The World You Thought You Knew - The Accidental Universe

Requires a unique mindset to fully grasp the beauty of this book. This is not a quick read (nor a cheap one at $18 for 156 reduced size pages) for the beach. Keep an open mind to let his propositions sneak past "the critic" of your questioning brain. Not my favorite Lightman, but then it's not every day you learn that everything you thought you understood about the universe is now turned on its head.

Since the author is a theoretical physicist and it had been awhile since I had found a good popular physics book, I had hopes. They were quickly dashed as page after page turned out to be philosophy and religion. I am glad some people found it interesting, but I care nothing about Lightman's or anybody else's personal philosophies. I paged forward to see if there was a change in content, but it was all similar stuff interspersed with some very basic historical physics history, which most readers should probably already know. I deleted it. Although I got it on the cheap as a Kindle book, it was still a waste of money. Richard Feynman, I miss you so very much.

This thin volume is very thought provoking and should be read by all those who have wondered why we are what we are, why we do what we do, and what our significance is, if any, in the universe in which we find ourselves..

Based on the description, I was expecting a fascinating and engrossing exploration of our universe with insights supported by scientific and cosmological depth. Instead, what I found was rather light reading where I learned nothing new. It is less about science and more about the author's sense of "awe and wonder", with numerous biographical reminiscences related to certain personal epiphanies and sensations the author had when walking around in nature. While these may have had an impact on the author, they are inexplicable and lost on the reader. I was very disappointed in this book, and when I finished reading it, I audibly uttered "well, THERE'S a book that didn't need to be written".

Alan Lightman has a gift for lyrical, even poetic prose, as he ponders some of the biggest questions of existence in these collected essays. One is immediately struck by the fact that although a physicist and securely grounded in the real world, the author is able to temporarily transcend these boundaries and speculate on metaphysical, even spiritual, matters within the pages of this book.

As a scientist first and foremost, however, he finds it difficult to scale too high a philosophical ladder. Although he is willing to speculate on the larger questions such as consciousness, the meaning of existence, and the origins of our universe, he is still securely tethered to the "real" world of what our senses and their instrumental extensions can tell us. Though he states that he has no patience for people like Richard Dawkins who try to "prove" that God does not exist, he himself identifies as an atheist who has no patience for people who disregard the importance of the scientific method in seeking the truth. As a scientist, necessarily operating within the scientific paradigm and worldview, he is perhaps unable to lift these spectacles, if only to temporarily look at the world differently.

As the title of the book indicates, Lightman subscribes to the anthropic argument as the best explanation for why our universe is so amenable to life. This hypothesis is a valid and logically consistent one, but I think it is precisely here where the author makes his own unstated leap of faith. One of the hallmarks of a good scientific theory is not only how well it fits the facts, but if it accomplishes this in a parsimonious manner with the fewest assumptions possible. As he himself says, the only other logical possibility is that a creator of some sort is responsible, but the multiverse idea itself is obviously very far from a parsimonious explanation.

That this anthropic scenario must be invoked to avoid a creator is perhaps the best indication that cosmology has hit a brick wall. The best support so far for the multiverse comes from the close agreement of the observed microwave background radiation left over from the Big Bang with the theory of inflation. Since one necessary byproduct of inflation is the multiverse – it naturally “falls out” of the theory – many cosmologists are now beginning to seriously consider it. The multiverse is also consistent with quantum mechanics from a theoretical angle (the “many worlds” conjecture), and so also has this pillar of modern science backing it up - but this, needless to say, makes it no less strange.

What we are left with are two equally radical options – God or the Multiverse – and neither is more elegant than the other from a standpoint of economy. This is where I think the author’s professed atheism makes no sense. To state simply that one believes God does not exist isn’t any more useful than saying he does exist - from a scientific standpoint there isn’t enough evidence yet to make either claim. There is also the question of how far mathematics, and logic itself, can be applied here. In an infinite multiverse where every possibility is realized somewhere infinitely many times, one must still assume that the quantum laws, or at least the laws of probability, are valid across the multiverse and underlie everything. At the end of the universe, as I think the author himself would acknowledge, we are still left with awe and mystery.

This is a short series of personal essays concerning what we know about nature and what we do not know--more or less what philosophers call epistemology. Lightman revels in asking the Big Questions. He gives only enough effort to answering them to make it clear just how Big they are. He quotes Rilke: "We should try to love the questions themselves." I felt very comfortable with this man. In my classes, I, too, sometimes try to show people that the questions they think they can answer are seldom as simple as they think, and that nature is fundamentally far more vast, complex, and mysterious than our safe, insular lives sometimes would like it to be.

Lightman is a physics professor as well as a teacher of creative writing, both at MIT. In his physics classes he discusses the the physical laws of nature and revels in the orderliness and predictability of things, and in his writing classes he criticizes students who create characters who are too predictable, who are insufficiently "human." He loves order and he loves disorder. As a scientist he is an unapologetic atheist, but as a human he has had experiences of the mysterious, the numinous. He tells the stories of these personal experiences and embraces them. He seems to revel in his own incongruities.

Lightman writes very well. His explanations are crystal clear, of the orderly and the understood, of the complex and mysterious, and of the human drive to understand it all. He assumes little background in either science or philosophy on the part of the reader. But I think that even those with background in both will enjoy this simple, heartfelt exposition of one very human search for meaning.

This is the first time I got seriously disappointed by a book. I was expecting to find anything of modern physics (or any science whatsoever) in this book, judging from the descriptions and recommendations.

Instead you get somebody positing in morally high standards telling you how he doesn't like mobile phones, saw his daughter getting married (with wrinkles) and recommends a walk in the park. "At my time in MIT" is what you get for credibility, repeatedly and interspersed throughout the book, I suppose it's needed otherwise you lose hope. I'm a bit sorry for the institution.

Early in the book I was surprised to have to counteract some basic physics, describing motions of planets -- that is, celestial mechanics XVII century -- to the more human and religious concepts which had filled the gaps up to then... This became the pattern: a little A, a little B, lots of morals, repeat five times? Like a blog you can't get out of.

Therefore: a little bit of science, then a bunch of religion and morals to cover it. And by no means the science is very up-to-date or useful: relativity is "Einstein was very intelligent", about quanta only mentioning they "move in strange ways", and symmetry of the Standard Model is explained with oranges and apples (not a joke). Religion I suppose it is up to date though, but I don't judge that.

A total disappointment. I have realised this book is for a different public, with different sets of opinions, maybe needing reinforcements I don't know. I cannot give any less stars.

This book takes various perspectives about our universe. The chapters are divided accordingly.

Temporary: This chapter talks about Entropy and arrow of time and how things are constantly changing. It was nice to know that cells on intestine's surface getting completely refurbished every few days.

Spiritual: In this chapter the author says: "there are things we believe that do not submit to the methods of science" - agreed, but calling Dr. Dawkins as narrow-minded is something I consider as naive. I have read multiple Dawkins' books and his statements are backed by rationale and proof.

Symmetry: Why are snowflakes perfectly six-sided? Why are soap bubbles spherical? And similar inclinations we have towards symmetry and also the asymmetry of coastlines and shapes of cloud.

Garguantan: We're just a small spec in a big arena. The cover page picture portrays this with a dot (representing us) and a big arrow pointing towards it.

Lawful: This chapter is about the intellectually understandable universe. Lucretius poem talks about how there is no immortal soul and "Therefore, death is nothing to us". Interesting.

Disembodied: I did not understand how it connects with the rest of the book, but the point was how we were racing towards a virtual rather than real/tangible living. The chapter also talks about the relativity of time.

I concur with the author that it is vital to live in world where we do not know all the answers. Just like the author I find it inspiring.

An excellent collection of essays by a thoughtful and broadly knowledgeable physicist on perceiving the universe. The first, which is also the title of the book, explores the quandary of theoretical physics that perhaps there is not an underlying principle that determines everything in this universe, but perhaps a few things are set by accident, in which case it stands to reason that there could be other universes in which they are set differently. The second, titled The Temporary Universe, discusses the impermanence of it all and the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. The Spiritual Universe posits that religion is the belief that we live by, so that Science is the religion of the twenty-first century, and the central doctrine of Science is that all properties and events in the physical universe are governed by laws, and those laws are true at every time and place in the universe, whereas God is understood by believers to be an entity that is not constrained by the laws that govern the physical universe. The other perceptions discussed are the Symmetrical, Gargantuan, Lawful and Disembodied Universes.

This is a brief, elegant collection of essays examining several alternative perspectives for understanding our universe. Although perhaps not a "classic" of its kind, it is a stimulating and enjoyable read. Mostly these focus on topical scientific variants, but Lightman's best single chapter may be an exceptionally lucid discussion of efforts to understand if not explain the universe from a "spiritual" or non-scientific/materialistic perspective, including the challenge of questions without answers. Although Lightman is for the most part reporting on differing perspectives rather than presenting original ideas of his own, his presentations are exceptionally clear and his style is unusually graceful for the subject matter. The essays are collectively stimulating and at times inspirational --- the last not something I necessarily expected. I expect to re-read from time-to-time, and have recommended to both scientifically-inclined and literary friends.

Are you interested in developing a factual interpretation of what this universe is that we are within?

That is the central focus of this book. It addresses what the universe is with the paramount concepts of modern day physics. He explains them in layman terms so you will undoubtedly come out with a clear scientific perspective. He even goes on to spirituality as he is a reasonable man that knows there is no clear answer to how our universe began - it is pure mystery. This mystery is what spirituality - in a way - is to him. An argument that should be remembered. So he dismisses people such as Dawkins who oversimplifies the matter of what it means to be alive.

The fact is - this is a topic we are never immune from. It is the essence of what we are, the meaning of life. He separates the book into chapters (all ending in the world universe and beginning with the as he believes all the interpretations have validity - truly an altruistic writer):

Accidental
Temporary
Spiritual
Symmetrical
Gargantuan
Lawful
Disembodied

How do these words relate to this universe we are in? Read to find out.

I have read several of Brian Greene's and Stephen Hawking's books detailing the history of modern physics, string theory in its various iterations, and the theoretical possibilities of a multiverse. Lightman does a much better job summing up the philosophical implications of theoretical physics in very stark form. He is also much more transparent about the fact that there are Nobel prize-winning physicists who don't buy the multiverse theory and believe in a Creator and an intelligence behind the design of our universe rather than a theoretically infinite number of universes created by no intelligence. Lightman admits the "fine-tuning" of the cosmological constants necessary for our universe to be the way it is are astronomically improbable. While charitable to his colleagues who believe in a higher power, Lightman disagrees with them. In Lightman's view, we are simply a random collection of molecules put together by chance. "We are an accident," he states, a mathematical improbability in our own universe -- "one millionth of one billionth of a percent in our universe is life" -- but when the denominator is infinity (the infinite multiverse) improbable is relative. "Science can never know how universe was created," yet he's certain how it was not created.

He details early in the book what this means for humans. He loves his daughter, feels attached to her, cares for her. But then he remembers that she's just a random collection of atoms and, like his own atoms, will one day be nothing more than scattered into the universe. He admits this is hard to wrap his mind around, his mind longs for eternity and he is "self-delusional" in his longing for immortality. But since everything in the universe decays or dies and the law of entropy says that everything moves from order to disorder there can be nothing more than this. Life is therefore meaningless, absurd. Not since Hawking wrote in Black Holes and Baby Universes that we have two options: God, or grand unifying theory that explains everything from the Big Bang to why I ate a salad for lunch. Hawking rejected the former and later recanted on the GUT (which was supposed to bridge quantum mechanics with the standard model), basically the multiverse via string theory has replaced his GUT. Meaning, again, that both the big bang and my salad were random and need no explanation.

It's odd that Lightman even uses the word "life" in the book since how do you define a random collection of atoms whose extinguishing means nothing as "life"? What is consciousness? If I were to kill his daughter, why would that be wrong, I'm just scattering her atoms about the universe? The fact that his brain has evolved to find that idea repulsive is his own problem. Atoms have no ethics and it's silly to call things that are random "evil." For an MIT professor who also teaches philosophy he surprisingly doesn't raise the question. Odder still is that he later heralds natural selection and the ability of millions of cells to transmit information when reproducing without noting that some atheist biologists have concluded that this is impossible without some sort of guided process. How did the basic building blocks of life know that they needed to survive? These biologists have followed Lightman's logic to its conclusion, apparently unknown to Lightman himself, that we are the result of a completely random process.

I have also read physicist Lee Smolin's The Trouble with Physics, critiquing string theory and modern physics in general. I highly recommend that book to anyone who thinks string theory is all that there is. There are alternative, testable theories out there. Which is another irony because Lightman writes that science "must be verified and tested" but doesn't apply this to either string theory or the multiverse. Stephen Hawking wrote in The Universe in a Nutshell that you would need a particle collider larger than the size of the universe to test some aspects of string theory. Yet Lightman hails theoretical physics as "the purest form of science."

Cosmologist George Ellis was quoted recently in Scientific American criticizing physicists like Lightman and Lawrence Krauss who have moved away from physics and science to pure metaphysical hypotheses which are not testable.
"Krauss does not explain in what way these entities could have pre-existed the coming into being of the universe, why they should have existed at all, or why they should have had the form they did. And he gives no experimental or observational process whereby we could test these vivid speculations of the supposed universe-generation mechanism. How indeed can you test what existed before the universe existed? You can’t."

Lightman's essays contradict themselves in this regard: he praises scientific measurement and cheering on the work of phsyics toward a complete set of the fundamental laws of our universe while earlier saying that if the multiverse is true them most of physics is "useless" as there is "no point" in explaining why things in our universe are the way they are-- it was just random. Other universes are flat, some are round, some are finite, some are infinite, some contain the null set, and in some universes every law that holds in ours doesn't hold, and vice-versa.

Lightman contends that a God "consistent with science" can only exist outside the universe, never intervening in its immutable, unchangeable laws. This rules out anything miraculous, whether there is evidence or not to the contrary-- and he examines no evidence or testimony of the physically unexplainable. (I read Eric Metaxas' Miracles just prior to this book, the first bit of which argues philosophically against Lightman's conclusions.) God is the watchmaker who let the universe wind up, go and never intervenes, somehow can't intervene without the entire universe falling apart according to Lightman. Lightman rejects the "immanentism" of Spinoza and Einstein.

The essays also contain brief explanations of the importance of symmetry and discovery of the Higgs-Boson. There is also some overview of philosophical history but nothing in-depth. As I wrote above, he ignores his own theory's implications for ethics and the problem of evil. He writes of how he had somehow a sort of mental connection with a bird once, yet seemingly forgets that this, like his daugher, was purely random and meaningless. He cites plenty of deist scientists along the way, and criticizes Lawrence Krauss for being critical of faith. He considers faith to be rational, and rightly notes many scientific, economic, and political achievements that have come forth from theists who felt their exploration of science was a way to understand better how God created things, wrong-headed though they were. But this again ignores the fact that it's hard to define what is "ethical" or an "advancement" when we're purely random and there are no consequences, ultimately, for our actions.

He concludes the book with some futurist silliness that reminded me of Lightman's fellow multiverse proponent Brian Greene in The Hidden Reality where Greene writes that another plausible alternative to the multiverse is that nothing in our world is actually real, we could all be living in a simulated multiverse. A "software glitch" explains why we can't reconcile quantum mechanics and the standard model or discover all of the fundamental laws. We are just Sims in someone's video game, and those playing us are also likely Sims, who are being played by Sims and so on. Physics has truly set philosophy back millenia.

As I wrote above, Lightman's work does a great job showing the logical conclusion of the multiverse in a succinct fashion. I recommend reading it for yourself, but only 3.5 stars because as another sympathetic reviewer writing for the left-leaning magazine Salon pointed out: "Perhaps Lightman contradicts himself."

This is an okay book. I guess authors of cosmology/philosophical books assume the reader has decided the God concept might apply to this universe, but is only one level up on the unknowability about existence. i.e., where did God come from and where did that come from? i.e., this goes without saying. It would be interesting to read their comments on such, or at least read a disclaimer that they haven't considered it.
Otherwise, the only thing we can write about with some level of consistency, discounting Gödel's incompleteness theorem, is the universe we live in.
Aside from the above, it's always interesting to read anecdotes and thoughts of those who are in the fray.

I enjoyed reading this. The author is very confused, but in an interesting way. Although this is on its face a series of essays, there is a dramatic movement to it as Lightman keeps running up against the ineffable, and then running for cover. It sent me to this quote from Swami Vivekananda’s Raja-Yoga, circa 1895:

“Just as the physicist, when he pushes his knowledge to its limits, finds that his knowledge melts into metaphysics, so a metaphysician finds that what he calls mind and matter are but apparent distinctions, which will ultimately disappear.” (p. 17)

It strikes me that the science/god debate has in recent years flipped its orientation so that the scientists are now clinging to a rigid dogma that is contrary to their own observations simply because they are frightened to admit what they have seen. I can picture poor Galileo saying to the church leaders, “Look, you can see for yourself!” But the authorities in his day thought they had the truth so he must be mistaken.

Lightman introduces his essays with a paraphrase of the Buddhist notion that objects in the physical universe are empty of inherent and independent existence—all meaning attached to them originates in constructions and thoughts in our minds. He is brought back to this realization repeatedly, but rejects it as inconsistent with science. Yet, it is his very beloved science that keeps presenting it to him.

The best essay is the first one, where Lightman confronts the disappointing discovery that even if there exists some elegant theory of everything, our limited tools will not be able to discover it. Our understanding will increase, but we are three dimensional creatures in a forty dimensional multiverse. We can only see what our limited perceptions can comprehend, and there is more. We can see that now, a lot more. When you look at the notes, you see that the first essay is actually the last one. The previous essays were written before Lightman accepted this truth. They are full of fallacies as he tries explain away what he does not want to believe. But he is not being deceptive; he is really confused. That struggle is actually quite interesting.

The last essay is very silly, a rant about teenagers texting habits. It must have been some op-ed fluff piece. I do not know why he put that in this series, but it surprised me a little that this champion of science did not use these new communication devises to lead into an examination of how technology is altering the very nature of consciousness. Instead of getting all Miss Manners on us, talk about the implications of artificial intelligence in the evolution of whatever is happening here that we are creating with our minds. But no doubt he was afraid of this too. Even Bill Gates is a little afraid of that one.

The Accidental Universe: The World You Thought You Knew
By Alan Lightman. Pantheon, 2013
As the material world is manifest as both a particle and a wave, demonstrated in Young’s double slit experiment*, so is Alan Lightman the embodiment of both: hard science (particle physics) and fluid humanities (wave-like). He has served on the faculties of Harvard and MIT where he was the first person to receive dual faculty appointment in science and the humanities. In the seven essays which compose this book, he characterizes the universe from seven points of view— accidental, temporary, spiritual, symmetrical, gargantuan, lawful and disembodied—presented though the extraordinary filter of his wide ranging mind, interweaving them into a coherent whole. A novelist, essayist and scientist, he adds personal revelatory experiences that further enrich this informative and inspiring book.
Coralie Ginsburg
4/26/15
*see Wikipedia

There are better, more detailed and more thoughtful presentations of the implications of modern physics, many by Brian Greene. This is a short and ineffective 'hmph' from a physicist who takes no effort to apply rigor to his claims on the limits of rationality. My primary objection is that this is a complicated topic written for a general audience, which will no doubt become a tool for incurious minds to remain satisfied with their ignorance of philosophical inquiry. This is essentially 200 hundred pages of vague, cloudy judgments about the limits of human reason, encouraging the reader to feel just fine about their gut-reaction to the universe. This book will look foolish in a century, when many of its claims about the unknowability of human behavior and identity are slowly eroded by output of neuroscience.

I should stress that the book is good-natured. It's simply that its attempt to make religious reasoning 'OK' and 'just another type of human experience' are a symptom of the valueless cowardice that many moderns display when faced with the difficult complexities on the table for the 21st century. It is more courageous and more noble to meet those challenges regardless of present limitations than to sit back and cross one's arms. -Ryan Mease

If you are intrigued by our place in the universe, please read this book. It discusses how humans have come to realize natural laws. How these natural laws exist even though our common sense says that they do not. Expand your mind, just like how the universe is expanding.

Lightman takes us on a tour of thinking along the borderlands of science, philosophy and religion -- in the macro- and microcosms -- without ever slipping on a cliche. His writing is lucid, accessible yet thought-provoking and deep.

As a theoretical physicist, Dr. Lightman has written a relatively easy to read book on a subject that is both scientifically complex and philosophically complex. He attempts, as many contemporary physicists have attempted, to reconcile an objective scientific explanation for our conscious existence with the religious insistence on a subjective spiritual explanation for our existence. His conclusions are disappointing. He adds nothing new or original to the arguments posed by Stephen Hawking in his "The Grand Design" or by Michael Mallory in "Our Improbable Universe". Hawking essentially concludes that a creator is not necessary to explain our existence and that our existence could be the result of random chance in a universe of infinite opportunities. Mallory expounds upon the extremely improbable odds against the creation of an anthropic winner in a vast lottery predisposed to disorder. So what does Dr. Lightman add to the intellectual arguments? He appears to confirm Stephen Hawking's views.

Religion is not a worthy opponent of science. Religion is institutionalized superstition. The question that is worthy of scientific challenge is, "Did a supernatural creator bring about the Big Bang, a habitable Earth, organic life and conscious intelligence?" Could all of that have been created by random chance? The term "creationism" is quickly associated with affirming biblical definitions of the God of Abraham or the God of the Gospels. But the gods of monotheism are mythologies and not the entities that may have created our reality. "Supernatural intervention" may be a more appropriate term to define the origin of our existence without resorting to random chance or religious explanation.

The arguments for and against the existence of a Creator God are really polemic. We will never be able to prove or disprove the existence of God by empirical scientific tests or by spurious religious spiritual assertions. But Dr. Lightman, as a philosophical scientist, could have offered criteria for separating a random chance explanation from a divine intervention explanation for our existence. Is our universe accidental or is it not accidental? That is the scientific -philosophical question to ponder.

Arthur Garcia is the author of “A Skeptics God: The Irrelevance of Religion in a Modern World”

Consisting of several short essays, this book feels almost like you are having a pleasant conversation with the author. It's not particularly scientific but rather more philosophical. I found it a most enjoyable diversion.

The Accidental Universe: The World You Thought You Knew, by Alan Lightman, is a wide ranging series of essays exploring the most recent advances in modern science, and their impact on society, human psychology, philosophy and religion.

This collection starts off strongly, with an exploration of the nature of reality, the universe, and the new, perplexing notion of the “multiverse.” It is a shame that Lightman did not keep up the momentum he built on the first essay. Each subsequent essay has a little less punch, slightly less strength, ever so less reason for existing.

At the end, The Accidental Universe does not give the reader much to chew on; what is said has been said before, and better, and what is written is largely uninspired and thematically disconnected.

A fascinating look at our discovery of the cosmos we live in, ending with a poignant acknowledgment of our potential destiny as a species. Brief but well-written by this scientist/novelist. Will definitely read it again.

To paraphrase an old joke: this book has it all - the novelty and the power. Unfortunately all that is powerful in it is not new, and what is new is far from powerful.

The first essay in the book is quite good. It is all downhill from there....It is a bizarre apology for religion and humanities written in a bombastic style with very little idea development within any given essay (again the first essay excepting). Both the content and the style made me feel as these were essays by a well-read high school senior whose eyes are just being open to the complexity of life and its problems, who feels a sort of excitement but has not learned yet that the best way to relay it is to stay cool in its expression, pay attention to the development of your idea and not pile fact upon fact thinking somehow that the reader will get it.

Not sure if this is the author or his perceived audience but the book is a sad testimony to state of affairs in today's intellectual circles: heads well filled and not well-built. A philosophical discourse has been gone from a scientist education for so long that all what's left is this puerile monotony of "of course science is all, but should not we also be nice people"?

Sad...

The book seems more a collection of published ruminative columns, barely sutured together.

The writing style tends to make obvious points--buttressed by a proliferation of supporting examples.
In small doses, this pile-on is tolerable. At the length of an entire book, it is deadening.

I found little scientific perspective amid endless vignettes I've encountered elsewhere,
and little literary impact from the cites. This is thin soup.

On beginning to read The Accidental Universe by Professor Alan Lightman you may think that it is a work of science fiction as he discusses the possibility of there being many universes (the multiverse). While Sheldon Cooper, the central character of the TV show The Big Bang, might be enamored of such a concept, most of us would simply be amused. But Professor Lightman, who is a theoretical physicist with appointments at both Harvard and MIT, is not really interested in exploring this possibility. Rather each chapter of the book focuses on different ways to view our present universe. In each of these chapters he provides interesting and valuable perspectives on how we can view the world and universe.

For example he takes on the question of the compatibility of science and religion and while admitted that he is an atheist he acknowledges that many scientists have deep religious beliefs. He notes that the Central Doctrine of Science is that all properties and events in the physical world are governed by laws that are always and everywhere true—but that they are modified over time by new discoveries. God, on the other hand, is understood to be a Being not restricted by such laws. Thus God and science are compatible as long as God does not interfere AFTER the universe has begun. Thus an interventionist God is incompatible with science. Religion is personal and subjective and thus is different from science.

In the chapter the Gargantuan Universe he takes on the question of whether or not there is life elsewhere and notes that some 3% of all stars have a life-sustaining planet and since there are very many stars, the likelihood is that some form of life exists elsewhere. In the Disembodied Universe he notes that we largely perceive the world through machines and thought processes. Foucault proved that the earth spins on its axis by using a pendulum, yet such an idea is not experienced by our senses—we do not get dizzy and if we throw something up in the air it comes down in the same place. Einstein showed that time is relative and changes depending on speed, but it takes extremely high speeds to demonstrate this phenomenon to a visible degree. Hertz showed that radio waves are invisible. Thus we see and experience only a tiny fraction of reality.

In sum this book is well worth reading as it gives you a better understanding of the world and universe we live in and is written in an engaging way that laypersons can understand.

First, if you read a wide variety of magazines, online and otherwise, you may be disappointed to find out that many of the essays contained in this small book were previously printed in Salon, Orion, Harper's, etc. This fact is acknowledged in the first pages, but I don't know if it is revealed in the the store preview. My review will address what I believe is the weakest and most decisive chapter of this book: The Spiritual Universe.

Alan Lightman, like many other scientists, falls into a tired kind of categorical thinking when it comes to religion. He seems to think that once you have addressed the existence of Christians in the fields of academia and research, then the topic of spirituality in science has been sufficiently covered. While there are cursory mentions of Buddhism, Hinduism, and the three separate Abrahamic faiths, it is clear that Lightman doesn't have a firm grasp on any of them (except perhaps contemporary Christianity). On page 58 he writes of the "Old Testament of Judaism." There is no Old Testament in Judaism. That is a Christian term for the Hebrew Bible, and frankly, a lazy one.

Lightman attempts to equate Christianity with all religious thought known to man. He cites three exemplary men of faith who study and practice science (Collins, Hutchinson, and Gingerich); not surprisingly, they are all devout Christians. In contrast, Lightman obviously harbors negative feelings about Richard Dawkins. He accuses Dawkins of being narrow-minded about people of faith, and of using words of condescension toward Christians; but then he goes on to commit these mental sins in writing about Dawkins. Inadvertently, Lightman is himself narrow-minded about the wide variety of spiritual possibilities found in the world's religions. The majority of believers on Earth are something other than Christian. People of the false equivalency school of thought (like Lightman) are oblivious to that fact. There is more to religion than Christianity; and there is more to Richard Dawkins than atheism.

Alan Lightman could and should write elegantly about what he knows. But for now, his intellectual reach does not extend to spirituality.

Requires a unique mindset to fully grasp the beauty of this book. This is not a quick read (nor a cheap one at $18 for 156 reduced size pages) for the beach. Keep an open mind to let his propositions sneak past "the critic" of your questioning brain. Not my favorite Lightman, but then it's not every day you learn that everything you thought you understood about the universe is now turned on its head.

Pretty good. Short. Im glad I read this, because it strengthened my religious views. Honestly, I found all of his arguments pretty easy to dismiss. It didn't have a ton of new information (for me at least, and I've only read one or two books on this subject). I was also put off because at the end there s a chapter that's pretty much just whining about his daughter and smart phones.

It made me think, for sure. But it pretty firmly convinced me of my already held beliefs.