Description: "Before the discovery of quarks, we hadn't imagined anything smaller than protons and neutrons. Are quarks the end of the line, the smallest imaginable objects in nature? Can the universe be divided into infinitely smaller units in the same way the universe is ever-expanding? Alan Lightman explores these questions in his characteristic accessible and lyrical prose, considering the igniting element behind consciousness, the origin of life, the anatomy of a smile, our fickle memories. Probable Impossibilities brings together recently published and four original essays. Throughout, Lightman guides a discussion on what we know of the universe, life, the mind, and the conception of things vastly larger than ourselves in time and space"--
Review Quotes: "In Probable Impossibilities, the poetic physicist Alan Lightman sieves four centuries of scientific breakthroughs with a soulful reverence for the poetry of existence . . . In an echo of one of the book's subtlest yet profoundest undertones, Lightman challenges our binary view of life and death . . . Altogether luminous."--Maria Popova, Brainpickings
"His latest collection of essays, [has a] syncretic spirit, tackling big questions like the origin of the universe and the nature of consciousness, always in an entertaining and easily digestible way . . . Consistently thought-provoking."--Wall Street Journal
"Lightman has two gifts that stand out. One is for analogy . . . In isolation, physics can get pretty weird at its extremes, but Lightman makes it seem familiar and accessible . . . His other gift involves bridging the scientific and the personal . . . Savvy . . . Probable Impossibilities stands as a beautiful argument against the old Romantic-era notion that science kills wonder. In the hands of Lightman, science only multiplies it."--American Scholar
"Galactic wonder radiates through these essays by the renowned theoretical physicist, whose writing proves companionable and illuminating."--Christian Science Monitor "A roaming, eye-opening, insightful, and literate collection of science writing . . . Complex science made accessible."--Kirkus Reviews "Lightman's awe about the physical world is infectious. He speaks with the authority of a scientist, specifically a former Harvard astrophysicist, and the eloquence of a novelist . . . Probable Impossibilities offers a primer on many of modern science's most mind-blowing discoveries, incorporating profiles of scientists performing cutting-edge research. Lightman weaves his own story and voice though the book."--Publishers Weekly "Radient . . . Provocative . . . Lightman, matching fact with awe, pilots readers on enlivening and enlightening thought voyages into such realms as quantum physics, genetics, miracles, and the expanding universe, each foray offering new coordinates, evocative vistas, and deepened understanding."--Booklist