Science as Metaphor Where does Brian Greene stand in the pantheon of physicists? By Amanda Schaffer Posted Tuesday, July 6, 2004, at 6:16 AM PT With his 1999 best seller The Elegant Universe, a NOVA special, and the recent release of a second book, The Fabric of the Cosmos, Columbia professor Brian Greene has become the closest thing that physics has to a pop star. A Harvard grad and former Rhodes scholar, lured in 1996 from a professorship at Cornell to a tenured position at Columbia, he has emerged as the chief ambassador of string theory, bringing cutting-edge work to...