for_sv's blog

Could the Theory of Everything boil down to some really good vibrations? That's the word from today's top cosmologists. Astrophysicist Brian Greene argues that the utterly elegant yet mind-boggling string theory explains the very fiber of time, reality, and the universe at large. Despite stellar credentials, Greene and others couldn't resolve the incompatibility between quantum mechanics and general relativity (as currently understood, both can't be correct). But by envisioning the smallest particles as loopy, vibrating strings rather than separate point particles like atoms and quarks, all is reconciled. This watershed notion leads to further possibilities that will turn your head, like the existence of 11 dimensions and parallel universes. I'm not as smart as Greene and posse, so I won't even try to explain it all. Instead I'll let you watch with wonderment as the cosmos is presented in an intriguing nutshell. Isn't science grand?

Airs on PBS November 4, 8-9 p.m