Brian Randolph Greene (born February 9, 1963) 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.
Greene was born in New York City. His father, Alan Greene, was a one-time vaudeville performer and high school dropout who later worked as a voice coach and composer. He stated in an interview with Lawrence Krauss that he is of Jewish heritage. After attending Stuyvesant High School, Greene entered Harvard in 1980 to concentrate in physics. After completing his bachelor's degree, Greene earned his doctorate from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, graduating in 1987. While at Oxford, Greene also studied piano with the concert pianist Jack Gibbons.
Brian Greene (born February 15, 1972) is a former American football player who played six seasons in the Arena Football League with the Charlotte Rage, Portland Forest Dragons/Oklahoma Wranglers and Los Angeles Avengers. He played college football at Western Oregon State College.
Brian M. Greene is an American politician and a Republican member of the Utah House of Representatives representing District 57 since January 1, 2013.
Born May 29, Greene earned his BA from Brigham Young University and his JD from its J. Reuben Clark Law School. He works as an attorney and small business owner and lives in Pleasant Grove, Utah with his wife Renee and three children.
When District 57 incumbent Republican Representative Craig Frank ran for the Utah State Senate in 2012 and left the seat open, Greene was selected as one of two candidates from the Republican convention for the June Republican Primary which he won with 2,057 votes (55.4%) and won the November General election with 11,029 votes (85.8%) against Democratic nominee Scott Gygi.
During the 2014 General Session Greene served on the House Health and Human Services Committee as well as the House Judiciary Committee.
In 2015, Greene questioned whether sex with an unconscious spouse should be considered rape during a committee hearing on a measure which sought to clarify that sex with an unconscious individual is rape. Greene later apologized for his comments and said media reports had taken his words out of context.