Science Education: Not Just for Teachers Anymore! - Copernicus ...

Dr. Brian GreeneProfessor of Mathematics and PhysicsColumbia UniversityBrian Greene is a physicist who has been working onquantum gravity and unified theories for nearly two decades. He iswidely recognized for a number of groundbreaking discoveries inthe field and also for his lucid presentations of cutting-edge researchto scientists and fellow physicists as well as to general audiences.His books, The Elegant Universe and The Fabric of the Cosmos,both spent six months on The New York Times bestsellers. The ElegantUniverse was a Pulitzer Prize finalist and the winner of the 2000Aventis Prize for Science Books. It has sold more than a million copiesworldwide and has been translated into 35 languages. In its starredreview of The Fabric of the Cosmos, Publishers Weekly hailed“Greene’s unparalleled ability to translate higher mathematics andits findings into everyday language and images, through the adept use of metaphor and analogy,and crisp, witty prose.” The Washington Post calls Greene “the single best explainer of abstruseconcepts in the world today.”Greene became the first physicist to edit the prestigious series, The Best American Scienceand Nature Writing 2006. In his introduction, Greene wrote: “Willful ignorance of science is not okay.We are living through a radical cultural shift, one in which science and technology play anincreasingly pervasive role in everyday life . . . A scientifically literate public is, plainly, increasinglyvital.”Professor Greene received his undergraduate training at Harvard University in 1984. He wenton to graduate school at Oxford University and received his doctorate in 1986. From 1987-90, hewas a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard, and in 1990 he joined the faculty of Cornell University as anassistant professor. By 1995 he had been promoted to tenured associate and then full professor. In1996, Professor Greene left Cornell to join Columbia University, where he holds a full professorship inboth the Physics and the Mathematics Departments. He has lectured in more than 25 countries atboth a general and a technical level.His research interests focus on the quantum mechanical properties of space and time. In1990, Dr. Greene and a Harvard colleague discovered mirror symmetry — a remarkable property ofstring theory that has launched a vibrant field of research in both mathematics and physics. In 1993and subsequently in 1995, Dr. Greene and his colleagues discovered topology change. WhereasEinstein’s general relativity shows that the fabric of space can stretch in time (resulting in ourexpanding universe), it does not allow the fabric to rip. To the contrary, Dr. Greene and hiscolleagues showed that in string theory — by including quantum mechanics — the fabric of spacecan tear, establishing that the universe can evolve in far more dramatic ways than Einstein hadenvisioned. Currently, Greene is co-director of Columbia's ISCAP (Institute for Strings, Cosmology,and Astroparticle Physics) and is leading a research program studying the cosmological implicationsof string theory.In the Fall of 2003, Dr. Greene hosted the three-part NOVA special The Elegant Universe,which won an Emmy Award and a 2004 Peabody Award for broadcast excellence. The NOVAwebsite received nearly two million hits during the three day airing of the show.He is currently working with Robert LePage to develop his "Strings and Strings" collaborationwith The Emerson Quartet for a series of performances at Lincoln Center in 2008. Greene is alsoorganizing the first annual World Science Festival, a weeklong extravaganza that will allow thegeneral public to explore science, from cutting-edge research to works in theatre, film, and the artsinspired by scientific ideas. The festival will be held in New York City in 2008.February 20, 20088Science Education Summit