Brian Greene on Artificial Intelligence, the Importance of Fundamental Physics, Alien Life, and the Possible Future of Our Civilization
March 14th was Albert Einstein’s birthday, and also PI day, so it was a fitting day to be interviewing well known theoretical physicist and string theorist Brian Greene – the author of a number of books including, The Elegant Universe, Icarus at the Edge of Time, The Fabric of the Cosmos, and The Hidden Reality!
Many thanks to Suzi and Desh at THINKINC for helping organize this interview & for bringing Brian Greene to Australia for a number of shows (March 16 in Perth, March 18 in Sydney and March 19 in Melbourne) – check out www.thinkinc.org.au for more info!
Audio recording of the interview:
About the Interview with Brian Greene
Brian Greene discusses implications Artificial Intelligence and news of DeepMind AI (AlphaGo) beating the world grand champion in the board game Go. He then discusses physics string theory, the territory of opinion on grand unifying theories of physics, the importance of supporting fundamental science, the possibility of alien life, the possible future of our space-faring civilization and of course gravitational waves!
In answer to the question on the importance of supporting fundamental research in science, Brain Greene said:
Brian Randolph Greene is an American theoretical physicist and string theorist. He has been a professor at Columbia University since 1996 and chairman of the World Science Festival since co-founding it in 2008. Greene has worked on mirror symmetry, relating two different Calabi–Yau manifolds (concretely, relating the conifold to one of its orbifolds). He also described the flop transition, a mild form of topology change, showing that topology in string theory can change at the conifold point.
Greene has become known to a wider audience through his books for the general public, The Elegant Universe, Icarus at the Edge of Time, The Fabric of the Cosmos, The Hidden Reality, and related PBS television specials. He also appeared on The Big Bang Theory episode “The Herb Garden Germination“, as well as the films Frequency and The Last Mimzy. He is currently a member of the Board of Sponsors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
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