My best teachers were not the ones who knew all the answers, but those who were deeply excited by questions they couldn't answer.
Brian GreeneRead
The math of quantum mechanics and the math of general relativity, when they confront one another, they are ferocious antagonists and the equations don't work.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights the conflict between two major theories in physics: quantum mechanics and general relativity.
Brian Greene's quote illustrates the significant challenges faced by physicists when trying to reconcile the theories of quantum mechanics, which describes the behavior of the very small, with general relativity, which governs the behavior of the very large. Despite their individual successes in explaining phenomena within their respective realms, these two frameworks produce conflicting results when applied simultaneously, indicating a deep unresolved issue in our understanding of the fundamental laws of the universe.
Themes
Quantum MechanicsGeneral RelativityPhysicsScienceTheories
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture discussing the challenges in modern physics, you could use this quote to illustrate the complexities of scientific theories.
More from Brian Greene
All quotes βAll 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.
Brian GreeneRead
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.
Brian GreeneRead
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.
Brian GreeneRead
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?
Brian GreeneRead
Physicists are more like avant-garde composers, willing to bend traditional rules... Mathematicians are more like classical composers.
Brian GreeneRead
Similar quotes
I think the question is, are there women and have there been women who want to do science and could be doing great science, but they never really got the opportunity?
Vera RubinRead
The 2nd law of thermodynamics has the same degree of truth as the statement that if you throw a tumblerful of water into the sea, you cannot get the same tumblerful of water out again.
James Clerk MaxwellRead
The goal of scientific physicians in their own science ... is to reduce the indeterminate. Statistics therefore apply only to cases in which the cause of the facts observed is still indeterminate.
Claude BernardRead
In my Nobel lecture, I suggested we had until the year 2000 to tame the population monster, and then food shortages would take us under. Now I believe we have a little longer.
Norman BorlaugRead
My feeling is that scientific method has the power to account for and interlink all phenomena in the universe, including its origin, using the laws of nature. But that still leaves the laws unexplained.
Paul DaviesRead
[Bacteria] have an incredibly complicated chemical lexicon that ... allows bacteria to be multicellular. In the spirit of TED they're doing things together because it makes a difference.
Bonnie BasslerRead