Brian Greene tells us everything may not be all there is

What's it like to stand on the edge, looking beyond known reality to where we might be going next?

It is a life full of uncertainty, anxiety, and discomfort, says Brian Greene, theoretical physicist and author of best-selling book, "The Elegant Universe," "The Fabric of the Cosmos," and newly released "The Hidden Reality."

Yes, that's right. I used "theorectical physicist," and "best-selling" in the same sentence, which is a little like a movie about social networking winning an Oscar for best musical score. It's an unexpected and yet intriguing combination.

Unity on the Plaza was filled to capacity and then some Thursday night for the first speaker of the year in the Linda Hall Library series based on the theme "innovation," and it wasn't just all the geeks of Kansas City congregating. Children, science teachers, musicians, college students, techies, and the intellectually curious sat in rapt attention as Greene managed to weave stories of his children, pictures of ants on a telephone cable, and theories of muliple universes with such mastery that the theories of complex physics were within the grasp of even those who had never passed Calculus.

Before launching into string theory (read the book because I'm not even going to attempt a summary of his summary here) and the seemingly contradictory concept of repulsive gravity, Greene tossed out the provocative idea that, "what we thought was everything may only be a small part of everything."

In fact, Greene opened our minds to so many far-reaching theories that by the time, toward the latter end of his presentation, that he informed us that there may be as many as 10 physical dimensions, we were all actually willing to accept it. "Well, of course there are, Brian," I could hear our collective brains conceding, "how else could you explain this wild, wacky universe, um, multiverse." (The very literary among you might recall that a really smart mathmetician/monk posed a similar idea over 100 years ago in "Flatland").

Really, at times it felt like I had jumped onto a roller coaster that took off before I had time to engage the protective shoulder harness. We raced up and down the concepts of space, energy, time and origins. Our imaginations spun furiously under us, and at times I was barely holding on with my fingertips. It was such fun that I didn't want the ride to end, but the pace was so frantic and the turns so sharp that I was constantly afraid of falling off.

And then it ended, just like that. After an hour and a half of cramming my mind with the infintely large and the inconceivably small, I walked out into the cool night, and my only thought was, "well, here I am. I guess it's time to go home now."

At home, I kissed my little girl good-night, snuggled into the warm embrace of my love, and dreamed of the everything beyond the everything, in which my spirit found great comfort. Why? This I can explain no more than I could explain why there are 10^500 possible shapes to the other 7 dimensions. It just is.