The Elegant Universe

by Brian Greene

The strategy of beginning with a theoretical description that is classical and then subsequently including the features of quantum mechanics has been extremely fruitful for many years. It underlies, for example, the standard model of particle physics. But it is possible, and there is growing evidence that it is likely, that this method is too conservative for dealing with theories that are as far-reaching as string theory and M-theory. The reason is that once we realize that the universe is governed by quantum-mechanical principles, our theories really should be quantum mechanical from the start. We have successfully gotten away with starting from a classical perspective until now because we have not been probing the universe at a deep enough level for this coarse approach to mislead us. But with the depth of string/M-theory, we may well have come to the end of the line for this battle-tested strategy.

And winged monkeys may fly out of my ass in the next 5 minutes!