Alan Lightman

En 1905, mientras trabajaba en una modesta oficina de patentes en la tranquila ciudad suiza de Berna, el joven Albert Einstein esbozaba su teoría de la relatividad, una nueva concepción del tiempo. Inspirandose en estos humildes inicios, el fisico y escritor Alan Lightman imagina a un Einstein de ficcion que cada noche sueña con mundos en los que el tiempo se rige de maneras diferentes. En un mundo, el tiempo se congela en el momento en el que somos mas felices, en otro, el tiempo transcurre hacia atras o bien avanza mas rapido en un barrio que en otro. Sueña tambien que sucederia si conocieramos el fin del mundo de antemano, si no tuvieramos recuerdos o si no tuvieramos futuro. Los treinta breves relatos que forman este volumen abordan de forma poetica como una u otra concepcion del tiempo condicionaria de manera radical la actuacion del ser humano.Publicado por primera vez en 1993, el libro de Alan Lightman esta considerado como un clasico moderno y ha sido elogiado tanto por la critica literaria como por la comunidad cientifica.Los sueños de Einstein explora las conexiones entre ciencia y arte y constituye tambien un sutil recordatorio de la fragilidad de la existencia humana.

In una calda mattina d'estate, mentre si precipita a prendere il treno per arrivare nel suo ufficio di Boston dove l'attende una fitta agenda di appuntamenti, Bill Chalmers si rende conto a poco a poco di non ricordare piu dove e diretto, ne il nome del posto in cui e impiegato, tantomeno dove abita e chi e. Dopo qualche ora di smarrimento viene riportato a casa e incomincia a ricordare, ma l'incubo e appena iniziato. Afflitto da uno strano intorpidimento, Bill e allarmato e impedito sul lavoro e invoca una diagnosi per la sua malattia. Sprofonda cosi in un vortice di analisi mediche, inseguito dalla maniacale frenesia della sua azienda dove regna l'imperativo della produttivita a ogni costo e dalla disperazione della moglie.

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 and the impermanence of nature; the possibility that our universe is simply an accident; the manner in which modern technology has divorced us from enjoying a direct experience of the world; and our resistance to the view that our bodies and minds can be explained by scientific logic and laws alone.With his customary passion, precision, lyricism and imagination, in The Accidental Universe Alan Lightman leaves us with the suggestion - heady and humbling - that what we see and understand of the world and ourselves is only a tiny piece of the extraordinary, perhaps unfathomable whole.Praise for Alan Lightman:...a gem of a novel that is strange witty erudite and alive with Lightmans playful genius. Junot Diaz.It would not seem possible for Alan Lightman to match his earlier tour de force, Einsteins Dreams, but in Mr g he has done so - with wit, imagination, and transcendent beauty.Anita Desai.

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 merging with something larger than himself - a grand and eternal unity, a hint of something absolute and immaterial.Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine is the result of these seemingly contradictory impulses, written as an extended meditation on an island in Maine, where Lightman and his wife spend their summers. Framing the dialogue between religion and science as a contrast between absolutes and relatives, Lightman explores our human quest for truth and meaning and the different methods of religion and science in that quest. Along the way, he draws from sources ranging from St. Augustines conception of absolute truth to Einsteins relativity, from a belief in the divine and eternal nature of stars to their discovered materiality and mortality, from the unity of the once indivisible atom to the multiplicity of subatomic particles and the recent notion of multiple universes. What emerges is not only an understanding of the encounter between science and religion but also a profound exploration of the complexity of human existence.

In this timely and essential book that offers a fresh take on the qualms of modern day life, Professor Alan Lightman investigates the creativity born from allowing our minds to freely roam, without attempting to accomplish anything and without any assigned tasks.We are all worried about wasting time. Especially in the West, we have created a frenzied lifestyle in which the twenty-four hours of each day are carved up, dissected, and reduced down to ten minute units of efficiency. We take our iPhones and laptops with us on vacation. We check email at restaurants or our brokerage accounts while walking in the park. When the school day ends, our children are overloaded with extras. Our university curricula are so crammed our young people dont have time to reflect on the material they are supposed to be learning. Yet in the face of our time-driven existence, a great deal of evidence suggests there is great value in wasting time, of letting the mind lie fallow for some periods, of letting minutes and even hours go by without scheduled activities or intended tasks.Gustav Mahler routinely took three or four-hour walks after lunch, stopping to jot down ideas in his notebook. Carl Jung did his most creative thinking and writing when he visited his country house. In his 1949 autobiography, Albert Einstein described how his thinking involved letting his mind roam over many possibilities and making connections between concepts that were previously unconnected. With In Praise of Wasting Time, Professor Alan Lightman documents the rush and heave of the modern world, suggests the technological and cultural origins of our time-driven lives, and examines the many values of wasting timefor replenishing the mind, for creative thought, and for finding and solidifying the inner self. Break free from the idea that we must not waste a single second, and discover how sometimes the best thing to do is to do nothing at all.

At fifty-two, Charles is a professor at a minor ''leafy little college'', a once promising poet, divorced, admiring of passion but without passion himself. Out of impulse, he decides to attend his thirtieth college reunion - and there magically witnesses a replay of his last year in college. Thirty years ago, Charles, then a romantic and tender twenty-two year-old, had fallen obsessively in love with a beautiful dancer. Drawn back into his past like a moth to a flame, he recalls his love affair played out amidst the social and political chaos of the late 1960s. Struggling with memories that often appear contradictory, Charles confronts once again the series of devastating events that forever changed his life.

An extraordinarily accessible, illuminating chronicle of the great moments of scientific discovery in the 20th century, and an exploration into the minds of the remarkable men and women behind them.

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 Lightmans 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, space, and matter-then moves on to stars, planets, consciousness, and finally intelligent beings with moral dilemmas.But even the best-laid plans can go awry, and Mr g discovers that with his creation of space and time come unforeseen consequences-especially in the form of the mysterious Belhor, a clever and devious rival. An intellectual equal to Mr g, Belhor delights in provocation: he demands an explanation for the inexplicable, requests that intelligent creatures not be subject to rational laws, and maintains the necessity of evil. As Mr g watches his favorite universe grow into maturity, he begins to understand how the act of creation can change the Creator himself.

From the acclaimed author of Einsteins Dreams comes a rich, fascinating answer to the question, Can the scientifically inclined still hold space for spirituality? Lightmanbelongs to a noble tradition of science writers, including Oliver Sacks and Lewis Thomas, who can poke endlessly into a subject andstir up fresh embers of wonder. The Wall Street JournalGazing at the stars, falling in love, or listening to music, we sometimes feel a transcendent connection with a cosmic unity and things larger than ourselves. But these experiences are not easily understood by science, which holds that all things can be explained in terms of atoms and molecules. Is there space in our scientific worldview for these spiritual experiences?According to acclaimed physicist and novelist Alan Lightman, there may be. Drawing on intellectual history and conversations with contemporary scientists, philosophers, and psychologists, Lightman asks a series of thought-provoking questions that illuminate our strange place between the world of particles and forces and the world of complex human experience. Can strict materialism explain our appreciation of beauty? Or our feelings of connection to nature and to other people? Is there a physical basis for consciousness, the most slippery of all scientific problems?

A modern classic, Einsteins 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 clinging to their children. In another, time is a nightingale, sometimes trapped by a bell jar.Now translated into thirty languages, Einsteins Dreams has inspired playwrights, dancers, musicians, and painters all over the world. In poetic vignettes, it explores the connections between science and art, the process of creativity, and ultimately the fragility of human existence.

Bestselling author and MIT Professor, Alan Lightman, reveals the benefits of wasting time and allowing our minds to freely roam. We have apps, smart watches and calendars that constantly remind us to be productive and stop wasting time. We have created a frenzied lifestyle in which time is money, with not a minute to be wasted, and the twenty-four hours of each day are carved up, dissected, and reduced down to small units of efficiency. Professor Alan Lightman documents the rush and heave of the modern world, and examines the many values of wasting time for replenishing the mind, for creative thought, for finding and solidifying the inner self and letting the mind lie fallow without attempting to accomplish anything and without any assigned tasks.Carl Jung did his most creative thinking and writing when he took time off from his frenzied practice in Zurich to go to his country house. Gustav Mahler routinely took three or four-hour walks after lunch, stopping to jot down ideas in his notebook. Albert Einstein described letting his mind roam to make connections between concepts that were previously unconnected.In this timely and essential book, Professor Alan Lightman investigates the creativity born from allowing our minds to freely roam. In Praise of Wasting Time teaches us all that sometimes, the best thing to do is to do nothing at all.

En 1905, mientras trabajaba en una modesta oficina de patentes en la tranquila ciudad suiza de Berna, el joven Albert Einstein esbozaba su teoría de la relatividad, una nueva concepción del tiempo. Inspirandose en estos humildes inicios, el fisico y escritor Alan Lightman imagina a un Einstein de ficcion que cada noche sueña con mundos en los que el tiempo se rige de maneras diferentes. En un mundo, el tiempo se congela en el momento en el que somos mas felices, en otro, el tiempo transcurre hacia atras o bien avanza mas rapido en un barrio que en otro. Sueña tambien que sucederia si conocieramos el fin del mundo de antemano, si no tuvieramos recuerdos o si no tuvieramos futuro. Los treinta breves relatos que forman este volumen abordan de forma poetica como una u otra concepcion del tiempo condicionaria de manera radical la actuacion del ser humano.Publicado por primera vez en 1993, el libro de Alan Lightman esta considerado como un clasico moderno y ha sido elogiado tanto por la critica literaria como por la comunidad cientifica. Los sueños de Einstein explora las conexiones entre ciencia y arte y constituye tambien un sutil recordatorio de la fragilidad de la existencia humana.Una delicia literaria en la que el tiempo no es lo que parece. Porque, ¿que pasaria si se detuviera cuando somos mas felices? ¿Y si no tuvieramos recuerdos? Pues todo eso lo sueña un joven Einstein que te hace soñar. Ines Martin Rodrigo (ABC Cultural) Leer este atipico libro sobre el tiempo es un placer inquietante. Ignasi Aragay (ARA llegim) Pocas veces el lector habra viajado a lugares tan insolitos sin necesidad de abandonar las paredes de su dormitorio ni de renunciar al exquisito trabajo de la razon cientifica. Ricardo Menendez Salmon (La Opinion de Malaga) Una pequeña joya. Antonio Garcia Maldonado (El Asombrario) Lightman lleva a cabo una luminosa y original propuesta de ficcion en torno a este genio universal. Victoriano S. Alamo (Canarias 7) Tan fascinante como cautivador. Matias Crowder (Diari de Girona) Lightman ensaya diferentes relatos de la vida cotidiana en relacion al tiempo, variable fundamental en la teoria de Einstein. () Ciencia y poesia en estado puro. J. Ernesto Ayala-Dip (La Verdad) Intelectualmente sugestivo y muy entretenido, pero sobre todo, maravillosamente escrito. Salman RushdieEnigmatico y meditativo, alegre y provocativo, Los sueños de Einstein empuja al lector hacia un mundo de ensueño como un poderoso iman. Como en la obra de Calvino, los elementos fantasticos de estos relatos parten de una prosa precisa y cristalina. Michiko Kakutani (The New York Times) Un derroche de imaginacion que ahora, de reeditarse, a buen seguro encontraria nuevos lectores, nuevas intuiciones. Jordi PuntiLightman es un artista que pinta con la nocion del tiempo; crea delicados vinculos entre su sentido filosofico y el existencial. Los Angeles TimesFascinante hasta la saciedad. Una seductora investigacion sobre la naturaleza de la vida humana. The Boston GlobeNingun novelista, fisico o filosofo habia ofrecido una vision tan maravillosa sobre que es el tiempo o que deberia ser. James Gleick

Este libro posee un valor añadido difícil de medir y cuantificar y es la satisfacción que puede experimentar el lector al comprender los distintos pilares fundamentales de la Física. La primera intencion de este libro es dar una vision de la naturaleza de la ciencia Fisica. La primera intencion de este libro es dar una vision de la naturaleza de la ciencia fisica. Para ello se han seleccionado un pequeño numero de ideas que han tenido impacto y aplicacion mas alla del campo de la ciencia. La otra intencion es la humanistica. Se refleja la personalidad humana de los cientificos y se incluyen fragmentos de notas y estudios originales.

From the bestselling author of Einsteins Dreams comes this lyrical and insightful collection of science writing that delves into the mysteries of the scientific process--physics, astronomy, mathamatics--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 portraits of some of the great geniuses of our time, including Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, Edward Teller, and astronomer Vera Rubin. Thoughtful, beautifully written, and wonderfully original, A Sense of the Mysterious confirms Alan Lightmans unique position at the crossroads of science and art.

The internationally bestselling author of Einsteins Dreams presents a celebration of the highs and lows of existence, on the grandest possible scale: the story of Creation, as told by God. Once before time existed, Mr g woke up from a nap and decided to create the universe. In the shimmering Void, where he lives with his Aunt Penelope and Uncle Deva, he creates time, space, and matter. Soon follow stars, planets, animate matter, consciousness,and intelligent beings with moral dilemmas. But the creation of space and time has unintended consequences, including the arrival of Belhor, a clever and devious rival. Belhor delights in needling Mr g, demanding explanations for the inexplicable, offering his own opinions on the fledgling universes, and maintaining the necessity of evil. As Mr gs favorite universe grows, he discovers how an act of creation can change everything in the worldincluding the creator himself.