BRIAN GREENE: Naturally, scientists quite generally and string theorists in particular often describe their work without giving all of the associated qualifications all of the time. I, for example,have spoken of string theory as a possible final theory, as the possible theory that would unite all forces and all matter in one consistent framework—and I generally try to say—but perhaps not always—that this is not yet a proven theory; this is our hope for what it will achieve. We aren’t certain that this is where it is going to lead. We just need to explore and see where we land.

PAUL STEINHARDT: What angers people, I think, is the notion that the ultimate theory of physics might allow a googol possibilities. That is, even though everywhere we look in the universe has the same laws as far as we can see and seems remarkably smooth and uniform—more uniform than we needed for human existence—somehow we are supposed to believe that the greater universe that we can't ever see is completely different. I think many people wonder whether a theory like that is science, or metaphysics?

WALTER ISAACSON: That's exactly it: we were talking about why it is that it arouses such passion and then started directly debating string theory. I'd love to take it right back to Einstein—twice you said something that I find very interesting, which is, we have to find a way to make his two grand pillars of 20th century physics compatible, general relativity and quantum theory. Of course Einstein totally would believe that, because he loved unification, he loved unity. Secondly he and Newton agreed on one big thing, which is that nature loves simplicity. But I've always wondered about the more metaphysical philosophical question: how do we know that God likes simplicity? How do we know he wants these things to be compatible? How do we know that quantum theory and relativity have to be reconcilable?

Introduction

The coincidence last spring of Walter Isaacson's Einstein biography (Einstein: His Life and Universe) hitting the #1 spot on the New York Times bestseller list, coupled with the publication of The Endless Universe: Beyond The Big Bang by Paul Steinhardt, the Albert Einstein Professor of Science at Princeton University (coauthored with Neil Turok), created an interesting opportunity.

I invited Walter, Paul and Columbia University string theorist, best selling author and TV presenter, Brian Greene, to participate in an Edge symposium on Einstein. Walter, Paul, and Brian, showed up for the session in early June.

Last year, in My Einstein, a book of essays by twenty-four leading thinkers, I asked each of the contributors to share their thoughts on who is their Einstein. This led me to ask the same questions to the Edge symposium participants.

"That's a hard question and there are many answers I'd give," Brian said, "but I'd say my Einstein surrounded learning—not learning, really hearing—in junior high-school that there is this feature of time whereby if you're moving relative to somebody else time elapses at a different rate compared to the person who's stationary, and thinking to myself, that sounds completely nuts, I really want to understand what this is all about. And little by little finally learning what it actually means, and going on from there to try to push the story a little bit further."

Walter's response: "Einstein is obviously my father," he said, "who as an engineer loved science and instilled that in me, but also has a lot of Einstein's moral nature to him, and political morality to him. I remember every day growing up, his asking me questions and pushing me in a certain way. One of the things I've learned as a biographer, and the first thing you learn, is that as you write about your subject, it's all about Dad—for Ben Franklin it's all living up to his father in a certain way; even to Einstein, a bit— his father's an engineer. And then the second thing you learn is, even for the biographer, it's all about Dad, and that's why I wanted to write about Einstein—I shouldn't say my father's an Einstein, he's just an engineer in New Orleans, but that was his aspirational secular saint, and so I wrote the book and dedicated it to my father."

Paul had a similar response. "One of my earliest memories of childhood," he recounted, "was sitting on my father's knee and his telling me stories about scientists and discovery. He wasn't a scientist, he was a lawyer, but for some reason he used to tell me stories about scientists and different discoveries they made—I remember stories about Madame Curie and Einstein and others."

"From that very initial instance, what I wanted to do was be in a field where you got to make discoveries. The thing that always impressed me the more I learned about Einstein was his uncanny ability to take the wealth of phenomena that people were studying at the time, and pick out not only which were the important questions, but which were the important questions that were answerable. There are always lots of questions you'd like to answer, but knowing whether or not you have the technology, the mathematical technology and the right ideas to attack them at the time—that's a real talent. Einstein had the incredible talent to do that over and over and over again, ahead of any of his contemporaries. So, for me he's the ultimate discoverer. That is my Einstein."

Read on.

—JB

BRIAN GREENE is a professor of physics and of mathematics at Columbia University, is the author of The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for an Ultimate Theory and The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality. He is also the presenter of the three-part Nova program, The Elegant Universe, available on DVD.

WALTER ISAACSON, the President and CEO of the Aspen Institute, has been the Chairman and CEO of CNN and the Managing Editor of Time magazine. A noted biographer, his books include Benjamin Franklin: An American Life; and Einstein: His Life and Universe.

PAUL STEINHARDT, a physicist, is the Albert Einstein Professor in Science and on the faculty of both the Departments of Physics and Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University. He is the coauthor (with Neil Turok) of The Endless Universe: Beyond The Big Bang.

Brian Greene's Edge Bio Page
Walter Isaacson's Edge Bio Page
Paul Steinhardt's Edge Bio Page

[11:21 minutes]

SciFoo is a conference like no other. It brings together a mad mix from the worlds of science, technology, and other branches of the ineffable Third Culture at the Google campus in Mountain View. Improvised, loose, massively parallel—it's a happening. If you're not overwhelmed by the rush of ideas then you're not paying attention.

FRANK WILCZEK is considered one of the world's most eminent theoretical physicists. He is known, among other things, for the discovery of asymptotic freedom, the development of quantum chromodynamics, the invention of axions, and the discovery and exploitation of new forms of quantum statistics (anyons). When only 21 years old and a graduate student at Princeton University, in work with David Gross he defined the properties of color gluons, which hold atomic nuclei together.

He is the author of Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces.

Frank Wlczek's Edge Bio Page

Reality Club: Lee Smolin, Betsy Devine, George Dyson

[Photographs by Betsy Devine]

My first heresy says that all the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated. Here I am opposing the holy brotherhood of climate model experts and the crowd of deluded citizens who believe the numbers predicted by the computer models. Of course, they say, I have no degree in meteorology and I am therefore not qualified to speak. But I have studied the climate models and I know what they can do. The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics, and they do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields and farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in. The real world is muddy and messy and full of things that we do not yet understand. It is much easier for a scientist to sit in an air-conditioned building and run computer models, than to put on winter clothes and measure what is really happening outside in the swamps and the clouds. That is why the climate model experts end up believing their own models.

FREEMAN DYSON is professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton. His professional interests are in mathematics and astronomy. Among his many books areDisturbing the Universe, Infinite in All Directions Origins of Life, From Eros to Gaia, Imagined Worlds, and The Sun, the Genome, and the Internet. His most recent book, Many Colored Glass: Reflections on the Place of Life in the Universe (Page Barbour Lectures), is being published this month by University of Virgina Press.

Freeman Dyson's Edge Bio Page

What is the meaning of technology in our lives? What place does technology have in the universe? What place does it have in the human condition? And what place should it play in my own personal life? Technology as a whole system, or what I call the technium, seems to be a dominant force in the culture. Indeed at times it seems to be the only force — the only lasting force — in culture. If that's so, then what can we expect from this force, what governs it? Sadly we don't even have a good theory about technology.

KEVIN KELLY is Senior Maverick at Wired magazine and author of the best-selling "New Rules for the New Economy," and the classic book on decentralized emergent systems, "Out of Control." He is currently editor and publisher of the popular Cool Tools, True Film, and Street Use web sites.

Kevin Kelly's Edge Bio Page

The contrast between the two [Bohr & Pauli], the affection felt for both of them, and the affection they felt for each other, is manifest in a skit put on by the young physicists at the April 1932 Copenhagen meeting. That year was the hundredth anniversary of the death of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the passing of the man, both humanist and scientist, widely regarded as the last true universal genius. As commemorations marking the occasion took place all over Europe, this small band of physicists at the annual informal gathering decided to have a celebration of their own. It took the form of a sketch, a tongue-in-cheek adaptation to the world of physics of Faust, Goethe's great drama. In the script, written primarily by Delbrück, noble Bohr was identified as the Lord, sardonic Pauli as Mephistopheles, and troubled Ehrenfest as Faust. As in Goethe's version Mephistopheles has the wittiest lines, but that was of course true of Pauli's real-life speech as well.

GINO SEGRE is a professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of A Matter of Degrees: What Temperature Reveals About the Past and Future of Our Species, Planet, and Universe, and Faust in Copenhagen: A Struggle for the Soul of Physics.

Gino Segre's Edge Bio Page