RocketSTEM: Why physics? Were you curious as a
child? Did that curiosity guide you gracefully towards
your career path?
Brian GREENE: “It was a pretty seamless path. When I
was a little kid I was completely fascinated by numbers,
so I was kind of a math kid. A little later on I learned that
math was more than just something you played with –
that it could be used to describe how the world works
- and that was a pivotal moment for me. I carried on
that trajectory of applying mathematics to understand
the physical universe, then as a grad student using
math for some of the more esoteric and far-out ideas
Credit: Steve Jurvetson
I worked on and continue to work on, and that pretty
RS: What was a challenge you overcame to get where
you are, something that people can relate to?
GREENE: “Well, physics is challenging every minute of
every day. I like to think of it the following way: we
have certain mental abilities that were largely formed
in response to our need to survive. When we were in
the jungle learning survival skills, really understanding
how the world works and the mathematics of the
underlying reality wasn’t useful. What was useful was
the ability to run fast enough to catch your dinner.
What we do in physics is, in some way, going
against the grain of evolution. We are really trying
to push our minds into a place that they weren’t
easy for students to learn physics and it’s not easy
for physicists to do physics, but the ideas are so
to push onward, and push through those
challenges. So I encourage all students to push
through those challenges and recognize that
they aren’t alone – even professionals are
constantly scratching their heads, working
RS: What is a really cool fact about you –
something that no one would expect?
GREENE: “Well, I don’t know if it’s a ‘cool’
or ‘curious’ fact, but I am vegan. I don’t
eat anything of animal origin. When
I was nine years old, I was a city kid,
so I didn’t know where meat came
from; it was just this stuff that came
packaged from the supermarket.
and that made the connection for
was obvious all the sudden and
that sickened me. So, I stopped
eating meat at that age, but I
still ate dairy.
years ago, I went to an animal
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