"Alan Ligtman has a unique giftt for exploring science and connecting its ideas for meanings to our lives."
This collection of essays and stories bring up questions that he probes with imagination and wit.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Lightman, a physicist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and a teacher at Harvard, wrote Time Travel and Papa Joe's Pipea richly readable book of popular science that clearly stands as progenitor or kissing cousin to the present bouquet of short essays. In his "senior" years as a physicist (meaning he has turned 35, the age by which he says all the science greats had peaked and started downhill), Lightman bemoans the fact in an essay that in many ways typifies his writing virtues: Might he begin a new career writing science fantasies? He has a flair for explaining some of the most difficult problems of modern astrophysics with homely, often striking analogies; and, of course, he is on top of what preoccupies physicists and cosmologists today: gravitational waves, the origin and destiny of the universe (Stephen Hawking's heady theoretical extrapolations) and more. Yet the unique charm here lies in his personal sidelights (showing his young daughter the starry night) and his imaginative scenarios explaining paradoxes of scientific theory, along with warm tributes to men like Hawking, Shapley and others. Most of the pieces originally appeared in Science '84 and '85.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
The clever, well-written essays in this collection originally appeared in such diverse publications as Science, the New Yorker, and the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. In an informal, engagingly episodic narrative style, Lightman, a Harvard physicist and the author of Time Travel, relays a considerable number of facts to the general reader, explaining in nontechnical terms several of the mysteries of astronomy, as well as the workings and a few of the paradoxes of modern science in general. Subjects include cosmology, Halley's Comet, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, applied versus theoretical science, and the nature of scientific ability. Not only does Lightman succeed in spanning the chasm between the public and his technical colleagues, but he proves himself a skilled storyteller. Recommended. Robert Paustian, Wilkes Coll. Lib., Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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More About the Author
Alan Lightman, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences since 1996, is adjunct professor of humanities at MIT. He is the author of several books on science, including "Ancient Light: Our Changing View of the Universe" (1991) and "Origins: The Lives and Worlds of Modern Cosmologists" (with R. Brawer, 1990). His works of fiction include "Einstein's Dreams" (1993), "The Diagnosis" (2000), which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and, most recently, "Reunion" (2003).
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