The Elegant Universe

by Brian Greene

space and time emerged from Einstein's reworking as malleable constructs whose form and appearance depend on one's state of motion.

the third and deepest conflict arises from the incompatibility between quantum mechanics and general relativity.

this conflict is rightly called the central problem of modern physics.

String theory, in a real sense, is the story of space and time since Einstein.

the universe is the way it is because the matter and the force particles have the properties they do.

Various experiments of this sort over the past eight decades have verified that the speed of light received from a moving star is the same as that from a stationary star—670 million miles per hour—to within the impressive accuracy of ever more refined measuring devices.

Speed, therefore, is intimately connected with our notions of space and time.