The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality

by Brian Greene

The overarching lesson that has emerged from scientific inquiry over the last century is that human experience is often a misleading guide to the true nature of reality.

The universe, according to quantum mechanics, is not etched into the present; the universe, according to quantum mechanics, participates in a game of chance.

Quantum mechanics challenges this view by revealing, at least in certain circumstances, a capacity to transcend space; long-range quantum connections can bypass spatial separation. Two objects can be far apart in space, but as far as quantum mechanics is concerned, it’s as if they’re a single entity.

And when I read Feynman’s description of a rose—in which he explained how he could experience the fragrance and beauty of the flower as fully as anyone, but how his knowledge of physics enriched the experience enormously because he could also take in the wonder and magnificence of the underlying molecular, atomic, and subatomic processes—I was hooked for good. I wanted what Feynman described: to assess life and to experience the universe on all possible levels, not just those that happened to be accessible to our frail human senses.

But what, Newton asked, do these notions of “motionless” or “straight line at constant speed” really mean? Motionless or constant speed with respect to what? Motionless or constant speed from whose viewpoint? If velocity is not constant, with respect to what or from whose viewpoint is it not constant?

“Absolute space, in its own nature, without reference to anything external, remains always similar and unmovable.”