Here's a humorous poem about one of the most difficult theories in modern physics. Brian Greene himself told me he liked it.

As I was reading Brian Greene
It woke my dormant “poet’s gene”
Made me attempt to put in verse
Profound ideas in phrases terse.

A brilliant stroke, or just depravity
To unify vast space and gravity
The quantum world and Einstein’s theory
To comprehend it makes me weary.

Among the physicists contentions
Four big and seven curled dimensions.
These ultramicroscopic strings
Are they the same as other things?

Yes, all the particles condense
To string vibrations, it makes sense
That each neutrino, quark and tau
Are just string patterns, we know now.

But lo the strings are not enough
Five separate theories, that is tough.
So Edward Witten earned his fame
By showing they are all the same

He called the bold new theory “M”
For“Magic” “Mystery”, all of them.
This theory’s even more arcane
For now a string sits on a brane.

With p dimensions up to ten
The four of space-time fit right in.
We cannot see them, we’re denied
We’re all just peabrains trapped inside.

The deepest mysteries soon may yield
And all of physics be revealed.
And yet the simple fact remains
My brain can just not handle branes.

Copyright Karen Reid 2006