Hawking, Kaku, Thorne, and Greene. Though these guys may sound like a rock band, they are the rock stars of modern physics.
Stephen W. Hawking is the physics equivalent of The Rolling Stones, though Hawking is in better shape, physically. He’s the guy who burst onto the layman’s radar, flashing one equation and loads of illustrations and strutting around (metaphorically) proselytizing that the grand era of physics was at hand, and we would soon see a Grand Unifying Theory (GUT) that would unite particle physics and relativity theory. So far, we don’t have a perfect GUT, though many physicists endeavor at this. At Hawking’s website, you can listen to or read his lectures on physics.
Read more about A Briefer History of Time here.
If Stephen Hawking is The Rolling Stones, then Michio Kaku is the hardest working band: The Grateful Dead. While still slinging out scientific publications by the handful, Michio Kaku has written four well-received and sprightly books, visits his MySpace page, seems to host a TV documentary every week, and hosts a weekly radio show, among other commitments. I’m such a Kakuhead. Visit his website here for a great introduction to physics and Michio the Man. His books are great.
Kip Thorne from Caltech is the wild man of physics, perhaps even the grunge band guy. When Carl Sagan needed a space ship, he called up Kip Thorne, and Kip gave Sagan the idea for the worm hole spaceship that he used in the novel Contact. Thorne’s research investigates the possible existence of multiply connected black holes and time warps, and his book by the same name is a rollicking good read.
To continue our rock star metaphor for physicists, Brian Greene is the pretty boy newcomer. He’s the one with the movie-star good looks who also, unfathomably, is a physics whiz, knows his chops, and deserves to be in the room with the gritty guys. His research into superstrings threatens to once and for all unite the disparate fields of physics into one GUT, and thus all the genera of physicists into one highly dysfunctional family. Let’s hope that works out for him. He also wrote the book and hosted the PBS special The Elegant Universe.
Author of RABID: A Novel, The Evolution of the Scientific Thriller
