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 writer, and someone who starts social projects to help others. He has taught at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Today, he is a professor at MIT, focusing on humanities.

Lightman was one of the first people at MIT to teach in both science and humanities departments. He loves to explore how science, philosophy, religion, and spirituality connect and talk to each other.

He is also a member of the United Nations' Scientific Advisory Board. This group advises UN leaders on new science and technology. They also help think about possible risks, including how these changes affect people and society.

Lightman wrote the international bestseller Einstein's Dreams. His book The Diagnosis was also a finalist for a big award called the National 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 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 typed in Braille.

Lightman finished high school at White Station High School. He then went to Princeton University and earned a degree in physics in 1970. Later, he received his Ph.D. in physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1974.

Career

Lightman started his career as a researcher in astrophysics at Cornell University from 1974 to 1976. After that, he became a professor at Harvard University and then a senior research scientist at the Center for Astrophysics. In 1989, he became a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

While at MIT, Lightman helped create a rule that all students must take communication classes. In 2005, he helped start the Catalyst Collaborative at MIT. This group works with a theater to put on plays about science and how science affects our culture. Around the same time, he also helped create a special program at MIT for students who want to write about science.

In August 2023, Lightman was asked to join the United Nations’ Scientific Advisory Board.

Scientific work

In his science work, Alan Lightman studied how things behave in space when they are extremely hot or dense. He looked at things like black holes and how matter moves around them. He also studied how stars are arranged and how they are affected by black holes.

One of his important discoveries was with Douglas Eardley. They found a problem in the spinning disks of matter, called accretion disks, that form around huge objects like black holes. This discovery is very useful in astronomy. He also proved, with David L. Lee, that theories about gravity must describe it as a bending of time and space. This is based on the idea that all objects fall at the same speed in a gravitational field.

Lightman also studied hot gases in space, called plasmas. He found that adding energy to some thin, hot gases can actually make them cooler, which is unusual. He also studied how light is produced in these hot gases.

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

Literary work

Alan Lightman's essays and stories have appeared in many well-known magazines. These include The Atlantic, Harper's Magazine, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. His books cover different topics, from made-up stories to real-life experiences and science.

Fiction

• 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)

Collections of essays and fables

• Time Travel and Papa Joe’s Pipe (1984)
• A Modern Day Yankee in a Connecticut Court (1986)
• Dance for Two (1996)
• A Sense of the Mysterious (2005)
• The Accidental Universe (2014)
• Probable Impossibilities (2021)

Books on science

• 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)
• 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, she and other female students had to live in a small space under the university building. This was because there was no proper housing for women students.

Hearing this, Lightman and Chea came up with an idea: to build a dormitory for female university students in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The first building was finished in 2006. It was the first dormitory for college women in the country.

Because of this work, Lightman started Harpswell. This group helps young women in Southeast Asia become leaders. Harpswell now has two centers in Phnom Penh. These centers provide housing, food, and medical care. They also have a program that teaches leadership skills and how to think critically. The program includes English lessons, computer skills, debate, writing, and discussions about important events. By the fall of 2023, about 250 women had graduated from the Cambodian program.

In 2017, Harpswell started a new program for young professional women from ten countries in Southeast Asia. This program, called the Harpswell-ASEAN Women's Leadership Summit, is a ten-day summer event in Malaysia. It includes talks and workshops on critical thinking, how to be involved in your community, and gender issues. Each year, 25 women are chosen to attend this program.

Major awards and honors

• He has received honorary degrees from several colleges, including Bowdoin College (2005) and the University of Maryland (2006).
• In 2019, he received a special award from the U.S. House of Representatives for helping the Cambodian community.
• He won the Humanism in Literature award in 2017.
• In 2016, he received the Distinguished Artist of the Year Award.
• His book Screening Room was named one of the best books of 2015 by the Washington Post.
• He won the Sydney Award twice (in 2011 and 2016) for his magazine essays.
• The government of Cambodia gave him a Gold Medal in 2008 for his help.
• He was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2000 for his novel The Diagnosis.
• He was chosen as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1996.
• He won the Andrew Gemant Award in 1996 for connecting science and the humanities.

See also

In Spanish: Alan Lightman para niños