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Articles by Alan Lightman
Humanities make science education more meaningful
GLOBAL As students navigate an increasingly complex world, there is a growing recognition of the need to integrate the humanities into science education. Moreover, science itself becomes more meaningful when it is connected to other subjects. We want our students to not only gain scientific knowledge but also to encourage their imaginations and creative thinking to explore the relevance of that knowledge to the larger world.
Of weeds and men
A few years ago, I installed a small playground near my island home for my grandkids. Some of them have now outgrown the swings and slides, but I still like to keep the area looking nice. For beauty’s sake, I have planted some rhododendra, hydrangea, rose of Sharon and shrubby St. John’s wart in the vicinity. Every few days, I cut the grass around the playground. I water the plants — especially this past summer when we had so little rain. I pick up random rocks. I spray, to keep the insects away.
Brothers in this place: A close encounter with my osprey neighbors
Over the years, I have seen a great many animals near our island summer home in Harpswell: cormorants, gulls, owls, hummingbirds, ospreys, red squirrels, wild turkeys, eagles, crows, terns, occasional woodpeckers, seals, fisher cats, deer (who are surprisingly good swimmers) and vols (who destroy the garden with relish). All of them are part of the local ecosystem. We habitate together. They go about their daily routines, and I go about mine.
Alan Lightman on his childhood in science
In late 1957, around my ninth birthday, the Soviet Union launched the world’s first artificial satellite, called Sputnik. I became entranced with the idea of building a rocket of my own. I imagined the lift-off, the graceful arc of the craft as it careened through space. By the age of 13 or 14 I had started mixing my own rocket fuels. A fuel that burned too fast would explode like a bomb; a fuel that burned too slow would smolder like a barbecue grill.
The Ordinary Miracle of Existing
On the northwestern shore of Africa, some 150 miles south of the Canary Islands, the coastline slightly bulges in a pimple known as Cape Bojador. For Europeans in the early 15th century, Cape Bojador marked the boundary between the known and the unknown. North of the cape was civilization and the cities of light.
In praise of wasting time
During my summers in Maine, I try to take a break from the frantic pace of my normal life. I rarely look at my watch. If I need to follow the flow of the hours, the rhythm of the tides is plenty good enough for me. One summer several years ago, after a pleasant day kayaking in Quahog Bay, I decided to measure the passage of time in the late afternoon by the shift in light on the wall opposite a west-facing window.
Un po’ prima del big bang
Questo articolo è stato pubblicato il 5 febbraio 2016 nel numero 1139 di Internazionale. L’11 febbraio 1931, Albert Einstein ebbe un incontro di più di un’ora con un piccolo gruppo di scienziati statunitensi in un’accogliente biblioteca del Mount Wilson observatory, vicino a Pasadena, in California. L’argomento della discussione era la cosmologia e in quell’occasione Einstein avrebbe fatto una delle affermazioni più importanti della storia della scienza.
The Mind-Body Question
Some years ago, I had a colonoscopy without being fully anesthetized, and was able to watch on a computer screen the shifting views of the insides of my colon. I was both fascinated and disturbed. There, revealed in digital detail, was the deep interior of my body, a realm I had always considered a mysterious and forbidden temple, fragile and secretive as it went about its important business of keeping me alive.
A southerner experiences the denizens of Maine
My wife and I first began experiencing the people of Maine in the fall and winter of 1989-1990, when we built our home on an island in Casco Bay. We both had grown up in the South, lived in the Boston area for many years, and were gratified to find our new neighbors in Maine to be down-to-earth, hardworking, practical, and friendly but not overly familiar. The more logistically difficult a project, the more South Freeport builder George Waterman would enjoy it.
The Mind-Body Question
Some years ago, I had a colonoscopy without being fully anesthetized, and was able to watch on a computer screen the shifting views of the insides of my colon. I was both fascinated and disturbed. There, revealed in digital detail, was the deep interior of my body, a realm I had always considered a mysterious and forbidden temple, fragile and secretive as it went about its important business of keeping me alive.
A cosmic history of Harpswell
Time and place seem like obvious things, the anchors of our lives. But when examined closely, they are almost beyond comprehension. For example, we have trouble grasping that at one time in the past, we didn’t exist. We look at photographs of ourselves when we were children and faintly remember. Then we look at photographs of our parents before they were married, and the thought strikes us that we were not yet born.
The Greatest Sentence Ever Written
America’s bestselling biographer reveals the origins of the most revolutionary sentence in the Declaration of Independence, the one that defines who we are as Americans—and explains how it should shape our politics today.
Fiction: Coastal Light
When John finally got to the end of the dirt road, his father was standing next to a patch of purple fireweed drinking a beer. John waited in the car until the dust had settled, then got out and walked over to his father, the two of them facing each other. “You’re looking good,” said John. “I know I don’t look good,” said Ben. The elder man, lean and sinewy, was dressed in khaki pants and a faded blue shirt. His squinty eyes roved over the BMW and its out-of-state plates, then up and down his son.
Atoms and Animal Farm: Integrating Science With the Humanities
As students navigate an increasingly complex world, there is a growing recognition of the need to integrate the humanities into science education. Moreover, science itself becomes more meaningful when it is connected to other subjects. We want our students to not only gain scientific knowledge, but also to encourage their imaginations and creative thinking to explore the relevance of that knowledge to the larger world.
The Future (and Past) is Human (and Machine)
On July 8, 1943, Thomas W. Wallace, only seven months into his job as lieutenant governor of New York, came down with pneumonia. He was quickly driven to Ellis Hospital in Schenectady, where he was placed in an oxygen tent. For a while, his condition improved. But then he suffered a relapse.
This Is What Scientists Get Up to When They Leave the Lab
Alan Lightman is a physicist, writer of seven novels, and professor of the practice of the humanities at MIT. His books include the international bestseller, Einstein’s Dreams, and The Diagnosis, a finalist for the National Book Award. He is also the host of the television series Searching: Our Quest for Meaning in the Age of Science. Martin Rees is the UK’s Astronomer Royal. He is based at Cambridge University where he is Fellow (and Former Master) of Trinity College.
Expand your horizons with MIT’s summer 2025 reading list
Enjoy recent titles from Institute faculty and staff, including three books from the MIT Open Learning community. Zoom image will be displayed Summer is the perfect time to curl up with a good book — and MIT authors have had much to offer in the past year.
Expand your horizons with MIT’s summer 2025 reading list
Enjoy recent titles from Institute faculty and staff, including three books from the MIT Open Learning community. Summer is the perfect time to curl up with a good book — and MIT authors have had much to offer in the past year.
For many years, my wife and I have spent our summers on a small island in Harpswell. Our two daughters grew up spending their summers on the island, and now our four grandchildren make regular visits there as well. Harpswell is in our blood. On cold winter nights, as I sit in my city house near Boston, brooding about the next day’s assignments, I imagine I’m on the island, wearing shorts and sandals, smelling the sweet ocean air, listening to the calls of sea gulls and ospreys.
How Scientists Can Be Good Citizens Original
On July 3, 1945, ten German scientists who had worked on Germany’s nuclear program were interned by the Allies at a country mansion called Farm Hall, in Godmanchester England, about 20 miles northwest of Cambridge. The purpose of incarcerating the physicists was to find out how close Nazi Germany had been to building an atomic bomb, and possibly also to keep them from falling into the hands of the Russians.
The End of the Enlightenment? Original
Today the concept of academic freedom may seem obvious to Americans. But the roots of academic freedom, which can be traced back to medieval European universities, were never certain. Back then, when scholars demanded autonomy from Church and state, they were often rebuked—or worse. What began as a slow-burning fuse eventually led to the concept of the modern research university a few centuries later, found in the writing of the English philosopher Francis Bacon and his 1627 novel, New Atlantis.
THE SHAPE OF WONDER
Many people have lost trust in long-established institutions, and the lost trust in science is especially troubling, because science and technology play a key role in modern life. Lightman and Rees are well positioned to address the issue. Both are well-known scientists in their own right, as well as popular science communicators—Lightman is the author of 20 other books, Rees of 19. This is their first collaboration.
Oceans That Glow: On the Timeless Beauty of Bioluminescence
Some years ago I was returning to my island house in Maine, under a dark night sky, and I noticed that the wake of the boat was glowing. As far as I could tell, it was bluish in color. That was my first experience with bioluminescence. Later, I discovered that I could create that same oceanic glow simply by waving a stick or paddle in the water. Bioluminescence—the glow produced by fireflies, algae, and a few other organisms—is a beautiful and eerie phenomenon.
The Power of Small Wonderments
1 Some Phenomena Still Can’t Be Explained Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . Each chapter of my new book, The Miraculous from the Material, begins with a full-page color photograph of an extraordinary natural phenomenon, like lightning or hummingbirds or the rings of Saturn. It then gives a scientific explanation of the phenomenon and a personal story.
Moses Mendelssohn: el hombre que defendió la inmortalidad del alma en tiempos de la Ilustración Original
La sensación de trascendencia que sentimos al contemplar las estrellas, escuchar una melodía conmovedora o enamorarnos profundamente ha acompañado al ser humano desde los albores de la civilización. Estas experiencias, aunque tan íntimas como comunes, nos invitan a mirar más allá de nuestra vida cotidiana y a cuestionar el lugar que ocupamos en el vasto cosmos. ¿Qué es lo que nos hace sentir esa conexión con algo mayor?
Living Between the Known and the Unknown
Between-States: Conversations About Bardo and Life In Tibetan Buddhism, “bardo” is a between-state. The passage from death to rebirth is a bardo, as well as the journey from birth to death.
When the Unnatural Becomes Natural
Foul whisperings are abroad: unnatural deeds Do breed unnatural troubles … — Macbeth Some years ago, the satellite-radio and pharmaceutical entrepreneur Martine Rothblatt decided that she wanted a semblance of her wife to last forever. So she commissioned Hanson Robotics to create a robot that looked exactly like the head and shoulders of her wife, Bina.
A trio of science-based children’s books run the gamut from A (ants) to T (turtles)
Two picture books and a middle-grade novel use mysterious ants, the plight of a sea turtle, and the lure of the “invisible” world to draw young readers into their stories. “Isabel and the Invisible World” By Alan Lightman Illustrated by Ramona Kaulitzki MIT Kids Press 2023, 44 pages $18.99 Age: 4-6 For any child, the notion of an “invisible world” is a rich one, filled with fears, fantasies, possibilities, wishes, dreams and dreads.
I'm "spiritual but not religious." Here's what that means for a physicist
The Well — Spiritual experiences can be explained in terms of a highly evolved brain. But they also can be extremely meaningful. Key Takeaways The great physicist Isaac Newton was a strong believer in God, as was essentially everyone in his day.
The One and Only | Alan Lightman
Reviewed: Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman by James Gleick Pantheon, 531 pp., $27.50 Richard Feynman was the Michael Jordan of physics. His intellectual leaps, seemingly weightless, defied explanation.
To a slower life
I live less than a mile from Walden Pond. There, in the woods on the east side of the pond, Thoreau built his small cabin and wrote his great book. It is probably true that Thoreau left his cabin from time to time to walk into the town of Concord, one mile away, to see his family and others. But for the vast majority of the two years, he remained in that cabin alone, thinking, writing, and simply experiencing life.
Introducing the MIT Walker Collection - bringing innovative new STEAM books written by experts
The MIT Press and Walker Books have embarked on a pioneering publishing project to share the expertise and creativity of both organizations to bring engaging and ambitious books to children and YA readers. The collection of nonfiction and fiction books cover important STEAM topics ranging from planetary science to the Internet and the environment.
The Spiritual Materialist
One morning in Maine, soon after dawn, I stood by the ocean just as a light fog began moving in. The rising sun became a gauzy fire. Suddenly, the air started to glow. Fog scattered the sunlight, bounced it around and back and forth until each cupful of air shone with its own source of light. In all directions, the air beamed and shimmered and glowed, and the gulls stopped their squawking and the ospreys became quiet. For some time, I stood there spellbound by the silence and the glowing air.
Book World: Explaining spiritual experiences through a scientific lens
Pantheon. 194 pp. $26 - - - In his new book, "The Transcendent Brain: Spirituality in the Age of Science," Alan Lightman describes watching the lives of a family of ospreys one summer near his house on a small island in Maine. From his second-floor deck, he observed the chicks in the nest beginning to flap their wings, growing bigger and stronger. "All summer long, they had watched me on that deck as I watched them," Lightman writes. Then, one afternoon, they took their maiden flight.
Explaining spiritual experiences through a scientific lens
In his new book, " The Transcendent Brain: Spirituality in the Age of Science," Alan Lightman describes watching the lives of a family of ospreys one summer near his house on a small island in Maine. From his second-floor deck, he observed the chicks in the nest beginning to flap their wings, growing bigger and stronger. "All summer long, they had watched me on that deck as I watched them," Lightman writes. Then, one afternoon, they took their maiden flight.
The Transcendent Brain
Cover Votes: 16 0 Please sign in to submit your valuable feedback. Sign In or Register Now. Spirituality in the Age of Science by Alan Lightman You must sign in to see if this title is available for request. Send NetGalley books directly to your Kindle or Kindle app Description From the acclaimed author of Einstein’s Dreams comes a rich, fascinating answer to the question, Can the scientifically inclined still hold space for spirituality?
The Transcendent Brain: Spirituality in the Age of Science
The Transcendent Brain: Spirituality in the Age of Science Science and spirituality converge in this probing examination of humanity’s connection to the divine. Physicist Lightman (Probable Impossibilities) contends that “some human experiences are simply not reducible to zeros and ones” and draws on philosophy and science to suggest that materialism and spirituality are compatible.
How the Human Brain Is Wired for Romance
Recently, I found myself in the office of the neuroscientist Robert Desimone, the director of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, discussing what it takes to know that two people are going to fall in love.
How the Human Brain Is Wired for Romance
This article was featured in One Story to Read Today, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a single must-read from The Atlantic, Monday through Friday. Sign up for it here. Recently, I found myself in the office of the neuroscientist Robert Desimone, the director of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, discussing what it takes to know that two people are going to fall in love.
The Silent Sovereign
This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Queen Elizabeth II, who died today at age 96, was a “north star” for her subjects through seven decades of transformation. Our London-based staff writer Helen Lewis corresponded with me this afternoon about the late monarch’s singular legacy. But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.
The Power of Mysteries
I believe in the power of the unknown. I believe that a sense of the unknown propels us in all of our creative activities, from science to art. When I was a child, after bedtime I would often get out of my bed in my pajamas, go to the window and stare at the stars. I had so many questions. How far away were those tiny points of light? Did space go on forever and ever, or was there some end to space, some giant edge? And if so, what lay beyond the edge?
We May Never Know How Vast the Cosmos Really Is
Like many people on planet Earth, I have been spellbound by the first pictures from the James Webb Space Telescope: the lacelike windings of galaxies, the apricot filaments of nebulae, the remnants of exploded stars. A less picturesque, but still revolutionary, part of Webb’s mission is the search for signs of life elsewhere in the universe. The telescope goes about this momentous quest by analyzing the starlight passing through the atmospheres of distant planets.
Why the paradoxes of infinity still puzzle us today
Thinking — Since at least 600 BC, people have been mesmerized by the concept of the infinite. Key Takeaways Thoughts of the infinite have mesmerized and confounded human beings through the millennia. The concept of infinity remains a controversial and paradoxical topic today, galvanizing international conferences and heated scholarly disputes.
Hesson: Children's book reviews April 2
Hesson: Children's book reviews April 2 Ada and the Galaxies By Alan Lightman and Olga Pastuchiv, Illustrated by Susanna Chapman (MIT Kids Press) Ada loves stargazing and when she travels to her grandparents’ house in Maine, she can hardly wait to see the night sky. While she waits for darkness, she explores the marvels of the coastline.
Hesson: Children's book reviews April 2 Original
Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page. Article content Ada and the Galaxies By Alan Lightman and Olga Pastuchiv, Illustrated by Susanna Chapman (MIT Kids Press) Ada loves stargazing and when she travels to her grandparents’ house in Maine, she can hardly wait to see the night sky. While she waits for darkness, she explores the marvels of the coastline.
Hesson: Children's book reviews April 2
Ada and the Galaxies. Hesson April 2 jpg Article content Ada and the Galaxies Advertisement 2 This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content By Alan Lightman and Olga Pastuchiv, Illustrated by Susanna Chapman (MIT Kids Press) Ada loves stargazing and when she travels to her grandparents’ house in Maine, she can hardly wait to see the night sky. While she waits for darkness, she explores the marvels of the coastline.
Hesson: Children's book reviews April 2
Ada and the Galaxies. Hesson April 2 jpg Article content Ada and the Galaxies Advertisement 2 This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content By Alan Lightman and Olga Pastuchiv, Illustrated by Susanna Chapman (MIT Kids Press) Ada loves stargazing and when she travels to her grandparents’ house in Maine, she can hardly wait to see the night sky. While she waits for darkness, she explores the marvels of the coastline.
Hesson: Children's book reviews April 2
Ada and the Galaxies. Hesson April 2 jpg Article content Ada and the Galaxies Advertisement 2 This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content By Alan Lightman and Olga Pastuchiv, Illustrated by Susanna Chapman (MIT Kids Press) Ada loves stargazing and when she travels to her grandparents’ house in Maine, she can hardly wait to see the night sky. While she waits for darkness, she explores the marvels of the coastline.
Hesson: Children's book reviews April 2
Ada and the Galaxies. Hesson April 2 jpg Article content Ada and the Galaxies Advertisement 2 This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content By Alan Lightman and Olga Pastuchiv, Illustrated by Susanna Chapman (MIT Kids Press) Ada loves stargazing and when she travels to her grandparents’ house in Maine, she can hardly wait to see the night sky. While she waits for darkness, she explores the marvels of the coastline.
Hesson: Children's book reviews April 2
Ada and the Galaxies. Hesson April 2 jpg Article content Ada and the Galaxies Advertisement 2 This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content By Alan Lightman and Olga Pastuchiv, Illustrated by Susanna Chapman (MIT Kids Press) Ada loves stargazing and when she travels to her grandparents’ house in Maine, she can hardly wait to see the night sky. While she waits for darkness, she explores the marvels of the coastline.
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