Alan Lightman facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Alan Lightman
Born	(1948-11-28) November 28, 1948 (age 76) Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.
Education	Princeton University (BA) California Institute of Technology (PhD)
Scientific career
Fields	Physics Creative writing
Institutions	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Thesis	I. Time-dependent accretion disks around compact objects. II. Theoretical frameworks for analyzing and testing gravitation theories (1974)
Doctoral advisor	Kip S. Thorne

Alan Paige Lightman (born November 28, 1948) is an American physicist, a talented writer, and a social entrepreneur. He taught at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Currently, he is a professor of humanities at MIT.

Lightman was one of the first people at MIT to teach both science and humanities subjects. His work explores how science, philosophy, religion, and spirituality connect. He often writes about these big ideas.

He is a member of the United Nations’ Scientific Advisory Board. This board gives advice to UN leaders. They talk about new discoveries in science and technology. They also discuss how to handle any possible risks, including ethical and social issues.

Lightman wrote the international bestseller Einstein's Dreams. His novel The Diagnosis was also a finalist for a major book award. He also started Harpswell, a group that helps young women become leaders in Southeast Asia.

He hosts a TV show called Searching: Our Quest for Meaning in the Age of Science. He has also appeared in documentaries like 306 Hollywood and A Trip to Infinity. He has received six special honorary degrees from different universities.

Early Life and Education

Alan Lightman was born and grew up in Memphis, Tennessee. His father, Richard Lightman, owned movie theaters. He played a big part in ending segregation in movie theaters in the South in 1962. His mother, Jeanne Garretson, was a dance teacher and a Braille typist.

Lightman finished high school at White Station High School. He then went to Princeton University. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in physics in 1970. He graduated with high honors.

Later, he earned his Ph.D. in physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1974. His main advisor was Kip S. Thorne, a famous physicist.

Career Highlights

Lightman worked as a researcher in astrophysics at Cornell University from 1974 to 1976. He then became an assistant professor at Harvard University from 1976 to 1979. After that, he was a senior research scientist at the Center for Astrophysics until 1989.

In 1989, he became a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). During this time, he started writing poetry and essays. His writings appeared in magazines like Science 80, the Smithsonian, and The New Yorker.

At MIT, Lightman led a committee in the mid-1990s. This committee created a writing requirement for all college students. In 2001, he helped start a graduate program for science writing. In 2005, he also helped create the Catalyst Collaborative at MIT. This group works with a theater to put on plays about science.

In August 2023, Lightman was chosen to be a member of the United Nations’ Scientific Advisory Board.

Scientific Discoveries

Alan Lightman's scientific work focused on how things behave in space. He studied extreme temperatures and densities. His research looked at black holes, accretion disks, and how stars move. He also studied how light and energy interact in space.

One important discovery he made with Douglas Eardley was about accretion disks. These are disks of matter that spin around massive objects like black holes. They found that these disks can become unstable. This discovery has been very useful in astronomy.

He also proved, with David L. Lee, that all gravity theories must describe gravity as a warping of time and space. This is true if they follow the Weak Equivalence Principle. This principle says that all objects fall at the same speed in a gravitational field.

With Stuart L. Shapiro, he calculated how stars are spread around a massive black hole. They also figured out how fast these stars are destroyed by the black hole. His work has helped us understand the universe better.

In 1990, he led the science panel for the National Academy of Sciences. He also used to be the head of the High Energy Division of the American Astronomical Society.

Literary Works

Lightman's essays and stories have been published in many well-known magazines. These include The Atlantic, Harper's Magazine, Nautilus, The New Yorker, and The New York Times.

His books cover both fiction and non-fiction.

Fiction Books

• Einstein's Dreams (1993)
• Good Benito (1995)
• The Diagnosis (2000)
• Reunion (2003)
• Ghost (2007)
• Song of Two Worlds (poetry) (2009)
• Mr g (2012)
• Three Flames (2019)

Memoir

• Screening Room (2015)

Essay Collections

• Time Travel and Papa Joe’s Pipe (1984)
• A Modern Day Yankee in a Connecticut Court (1986)
• Dance for Two (1996)
• Best American Essays 2000 (Guest Editor) (2000)
• Living with the Genie (coedited with Christina Desser, and Daniel Sarewitz) (2003)
• Heart of the Horse (with Juliet von Otteren) (2004)
• A Sense of the Mysterious (2005)
• The Accidental Universe (2014)
• Probable Impossibilities (2021)

Science Books

• Problem Book in Relativity and Gravitation (with W. H. Press, R. H. Price, and S. A. Teukolsky) (1975)
• Radiative Processes in Astrophysics (with G. B. Rybicki) (1979)
• Origins: the Lives and Worlds of Modern Cosmologists (with R. Brawer) (1990)
• Ancient Light. Our Changing View of the Universe (1991)
• Great Ideas in Physics (1992, new edition in 2000)
• Time for the Stars. Astronomy for the 1990s (1992)
• The Discoveries: Great Breakthroughs in 20th Century Science (2005)
• The Transcendent Brain: Spirituality in the Age of Science (2023)

General Nonfiction

• Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine (2018)
• In Praise of Wasting Time (2018)

Nonprofit Work

In 2003, Alan Lightman visited Cambodia in Southeast Asia. There, he met a lawyer named Veasna Chea Leth. She told him that when she was a university student in the 1990s, she and other female students had to live in a small crawl space under their university building. This was because there was no proper housing for women students.

This story inspired Lightman and Chea to create a dormitory for female university students in Phnom Penh. The first building was finished in 2006. It was the first dormitory for college women in Cambodia.

Lightman then founded Harpswell, a nonprofit organization. Its goal is to help new women leaders in Southeast Asia. Harpswell now runs two centers in Phnom Penh. These centers provide housing, food, and medical care. They also have a program to teach leadership skills and critical thinking.

The program includes English lessons, computer skills, debate, and analytical writing. It also covers topics like civic engagement and leadership training. As of fall 2023, about 250 women have graduated from the Cambodian program. About 76 students are currently enrolled.

In 2017, Harpswell started a new program. It helps young professional women from ten Southeast Asian countries. These countries include Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, and Brunei, plus Nepal.

The Harpswell-ASEAN Women's Leadership Summit is a ten-day summer program in Penang, Malaysia. It offers lectures and workshops on critical thinking, civic engagement, and gender issues. Each year, 25 participants are flown to Penang for this program.

Awards and Honors

Alan Lightman has received many awards and honors for his work.

• He has received honorary doctoral degrees from several colleges. These include Bowdoin College (2005), Memphis College of Art (2006), and Colgate University (2017).
• In 2019, he received a special recognition from the United States House of Representatives. This was for his help to the Cambodian community around the world.
• He won the first Humanism in Literature award from Harvard's Humanist Hub in 2017.
• In 2016, he received the Distinguished Artist of the Year Award from the St. Botolph Club of Boston.
• His book Screening Room (2015) was named one of the best books of the year by the Washington Post.
• He received the Gold Medal for humanitarian service to Cambodia in 2008. This award was given by the government of Cambodia.
• He was a finalist for the 2000 National Book Award for his novel The Diagnosis.
• In 1996, he was chosen as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
• He also won the American Institute of Physics Andrew Gemant Award in 1996. This was for connecting science to the humanities.

See also

In Spanish: Alan Lightman para niños