This evening, Mike, Kiddo and I attended a lecture on campus by Dr. Brian Greene. If the name doesn’t sound completely familiar, perhaps you’d recognize the title of his book, The Elegant Universe
For about an hour, Dr. Greene talked about the journey of theoretical physics from Newton to now, stopping to discuss the Theory of General Relativity and the core concepts of Quantum Mechanics. He highlighted the fact that to study theoretical physics, you had to approach the world like a child — being able to ask “why” and “how” without dismissing such questions as stupid. He explained everything in terms that almost everyone could understand, only occasionally dipping into lingo, and then usually only to get a laugh.
He was passionate about the journey and his part in it and was careful to underline the fact that everything about string theory — basically his entire life’s study — was only a theory and while mathematically sound was scientifically unproven and might not even be relevant.
At the end of it all, he took a few brief questions and Kiddo was brave enough to approach the mic; hers was the third and final question. She asked,
“So, what makes up the strings?”
Of course, she got a laugh from the audience, and it was a perfect set up for Greene to explain that there may in fact be more pieces to the puzzle and he suggested that she should be the one to perhaps pursue that piece. Brilliant.
Give Kiddo a high five for me. That was an awesome question and a very inspiring response.