Dr. Brian Greene (February 9, 1963) is a physicist and one of the world's foremost string theorists. As of 2003, he is a professor at Columbia University. Born in New York City, Dr. Greene was a child prodigy in mathematics. At the age of five, he could multiply 30-digit numbers. Later in his early childhood, he successfully performed a calculus experiment. His skill in mathematics was so great that by the time he was twelve years old, he was being privately tutored in mathematics by a Columbia University professor because he had surpassed the high-school math level. He entered Harvard in 1980 to major in physics, and with his bachelor's degree, Greene went to Oxford University, in England, as a Rhodes Scholar.
Dr. Greene is the author of The Elegant Universe, a popularization of superstring and M-theory, and winner of The Aventis Prizes for Science Books in 2000. The book talks about and opens an argument on how Calabi-Yaumanifolds, as the multi-dimensional (11D, 16D, 26D) points, comprise our space-time. The Elegant Universe was later made into a PBS television special with Dr. Greene as the narrator. His second book, The Fabric of the Cosmos, is about space, time, and the nature of the universe.
In 1996 he joined Columbia University where he is professor of physics and mathematics.
He has lectured at both a general and a technical level in more than twenty-five countries and is widely regarded for a number of groundbreaking discoveries in superstring theory.
He is the author of The Elegant Universe, a popularization of super string and M-theory, and winner of The Aventis Prizes for Science Books in 2000.
His second book, The Fabric of the Cosmos, is about space, time, and the texture of reality.
In his research, Professor Greene has focused on the extra dimensions required by string theory, and sought to understand their physical, mathematical, and observational consequences.
Currently, Professor Greene is co-director of Columbia's Institute for Strings, Cosmology, and Astroparticle Physics (ISCAP), and is leading a research program applying superstring theory to cosmological questions.
He is one of very few people to have both an Erdős number, connecting him to Paul Erdős by authorship of a mathematics paper, and a Bacon number, connecting him to Kevin Bacon because he appeared in a film, Frequency (2000).
He currently studies string cosmology , especially the imprints of trans-Planckian physics on the cosmic microwave background, and brane-gas cosmologies that could explain why the space around us has three large dimensions.
