Famous Vegans - Brian Greene

Brian Greene at the
World Science Festival, 2008.

Brian Greene

Born February 9, 1963. He's an American scientist and author. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University in 1984 and his doctorate from Oxford University in 1986, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He joined the physics faculty of Cornell University in 1990 and was appointed to the position of full professor in 1995. In 1996 he joined Columbia university as a professor of physics and mathematics.

He is widely recognized for a number of groundbreaking discoveries in his field of superstring theory, including the co-discovery of mirror symmetry, which launched a vibrant field of research in physics and mathematics, and also the discovery of topology change, which showed that unlike Einstein's General Relativity, in string theory the fabric of space can tear apart.

He is the co-founder and director of Columbia's Institute for Strings, Cosmology, and Astroparticle Physics (ISCAP), a research center seeking string theory's implications for theories of cosmology. His books include The Elegant Universe, The Fabric of the Cosmos and The Hidden Reality. He also wrote a short story for children: Icarus at the Edge of Time.

He played himself on the 20th episode of the 4th season of the Big Bang Theory, helped with scientific dialogue for the television series 3rd Rock From the Sun, appeared on David Letterman and has made many other media appearances.

Quotes by Brian Greene:

"I became vegetarian when I was nine because my mother cooked spare ribs in a manner that made the connection to meat from an animal particularly clear. So at that point I said I’m never eating meat again and proceeded to go to the refrigerator and make a salami sandwich, because, a city kid, you know, what is meat? You don’t know what meat is, really. And my parents said, ‘Well, that salami is meat,’ at which point I just put down the sandwich and never ate meat again."

"Going vegan happened later. I visited an animal rescue farm in upstate New York [Farm Sanctuary] and learned much about the dairy industry which was so disturbing that I could not continue to support it. Within days I gave up all dairy."

"Most people don’t question the practice of eating meat. ... Many of these people care about animals and the environment, some deeply. But for some reason—force of habit, cultural norms, resistance to change—there is a fundamental disconnect whereby these feelings don’t translate into changes of behavior."

When asked why he thinks so many of the greatest geniuses have been vegetarian, he answered:

"From my limited experience, vegetarians typically are people who are willing to challenge the usual, accepted order of things. Moreover, they’re often people willing to sacrifice their own pleasures in pursuit of what they believe is right. These same qualities are often what’s needed to make great breakthroughs in the arts and sciences."

In 2011, he appeared on the Colbert Report. He was asked whether he thinks there is a universe where Taco Bell serves beef. He answered:

"I'm vegan, I don't even think about those kind of things."

In 1999 he wrote:

"String theory has the potential to show that all of the wondrous happenings in the universe -- from the frantic dance of subatomic quarks to the stately waltz of orbiting binary stars; from the primordial fireball of the big bang to the majestic swirl of heavenly galaxies -- are reflections of one, grand physical principle, one master equation."

"I think we have an urge for there to be more to reality than our daily lives. We delight in the possibility that, under what we've long taken to be certain, lies something hidden."

Quotes are from his 2011 interview with The Washington Post, his 2007 interview with Common Ground Magazine, his interview with The Supreme Master Ching Hai and his 2011 interview with NewStatesman.