Add that to the physics lexicon. Greene’s theatrical lectures–which include lots of metaphors, cool 3-D visuals and dry humor–routinely draw hundreds. The paperback of his book, a Pulitzer finalist, has been on The New York Times best-seller list since it debuted in February. And film and TV producers, knocked out by Greene’s talent for explaining the unexplainable, have come courting: he had a bit-part (playing himself) in this spring’s sci-fi flick “Frequency.” And now execs at public television’s “NOVA” are planning a series based in part on his book. Guess who they auditioned as host?
String theory (totally unproven) proposes that all matter, from our skin to a slab of stone, is made of tiny loops of vibrating strings, “dancing filaments of energy,” says Greene, who when he’s not interpreting the theory is busy helping to build it. Low-key, thoughtful and adamant about not being seen as the face of strings (“Many others have contributed more to the theory than I have”), Greene believes that fundamental questions about the cosmos–What’s it made of? How does it work?–are driving the enthusiasm. “I think people are struck by the ideas,” he says. “I don’t think they’re struck by me.” Luckily, the universe is big enough for both.
