Brian Greene is my favorite living scientist.

My first exposure to him was on a NOVA mini-series that aired not long ago, entitled "The Elegant Universe." He was the host, and at first I figured he was just an actor hired to guide us through the brave new world of string theory. He probably didn't even know what he was saying, I thought. He was just too charming, too well spoken, and too entertaining to be a scientist. Then it listed his creds: he's a professor and researcher at Columbia who specializes in string theory and quantum gravity. "Okay," I thought. "So he's a scientist. It's not like he wrote the thing." Turns out, of course, he did. And not only did he write the program, which was adapted from one of his books (of the same name), he's written a bejillion journal articles with names like "Duality in Calabi-Yau Moduli Space" and "Orbifold Resolution by D-Branes." This guy is seriously smart.

I've been interested in string theory for years, but my comprehension of the topic has always been stymied by my limited knowledge of physics. And then there's the problem of math. When it comes to advanced math, I'm pretty much what the curmudgeons would call an ignoramus. I'm not sure how this happened, either—in middle school I loved math. I used to participate in math relays and what-not. Somewhere along the line, though, math became impossibly abstruse, and when I (barely) tested out of the math requirement in college, I had never breathed a bigger sigh of relief. That was when I resigned myself to being a language person and, in so doing, relinquished the last vestiges of a childhood dream. You see, ever since I saw Halley's comet I wanted to want to be an astronomer. But the field of astronomy turned out to be way more complicated than learning constellations and memorizing the order of the planets (My Very Energetic Mother Just Sent Us Nine Pizzas). The looking-at-the-sky part I could do. The part where you had to calculate zenith and azimuth (which sounds like it should be served with very dry gin)—not so much.

So now I'm a writer who looks at the sky.

It could be worse.

Still, I want to understand what makes the world go. I want to understand the nature of space-time, whether my skin has elements in common with Jupiter, and how the universe behaves on a microcosmic and macrocosmic level. That's where string theory comes in—the idea that the most basic components of the universe are vibrating strings, and that the way these strings vibrate determines the properties of particles and forces. For awhile, we thought quarks were the smallest component of the universe, but strings—if they exist—are way smaller than that.

See? String theory is great stuff. I've tried to read books on the matter, but most of them have been written for other people in the scientific community, which is all the way across town from the language arts community where I spend my days. What I really needed was a gifted teacher to take this difficult material—make that extremely difficult material—and explain it so that even a math ignoramus could understand it.

Enter Brian Greene.

Over the course of that NOVA show, I came to understand more about string theory than I would have imagined possible. I may not have grasped the mammoth equations that drive this theory (and it's becoming apparent that I never will), but I understood the analogies Dr. Greene used to describe theoretical phenomena. For example: String theory relies on the existence of extra dimensions, and it's tough to imagine how this would work. Where do these extra dimensions live? Why can't we see them? Does this explain where my car keys went? This is the kind of stuff that blows my mind more than that crazy Hubble photo showing millions upon millions of galaxies in a tiny sliver of space. (For the record, I'm comfortable with four.) But Brian simply asks us to imagine a flagpole. Seen from afar it looks flat, but as you get closer you see that the surface is curved and there is an ant walking around its perimeter. The other dimension was always there—it was just not perceptible to us. Even more complex stuff like supersymmetry makes sense when Brian is explaining it. Quarks are paired with squarks, electrons with selectrons, and so on. And the best part is the name given to these supersymmetric particles—sparticles. There also was some discussion of supercolliders, and how they're being used to check for energy losses with particle collisions. If such losses are shown to occur, this could be proof that the energy is leaking into the extra dimensions required by string theory. This is all crazy science fiction stuff that is so far beyond my ken it's not even funny. But thanks to Brian Greene, I understand it—at least in a rudimentary way.

All that, and personable, too! Most scientists are on the introverted side, socially awkward even, with the degree of awkwardness increasing in proportion to the magnitude of intellect. They've had the social graces pummeled out of them through years of begging for grant money and working in lonely laboratories over the holidays. But there's some vaudeville in Brian. He's the Groucho Marx of the physics world. And he's so friendly and likable, you'd never guess he was brilliant. I bet he has groupies. I bet there are all sorts of women taking his class and writing "I Love You" on their eyelids, just like in the first Indiana Jones. Check out his picture. Have you ever seen anyone so adorable? What? I sound like I have a crush on him? Just shows what you know.

Really.

I totally don't.