In an interview on String Theory

On the subject of elegance, what about your next choice, The Elegant Universe?

This is a really popular account, probably more in line with what you were expecting. Brian Greene is a distinguished researcher, and he was the first to make an all-out effort to really connect to the public with the main ideas of modern string theory. Others, like Kaku, had made admirable earlier efforts, but Greene really got it off the ground, saying we can tell the public what the string theory is all about, right now. And he did a great job. The book works at many levels – I gave a copy to my mom when it came out, and I also received very positive impressions about the book from Norman Ramsey, who is a Nobel Prize physicist at Harvard. So it’s a great achievement, and part of why it’s a great achievement is that it covers not only string theory but also the accepted pillars of 20th-century theoretical physics, namely, quantum mechanics and relativity. He spends half the book going through these accepted theories in a way that is really approachable to the lay person. So two thumbs up.

Someone who doesn’t come from a science background can read this book and feel they understand what happened in the 20th century physics-wise?

I think that’s right. If you’re looking at the broad sweep of the fundamental theories of physics and particularly string theory, The Elegant Universe is definitely a good pick, though not the only good pick.

In an interview on Favourite Science Books

The only contact I seem to have with snails is trying to avoid standing on them the morning after it has rained. Your last choice is a much-lauded physics book by Brian Greene, The Elegant Universe.

I love this book. In more years than I want to add up of journalism, I have talked to people in every walk of life imaginable – movie stars and athletes and politicians. I find that the most interesting people to talk to are scientists, but the problem is that they are often not that articulate, and difficult to understand. So when you get a scientist who can explain things clearly it is a real opportunity. Brian Greene writes well, and he explains things clearly in plain English.

The book is about string theory, but not exclusively. It’s really about what’s been going on in physics since Einstein, and also does a great job of explaining Einstein. He makes quantum physics and Einstein’s theory of relativity really make sense, so you can understand something which nobody seems to understand (the big discovery was that the speed of light never changes). Quantum physics is almost 100 years old and we still talk about it as something new and incomprehensible.

He talks about such complex subjects. How does he manage to make them accessible?

By writing in accessible language, and explaining things in a very clear step-by-step way. It is kind of what I did in World Without Fish, where I was writing for children and I covered fishery issues which nobody understands, because they speak in a weird language. So I used normal language, I explained things step-by-step, and what I found is that adults have been reading my book too, because they also need that explanation. That is what Greene did with physics. We all know that people like Einstein and Niels Bohr were geniuses, but he explains why. He also manages to capture the excitement of re-thinking the universe. Fundamentally, what you need to do clearly in both fiction and non-fiction is convey a passion and tell a story.

Why don’t we just leave science writing to the scientists?

I would love to leave science writing to the scientists. When scientists can write – like Brian Greene – it’s wonderful. There’s nothing better. But the truth is that most scientists can’t write. So somebody else had better do it.