Customer Reviews

A Sense of the Mysterious: Science and the Human Spirit

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Alan Lightman is a rarity - a man who excels at both science and art. Novelist ("The Diagnosis" was a National Book Award finalist), essayist, and physicist, Lightman teaches both creative writing and physics at MIT.

"Ever since I was a young boy, my passions have been divided between science and art," says Lightman in his opening essay. Ranging over more than 20 years, these pieces explore the deep rewards and divergent modes of thinking involved in his two chosen fields. "Roughly speaking, the scientist tries to name things and the artist tries to avoid naming things." The scientist poses questions with definite answers; the artist poses questions without answers or with many answers.

As a boy Lightman wrote poetry, conducted experiments and built things, like the spark-generating induction coil inspired by the movie "Frankenstein," or a remote control device for the household lights. But by college age he knew he had to choose, and his choice was made with a scientist's logic. The average age of prize-winning work in physics is 36, he points out. "I knew of a few scientists who later became writers...but no writers who later in life became scientists."

He describes the exhilarating highlights and devastating lows of those early years in poetic, passionate terms. Waking to find a frustrating research problem unraveling in his mind without effort, "I was simply spirit, in a state of pure exhilaration." Later, about to publish his results on a different problem, he discovers he has been "scooped" by some Japanese scientists.

After his initial dismay, he experiences a sense of wonder that someone completely unknown to him could reach the same conclusion, "within three decimal points." "Here was powerful evidence of a thing - part science, part mathematics - that exists outside our own heads....There was terrible precision in the world." His awe is followed by a depressing sense of irrelevance: if not he or the Japanese scientists, then someone else would have solved the problem a few months down the road. What use was his individual effort?

Throughout these essays Lightman comes back to this question of precision, science's "great strength and its great weakness." The physical world's mysteries exist and wait to be explained; there is nothing to create. Scientists may devise creative approaches, equations of exquisite beauty, and elegant, abstract theories, but the exhilaration lies in posing answers, not creating something new and unique.

A special accomplishment - and for the mathematician, unhappily rare - is the elegant, eloquent, simple and powerful mathematical proof. "Gone is the civilization of ancient Greece, but not the Pythagorean theorem." From the simplicity and power of Euclidian geometry to the elusive abstractions of irrational and imaginary numbers, Lightman succeeds in conveying the beauty and timelessness of mathematics.

He offers brief, incisive portraits of greats like Einstein, Edward Teller, Richard Feynman and astronomer Vera Rubin, who discovered dark matter. He discusses the creative and perhaps all-too-human use of metaphor in science; how this essential visualization may embody individual prejudice and how metaphor becomes increasingly unwieldy as it reaches into quantum realms beyond our physical understanding. He muses on the wrenching realization that his own best work in physics is behind him at age 35 and reflects on how technology has come to drive humanity rather than serve it.

Whatever his subject, he takes a humanist approach, inquiring into the role of personality in scientific research and the limitations of science itself as a human construct. He contrasts science and art and explores their differing and intersecting requirements. Each of these essays is cogent, eloquent and stimulating, but the best are those that convey the passionate fulfillment Lightman finds in his two disparate careers.

Readers unfamiliar with Lightman's fiction may want to check out "Einstein's Dreams," in which the young Einstein, working on his theory of relativity, dreams each night of worlds where time behaves differently and people act accordingly. Time runs backward, is circular, slows with altitude, etc. In one world people are thrust into the past, in another time is frozen, in another everyone knows a year in advance when the world will end. Though not strong on plot, it is mind-bending fun.

Physics at the edge of the known is indeed mysterious, but filled with a magesty that the outsider can only imagine by relating it to something in their life. I remember talking to an English Lit professor about the first time he was introduced to Mozart. He asked me when I first heard Mozart and how thrilled I was. Unfortunately I'm basically tone deaf and neither Mozart or the others give me thrills. But then I tried to explain to him the way I felt when I first discovered calculus. Mere words failed me.

Dr. Lightman is much better with words than I am. He is able to convey the sense of awe, even astonishment when something is finally understood. And the more you know about advanced physics the more mysterious it becomes.

This is not a book of physics, this is a book of awe. Beautiful writing.

This clearly and at times beautifully written work often takes on the character of intellectual autobiography. Lightman tells of his youthful enthusiasm for Science, his work under his mentors William Gerace, Robert Naumann, Martin Rees, and Kip Thorne. He writes about the process of work in science in fascinating intellectual portraits of Einstein, Feynmann, Teller and the astronomer Vera Rubin. He extends the analysis in writing about the way Metaphor can be vital in scientific discovery and explanation. He writes a chapter on how 'Words' in Science provide clear 'naming'( denotative meaning) while in Literature they are more hidden and multiple( Connotative meaning) He in one startling chapter tells how at the age of thirty- five he realized that his best scientific work was behind him, and followed his youthful plan to become a writer-novelist. In this chapter he contrasts the often frustrating , difficult problem of solving scientific problems with the day-to-day seemingly simpler satisfaction of the novelist. And here he indicates that nothing can quite compete with the creative joy of answering a scientific question definitely and precisely- and in so doing knowing one has an answer which is universal. And this in comparison to the always somewhat unclear result of one's own literary efforts.
Lightman's love for science and his genuine interest in the work of others, and their personal struggle give this book an extra dimension of intensity in feeling.
His excitement and enthusiasm with creative work is best indicated in the chapter which gives its title to the work. He cites Einstein," The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious.It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science"
Lightman then provides his understanding of Einstein's words.
" I don't think he meant that science is full of unpredictable or unknowable supernatural forces.I believe that he meant a
sense of awe, a sense that there are things larger than us, that we do not have all the answers at this moment. A sense that we can stand right at the edge between known and unknown and gaze into that cavern and be exhilirated rather than frightened.
Now he adds his own autobiographical confession.
" Just as Einstein suggested I have experienced that beautiful mystery both as a scientist and as a novelist. As a physicist, in the infinite mystery ofphysical nature.As a novelist , in the infinite mystery of human nature and the power of words to portray some of that mystery."
An exhilirating work.

Alan Lightman is one of those rare individuals who has a solid background in both physics and the humanities. As a result, he has been able to write this very enjoyable collection of essays dealing with the human context of science, especially physics. None of the essays are ultra profound, but they're still insightful enough to make worthwhile reading, especially considering that the amount of literature in this genre is fairly limited. This book reminds me of "Feynman's Rainbow" by Leonard Mlodinow, which I also found to be very enjoyable and, like Mlodinow's book, Lightman's book is a quick read.

As other reviewers have noted, the specific essay topics are a mixed bag including autobiography, biography, the relationship between math and physics, the nature and experience of scientific inquiry, and other broader topics such as the influence of technology in human life.

As indicated in my title, if you have at least a popular-level familiarity with modern physics, and can also appreciate the humanities, I predict that you will find this book to be quite enjoyable, and perhaps also somewhat enlightening. I enjoyed reading the book, and I expect that I will read it again in the future.

A collection of essays on various topics by Alan Lightman - some autobiographical, some dealing with the interesting contrast and similarity of his careers in science and writing, some biographical expositions into the pscyhe of famous scientists like Einstein, Edward Teller, Richard Feynman, and Vera Rubin) and others just exploring not science itself but the 'human dimension' of science, if you will, as an enterprise. I read 10 of the 11 essays but did not find it as stimulating or interesting as his book Einstein's Dreams, which I read in the late 90s.

Comprised of essays from different years, this is an excellent book for those about to embark on studies in the sciences, or for those who like finding out what drives people to do what they do. The writings fall into two categories: the autobiographical pieces where Lightman tells us about how and why he became a physicist then novelist, and the others, which are essentially short bios of different figures in the sciences, like Einstein or Richard Feynman. I enjoyed the former more, mostly because the reader feels close to the author's enthusiasm, his sense of discovery and enlightenment. The distinctions Lightman makes between the Arts and the Sciences are also revealing, especially in discussions of the individual and of `naming'. This book is highly recommended.

We have been blessed by writings like "A Mathematician's Apology" by G. H. Hardy and "On Being the Right Size" by J. B. S. Haldane, now we have a newer addition to this fine category of literature.

Well-written and insightful essays on the influence of our human-ness on our creation and use of technology. Interesting portraits of some of the world's leading scientists, and a thoughtful study of how technology has changed the experience of being human.

Lightman tells his experience from 1950's to the 1990's in these thrilling yet scientific stories. He starts when he was a teen sitting around the house making projects like a spark-generating induction coil from movies like "Frankenstein" and getting his poetic writing from his role models. Later on in the story he shows his emotion when he was almost finshed with the project about Einstein's theory when someone from across the world got there first. At that time Lightman understands that the answer to the prombles in science was already there it's just needs to be found. In the late years of this book he starts to write again in a whole collection of essays talking about other scientist and the work they were credit with. If at all you get to read this book it in time would inhance your intellagance about poetic writing and most of all science. This book would be one of the top ten list if you were going into any field of science or writing.