by D-Branes". Nucl.Phys. B506 (1997) 84-106.
• Brian R. Greene, David R. Morrison, Andrew Strominger, "Black Hole Condensation and the Unification of String Vacua". Nucl.Phys. B451 (1995) 109-120.
• P.S. Aspinwall, B.R. Greene, D.R. Morrison, "Calabi-Yau Moduli Space, Mirror Manifolds and Spacetime Topology Change in String Theory". Nucl.Phys. B416 (1994) 414-480.
• B.R.Greene and M.R.Plesser, "Duality in Calabi-Yau Moduli Space". Nucl. Phys. B338 (1990) 15.
• Brian R. Greene, "[The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality]", 2005.
• Brian R. Greene, "The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory", 1999

[edit] See also

• List of physicists
• List of theoretical physicists
• String Theory
• Theory of everything
• Unified Field Theory

[edit] External links

• Brian Greene's Columbia faculty homepage
• The Elegant Universe – PBS television program's website
• The Future of String Theory - A conversation with Brian Greene from Scientific American
• Edge.org – A talk with Brian Greene (requires Real Player).
• Find author Brian R. Greene in Stanford SPIRES HEP database.
• Radio Interview from This Week in Science August 10, 2005 Broadcast
• Brian Greene at the Internet Movie Database