In The Accidental Universe, physicist and novelist Alan Lightman explores the emotional and philosophical questions raised by discoveries in science, focusing most intently on the human condition and the needs of humankind.Here, in a collection of exhilarating essays, Lightman shows us our own universe from a series of fascinating and diverse perspectives. He takes on the difficult dialogue between science and religion; the conflict between our human desire for permanence ...

A modern classic, Einstein's Dreams is a fictional collage of stories dreamed by Albert Einstein in 1905, when he worked in a patent office in Switzerland. As the defiant but sensitive young genius is creating his theory of relativity, a new conception of time, he imagines many possible worlds. In one, time is circular, so that people are fated to repeat triumphs and failures over and over. In another, there is a place where time stands still, visited by lovers and parents clingin...

“VERDICT A vivid and moving book-length narrative poem that places the reader inside of a universe of wonder; of interest to poetry readers and beyond.” —Library JournalFrom the author of international bestseller Einstein's Dreams and National Book Award nominee The Diagnosis.After decades of living “hung like a dried fly,” emptied and haunted by his past, the narrator, a man who has lost his faith in all things f...

As a physicist, Alan Lightman has always held a purely scientific view of the world. Even as a teenager, experimenting in his own laboratory, he was impressed by the logic and materiality of the universe, which is governed by a small number of disembodied forces and laws. Those laws decree that all things in the world are material and impermanent. But one summer evening, while looking at the stars from a small boat at sea, Lightman was overcome by the overwhelming sensation that he was mer...

With echoes of Calvino, Rushdie, and Saramago, this is a stunningly imaginative work that celebrates the tragic and joyous nature of existence on the grandest possible scale."As I remember, I had just woken up from a nap when I decided to create the universe." So begins Alan Lightman's playful and profound new novel, Mr g, the story of Creation as narrated by God. Bored with living in the shimmering Void with his bickering Uncle Deva and Aunt Penelope, Mr g creates time, s...

From the internationally bestselling author of Einstein’s Dreams comes a deeply compelling story about the lives of a Cambodian family―set between 1973, just before the Cambodian Genocide by the Khmer Rouge―to 2015.The stories of one Cambodian family are intricately braided together in Alan Lightman’s haunting Three Flames, his first work of fiction in six years.Three Flames portrays the struggles of a Cambodian farming family aga...

In poetic vignettes, Einstein’s Dreams explores the connections between science and art, the process of creativity, and ultimately the fragility of human existence.A modern classic, Einstein’s Dreams is a fictional collage of stories dreamed by Albert Einstein in 1905, when he worked in a patent office in Switzerland. As the defiant but sensitive young genius is creating his theory of relativity, a new conception of time, he imagines many possible worlds. In one, ...

A story about the hidden world of light... Renowned physicist Alan Lightman, author of Ada and the Galaxies, turns his focus to light waves in a second story for children.There’s only one gift Isabel wants for her birthday: a way to see invisible things. She can hardly think of anything else until the day of her party arrives! Unwrapping a big box, Isabel finds a surprise inside – a glass prism – and a dazzling world of previously invisibl...

From the bestselling author of Einstein’s Dreams comes this lyrical and insightful collection of science writing that delves into the mysteries of the scientific process—physics, astronomy, mathematics—and exposes its beauty and intrigue.In these brilliant essays, Lightman explores the emotional life of science, the power of imagination, the creative moment, and the alternate ways in which scientists and humanists think about the world. Along the way, he provides in-depth ...

From the acclaimed author of Einstein's Dreams and Mr. g comes a meditation on the unexpected ways in which recent scientific findings have shaped our understanding of ourselves and our place in the cosmos.With all the passion, curiosity, and precise yet lyrical prose that have marked his previous books, Alan Lightman here explores the emotional and philosophical questions raised by discoveries in science, focusing most intently on the human condition and the need...

From the acclaimed author of the international bestseller Einstein's Dreams, here is a lyrical memoir of Memphis from the 1930s through the 1960s: the music and the racism, the early days of the movies, and a powerful grandfather whose ghost continues to haunt the family.Alan Lightman's grandfather M. A. Lightman was the family's undisputed patriarch: it was his movie theater empire that catapulted the family to prominence in the South, his fearless success that both galva...

In Alan Lightman's new book, a verse narrative, we meet a man who has lost his faith in all things following a mysterious personal tragedy. After decades of living "hung like a dried fly," emptied and haunted by his past, the narrator awakens one morning revitalized and begins a Dante-like journey to find something to believe in, first turning to t