Q: You work in the field of quantum mechanics
and String Theory. Do they have anything to do with string?
Brian Greene: Quantum mechanics is the body of physical laws describing
things that are very small, like atoms and molecules and so forth. And
String Theory tries to go yet smaller and describe the basic entities
that make up everything. The theory suggests that the basic entities
are tiny vibrating filaments that look like tiny pieces of string. That’s
where the string comes in.
Q: So how does this connect with the
possibility of time travel and Déjà Vu?
BG: There’s a theory that crops up in Déjà Vu concerning
the possibility of the existence of parallel universes and one of the
ideas that comes out of quantum mechanics is that what we see around
us is but one of many universes and that there are many universes alongside
ours and that in those universes we may or may not exist.
Q: The million-dollar question is whether
time travel is possible. Will we ever go back to the future or vice
versa?
BG: You need to break that question into two pieces. Time travel to
the future is one sort. Time travel to the past is the other sort. Time
travel to the future is completely within the laws of physics as we
understand them. In principal, if you want to know what the earth will
look like ten thousand years from now, then Einstein laid out a blueprint
of how you would accomplish that: you build a spaceship, you travel
near the speed of light for a certain period of time, you come back,
and when you step out of your spaceship you will be just a year older,
but earth will be ten thousand or a hundred thousand years older and
you’ll have jumped into the future. Building that ship is something
we can’t do as yet but in terms of physics it’s perfectly
within what we understand.
Q: And travel to the past?
BG: That’s a much more thorny issue. Traveling at the speed of
light wouldn’t help you. You’d have to make use of wormholes,
which is what happens in Déjà Vu. It’s conceivable
that if you manipulate the openings of wormholes adequately it would
not only be a short cut from one point in space to another but from
one point in time to another. That’s the idea of the film.
Q: How did you become involved with Déjà
Vu?
BG: I got a call from Bruckheimer Films saying they had seen a television
series I did called The Elegant Universe, which is based on a book I
wrote, and that was an attempt to bring some pretty complicated ideas
about String Theory and quantum mechanics to a general audience. So
the idea was for me to meet with them and explain some of the physics
they needed regarding wormholes and relativity in a way that they and
Tony Scott and the writers would understand. So I went out and stood
in front of a blackboard and explained relativity to Jerry Bruckheimer,
Tony Scott, the writers and various other people connected to the film.
Q: Was there a test at the end and who
was top of the class?
BG: They were all very smart and it impressed me that they knew that
they were dealing with cutting edge ideas and they wanted to stay as
close to the truth as they could. I think the philosophy of everybody
in the room was that they were going to have to break the rules because
ultimately they were making an entertainment, but they didn’t
want to just randomly make things up. And I think that was great. So
the film bends some of the rules of physics but not in a way that’s
ludicrous.
Q: Did you meet any of the actors?
BG: I spoke quite a few times to Adam Goldberg, who plays one of the
team of scientists working with Denzel Washington. A film crew also
came to my classroom and filmed me for an hour at the blackboard explaining
things. The idea was to give Adam and some of the other cast members
a model of how a scientist talks about things, and I thought he did
a great job in the film.
Q: Did you see yourself in his performance?
BG: He didn’t base his performance on me in any way, shape or
form but certainly the way I try to explain wormholes in terms of bending
paper and connecting the corners, that’s there in the film and
it was fun to see that that made it in.
Q: Most Hollywood films portray scientists
as a bit batty. Was it nice to see something different or are real scientists
batty anyway?
BG: There are many examples of the wild-eyed scientist in movies and
sometimes its suitable to the comedy – Back to the Future for
example. But there have been several attempts more recently at realistic
portrayals of scientists. Contact with Jodie was pretty good and I enjoyed
it a lot. I liked Memento very much – I’m not sure whether
you would call it science, but I thought it was a wonderful exploration
of time and the mind. I liked Sliding Doors, which was about parallel
universes in a way, and I loved Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Many of the things in Star Trek are way beyond what we can imagine,
but I’m a huge fan of Star Trek, though I don’t wear pointy
ears or anything.
Q: So is Hollywood good for science?
BG: I think it’s very positive. A film like Déjà
Vu, even if it’s not completely scientifically based, it gets
people to think about issues of time and time travel and some of the
paradoxes of the universe and I think that makes them more receptive
to the real science.
Q: Is it important for us ordinary folk
to understand things like String Theory?
BG: The critical issues that we face as a world community, from global
warming to stem cells, to genetic modification, to nuclear proliferation,
to pandemics will all have to be confronted by science and a better-informed
public can make better decisions. But what really fires me up is that
science is wonderfully enriching and exciting. I think it’s a
great loss when people don’t know about it because they find it
intimidating.
Q: If you could travel into the future
where would you go and what do you think the world would be like?
BG: I don’t think we can predict what things will be like, which
is what would make it so exciting. Even a hundred years from now, who
knows? Because when you look back to the 1920s, you realize that if
you had asked any of the people who were at the forefront of quantum
mechanics what will this be good for, I don’t think they would
have been able to predict that it would yield your cell phone and your
computer and all manner of medical technology. Without quantum mechanics
none of that would be here.
- Gone with the Twins
Read the Deja Vu Interview #1: Paula Patton
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