Alan Lightman

Alan Lightman, a physicist and novelist, teaches at MIT. He is the author of several books and the host of the public television series Searching: Our Quest for Meaning in the Age of Science.

Latest

  1. The Transcendent Brain

    Humans are evolutionarily drawn to beauty. How do such complex experiences emerge from a collection of atoms and molecules?

    A manipulated image with scratches and dust shows two people kissing in a street
    Amy Friend
  2. Life Is an Accident of Space and Time

    Even if life existed on every planet that could support it, living matter in the universe would amount to only a few grains of sand in the Gobi Desert.

    Illustration of a galaxy shaped like a human eye
    Erik Carter / The Atlantic; Getty
  3. A Cataclysm of Thought

    In 1905 Albert Einstein, a twenty-six-year-old clerk, published five epochal papers. One was later awarded a Nobel Prize. Reading them today, our reviewer is thrilled by their genius