My best teachers were not the ones who knew all the answers, but those who were deeply excited by questions they couldn't answer.
Black holes, we all know, are these regions where if an object falls in, it can't get out, but the puzzle that many struggled with over the decades is, what happens to the information that an object contains when it falls into a black hole. Is it simply lost?
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote discusses the mystery of information loss in black holes, a fundamental question in theoretical physics.
In this quote, Brian Greene highlights a significant and perplexing issue in astrophysics regarding black holes: when an object falls into a black hole, it is believed that the physical information about that object may not be recoverable. This raises profound questions about the nature of information, the fabric of reality, and the laws governing the universe, challenging our understanding of physics and prompting extensive debate among scientists.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture on black holes, this quote could be used to emphasize the complexities of universe and physical laws.
More from Brian Greene
All quotes →All mathematics is is a language that is well tuned, finely honed, to describe patterns; be it patterns in a star, which has five points that are regularly arranged, be it patterns in numbers like 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 that follow very regular progression.
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.
So: if you buy the notion that reality consists of the things in your freeze-frame mental image right now, and if you agree that your now is no more valid than the now of someone located far away in space who can move freely, then reality encompasses all of the events in spacetime.
Physicists are more like avant-garde composers, willing to bend traditional rules... Mathematicians are more like classical composers.
All you are is a bag of particles acting out the laws of physics. That to me is pretty clear.
Similar quotes
In the history of physics, there have been three great revolutions in thought that first seemed absurd yet proved to be true. The first proposed that the earth, instead of being stationary, was moving around at a great and variable speed in a universe that is much bigger than it appears to our immediate perception. That proposal, I believe, was first made by Aristarchos two millenia ago ... Remarkably enough, the name Aristarchos in Greek means best beginning.
I belonged to a small minority of boys who were lacking in physical strength and athletic prowess. ... We found our refuge in science. ... We learned that science is a revenge of victims against oppressors, that science is a territory of freedom and friendship in the midst of tyranny and hatred.
It is a test of true theories not only to account for but to predict phenomena.
If our local, observable universe is embedded in a larger structure, a multiverse, then there's other places in this larger structure that have denizens in them that call their local environs the universe. And conditions in those other places could be very different. Or they could be pretty similar to what we have here.
People make their own fates, and if enough of us make our fate to be space explorers, perhaps we can actually get some space exploration done.
About thirty years ago there was much talk that geologists ought only to observe and not theorise; and I well remember some one saying that at this rate a man might as well go into a gravel-pit and count the pebbles and describe the colours. How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service!