Listen to Brian Greene long enough and he almost starts to make sense. The renowned author, physicist and TV science star opened our minds to string theory in his last heady miniseries. He’s back with a four-part “NOVA” miniseries that seeks to explain nothing less than “The Fabric of the Cosmos.”
The professor’s teachings, airing over the next four Wednesday nights, are jazzed with all sorts of unnecessary and sometimes distracting video effects to illustrate his metaphors, but maybe that’s what it takes to compete with popular TV sci-fi fare like “Fringe,” which likewise deals in multiverses.
Even before the conclusion of the first hour, “What is Space?” (at 8 p.m. Wednesday on Rocky Mountain PBS), you grasp Greene’s main point: what we see is not what we get. That is, our understanding of reality may be a convenient, agreed upon way to go, but it’s not the correct way to go. Our perceptions are wrong. (The howling you hear in the background is from those folks who are so afraid of science, they find this a strictly unacceptable proposition. They don’t want to learn about the Big Bang, either.)
The idea that things are not as we thought becomes even clearer in part two, “The Illusion of Time,” as brainy scientists explain that they really are stumped about the concept of time. The ideas of past and present may be illusions, they insist. Wormholes? They’re not just for “Battlestar Galactica” anymore.
With Einstein’s theory in the news lately, as quantum physics tackles a new understanding of the very, very eensy, Greene’s third hour, “Quantum Leap,” is up to the moment. It suggests things (and maybe people, planets?) can pop in and out of existence and affect each other across a divide.
The final hour, “Universe or Multiverse?” casts an eye on alternate realities and again feels like part “Fringe,” part “Twilight Zone” and all “NOVA.” Empty space isn’t empty, and everything we think we know about our world is probably wrong. Or at least outdated.
Reality is a flexible fabric, it seems. Take a dart, make a hem, and still science has never felt less comfortable.
The mind-bending possibilities suggested in “The Fabric of the Cosmos” are being taken seriously by some of the best thinkers on the planet. How kind of Greene to lay it all out in user-friendly metaphors–balls on a billiard table, emptiness and objects in Times Square–to demonstrate again and again that we’re only privy to part of the picture.
Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com
