Choosing a theme for the Sweet Briar College 2005-06 Honors Colloquia was — if you’ll excuse the expression — a no-brainer.

A century ago a young patent clerk was emerging from a furious period of scientific discovery. It was 1905, Albert Einstein’s “miracle year.” He wrote five important papers, four of them on quantum theory, Brownian Motion and general relativity. These papers shaped modern-day physics and radically changed the way science views the relationships between space and time, and matter and energy.

To honor the centennial of Einstein’s annus mirabilis, SBC Honors Colloquia presenters — Sweet Briar faculty and occasional visiting lecturers from across academic disciplines — will address the concept of space and time. How might an art historian or a writer frame a discussion on space and time? The idea behind the informal colloquia is to invite the campus community to find out, to ask questions, to jump into the fray.

Jonathan Green, professor of music and dean of the College, led the lineup with his talk, “Untying Some Knots in String Theory: A Brief Introduction to the Problems with Space and Time.” String theory is a modern-day concept that may hold the secret to unifying the four known forces in the universe: electromagnetism, the strong and weak nuclear forces, and gravitation. Einstein and others have worked on unification theories for decades with limited success.

Green approached the problem first with his own brief history of time. In the evolution of life, science and society, he cited momentous events — the emergence of multi-celled organisms, the granting of Britain’s Magna Carta in 1215, the founding of Sweet Briar in 1901. …

He talked, too, about the contributions of physicists past to present, from Sir Isaac Newton’s Laws of Motion to contemporary string theorists such as Brian Greene, who will be a guest lecturer at Sweet Briar on Sept. 22. Greene is a noted physicist, mathematician and author of two books, including his latest, “The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time and the Texture of Reality.”

“You have to be able to conceptualize what you’re trying to understand. I’m speaking today to give a musician’s angle of what’s on the table for us to talk about this year,” Green told the faculty, staff and students who crowded into the Honors Center for the semester’s first colloquium. His tack was systematic, introducing listeners to successive scientists, their ideas and sometimes their foilables. Occasionally, the musician queried his colleagues in the physics department to ensure he stayed on course.

Green noted that new scientific discoveries seem to contradict earlier theories. Trouble arises when the laws of the classical realm fail at the extremes. For example, today’s scientists can observe what Newton, in his time, could not — the quantum world. Quantum physics are laws of nature that apply to tiny particles and small quantities of energy. Quantum mechanics don’t work with Newton’s Laws of Motion.

But Newton wasn’t wrong, Scott Hyman, SBC professor of physics, explains. His Laws of Motion simply don’t apply in the quantum realm.

“ ‘Contradict’ isn’t the right word to use. Old theories were very accurate in their domain but now the domain is larger. Now we need theories that apply in both the extreme and normal conditions.”

Gravity is the spoiler, Hyman said. Einstein’s general relativity explains gravity’s origins, but it is not a quantum theory. Scientists are still looking for a unified quantum theory of gravity. Some believe string theory, which posits extra dimensions and that the fundamental constituents of matter are tiny strings, not point particles, is the answer.

Still, minus groundbreaking discoveries by an obscure clerk in the Swiss Patent Office, a different discussion might be on the table for 2005-06 Honors Colloquia. “Perhaps if Einstein hadn’t made this bad job choice, he wouldn’t have had the miracle year of 1905,” Green suggested at the end of a lecture that was by turns serious and funny. “Einstein set the table one hundred years ago. He also opened a Pandora’s box. But what’s at the bottom of Pandora’s box?”

“Hope,” several listeners replied.

For upcoming Honors Program lectures and events, please visit the online schedule. The fall schedule also includes the annual MARCUS undergraduate research conference at Sweet Briar, and field trips to the Green Valley Book Fair and Blackfriar’s Playhouse in Staunton for a Shenandoah Shakespeare production of “All’s Well that Ends Well.”

Brian Greene’s guest lecture will be held in conjunction with Sweet Briar’s inaugural Homecoming Weekend. The event will be at 7:30 p.m. at the Babcock Fine Arts Center in the Murchison Lane Auditorium. Admission is free. For more information, please e-mail Julie Hemstreet, Honors Program associate administrator, at jhemstreet@sbc.edu or call (434) 381-6473.