The Elegant Universe: Einstein's DreamPBS Airdates: October 28 and November 4, 2003Go to the companion Web site Hour 1: Einstein's DreamHour 2: String's The ThingHour 3: Welcome to the 11th Dimension 

 NARRATOR:

Now, on NOVA, take a thrill ride into a world strangerthan science fiction, where you play the game, by breaking somerules, where a new view of the universe, pushes you beyond thelimits of your wildest imagination. This is the world of stringtheory, a way of describing every force and all matter from anatom to earth, to the end of the galaxies -- from the birth oftime to its final tick -- in a single theory, a theory ofeverything. Our guide to this brave new world is Brian Greene,the bestselling author and physicist.

BRIAN GREENE

(Columbia University)

:

And no matter how many timesI come here, I never seem to get used to it.

 NARRATOR:

Can he help us solve the greatest puzzle of modernphysics -- that our understanding of the universe is based ontwo sets of laws, that don't agree?

 NARRATOR:

Resolving that contradiction eluded even Einstein, whomade it his final quest. After decades, we may finally be on theverge of a breakthrough. The solution is strings, tiny bits ofenergy vibrating like the strings on a cello, a cosmic symphonyat the heart of all reality. But it comes at a price: paralleluniverses and 11 dimensions, most of which you've never seen.

BRIAN GREENE:

We really may live in a universe with moredimensions than meet the eye.

 AMANDA PEET

(University of Toronto)

:

People who have said thatthere were extra dimensions of space have been labeledcrackpots, or people who are bananas.

 NARRATOR:

A mirage of science and mathematics or the ultimatetheory of everything?

S. JAMES GATES, JR.

(University of Maryland)

:

If string theoryfails to provide a testable prediction, then nobody shouldbelieve it.

SHELDON LEE GLASHOW 

(Boston University)

:

Is that a theory ofphysics, or a philosophy?

BRIAN GREENE:

One thing that is certain is that string theory isalready showing us that the universe may be a lot stranger thanany of us ever imagined.

 NARRATOR:

Coming up tonight...it all started with an apple.

 

BRIAN GREENE:

The triumph of Newton's equations come from thequest to understand the planets and the stars.

 NARRATOR:

And we've come a long way since.

BRIAN GREENE:

Einstein gave the world a new picture for what theforce of gravity actually is.

 NARRATOR:

Where he left off, string theorists now dare to go.But how close are they to fulfilling Einstein's dream? Watch

TheElegant Universe

right now.

BRIAN GREENE:

Fifty years ago, this house was the scene of oneof the greatest mysteries of modern science, a mystery soprofound that today thousands of scientists on the cutting edgeof physics are still trying to solve it.Albert Einstein spent his last two decades in this modest homein Princeton, New Jersey. And in his second floor study Einsteinrelentlessly sought a single theory so powerful it woulddescribe all the workings of the universe. Even as he neared theend of his life Einstein kept a notepad close at hand, furiouslytrying to come up with the equations for what would come to beknown as the "Theory of Everything."Convinced he was on the verge of the most important discovery inthe history of science, Einstein ran out of time, his dreamunfulfilled.Now, almost a half century later, Einstein's goal of unification-- combining all the laws of the universe in one, all-encompassing theory -- has become the Holy Grail of modernphysics. And we think we may at last achieve Einstein's dreamwith a new and radical set of ideas called "string theory."But if this revolutionary theory is right, we're in for quite ashock. String theory says we may be living in a universe wherereality meets science fiction -- a universe of eleven dimensionswith parallel universes right next door -- an elegant universecomposed entirely of the music of strings.But for all its ambition, the basic idea of string theory issurprisingly simple. It says that everything in the universe,from the tiniest particle to the most distant star is made fromone kind of ingredient -- unimaginably small vibrating strandsof energy called strings.Just as the strings of a cello can give rise to a rich varietyof musical notes, the tiny strings in string theory vibrate in amultitude of different ways making up all the constituents ofnature. In other words, the universe is like a grand cosmicsymphony resonating with all the various notes these tinyvibrating strands of energy can play.String theory is still in its infancy, but it's alreadyrevealing a radically new picture of the universe, one that isboth strange and beautiful. But what makes us think we can

 

understand all the complexity of the universe, let alone reduceit to a single "Theory of Everything?"We have R mu nu, minus a half g mu nu R -- you remember how thisgoes -- equals eight Pi G T mu nu...comes from varying theEinstein-Hilbert action, and we get the field equations and thisterm. You remember what this is called?DOG BARKSNo that's the scalar curvature. This is the ricci tensor. Haveyou been studying this at all?No matter how hard you try, you can't teach physics to a dog.Their brains just aren't wired to grasp it. But what about us?How do we know that we're wired to comprehend the deepest lawsof the universe? Well, physicists today are confident that weare, and we're picking up where Einstein left off in his questfor unification.Unification would be the formulation of a law that describes,perhaps, everything in the known universe from one single idea,one master equation. And we think that there might be thismaster equation, because throughout the course of the last 200years or so, our understanding of the universe has given us avariety of explanations that are all pointing towards one spot.They seem to all be converging on one nugget of an idea thatwe're still trying to find.

STEVEN WEINBERG

(University of Texas at Austin)

:

Unification iswhere it's at. Unification is what we're trying to accomplish.The whole aim of fundamental physics is to see more and more ofthe world's phenomena in terms of fewer and fewer and simplerand simpler principles.

 MICHAEL B. GREEN

(University of Cambridge)

:

We feel, asphysicists, that if we can explain a wide number of phenomena ina very simple manner, that that's somehow progress. There isalmost an emotional aspect to the way in which the greattheories in physics sort of encompass a wide variety ofapparently different physical phenomena. So this idea that weshould be aiming to unify our understanding is inherent,essentially, to the whole way in which this kind of scienceprogresses.

BRIAN GREENE:

And long before Einstein, the quest forunification began with the most famous accident in the historyof science. As the story goes, one day in 1665, a young man wassitting under a tree when, all of a sudden, he saw an apple fallfrom above. And with the fall of that apple, Isaac Newtonrevolutionized our picture of the universe.In an audacious proposal for his time, Newton proclaimed thatthe force pulling apples to the ground and the force keeping themoon in orbit around the earth were actually one and the same.