Brian Greene Audiobooks

Listening to the Big Bang: string theory's finest explainer on how it all began

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Who is Brian Greene?

Brian Greene holds two professorships at Columbia University, in physics and in mathematics, and directs its Center for Theoretical Physics. His research sits in string theory: he co-discovered mirror symmetry between Calabi-Yau manifolds and described the flop and conifold transitions, results which showed that the shape of space itself can change smoothly. He was born in New York in 1963.

He is far better known, however, as the man who made that material readable. The Elegant Universe, The Fabric of the Cosmos, The Hidden Reality and Until the End of Time were all New York Times bestsellers, and two of them became award winning television series. Greene co-founded the World Science Festival in 2008 and still chairs it.

What sets him apart from other popularisers is that he does not simplify by omission. He builds an analogy, tests it, admits where it breaks, and then hands you the better one. It is teaching rather than showmanship.

Brian Greene in audiobooks

There is something unusual about Listening to the Big Bang: it is a piece of writing made for the ear rather than adapted to it. At two hours and forty four minutes it is short by the standards of popular science, and it uses that space to tell the human story behind cosmic origins rather than the equations.

A Russian dissident, a Jesuit priest and an American mule driver are among the figures who built the theory, and Greene reads their story himself. His narration is the reason to choose this format: the emphasis falls exactly where the meaning is, and the pauses are doing real work.

It has been rated superbly by listeners here, and it is the rare science listen you can finish in an afternoon and think about for a month. Settle in with it below.