Searching For Stars on an Island in Maine (Hardcover)

As a physicist, Alan Lightman has always held a purely scientific view of the world. Even as a teenager, experimenting in his own laboratory, he was impressed by the logic and materiality of the universe, which is governed by a small number of disembodied forces and laws. Those laws decree that all things in the world are material and impermanent. But one summer evening, while looking at the stars from a small boat at sea, Lightman was overcome by the overwhelming sensation that he was merging with something larger than himself - a grand and eternal unity, a hint of something absolute and immaterial. Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine is the result of these seemingly contradictory impulses, written as an extended meditation on an island in Maine, where Lightman and his wife spend their summers. Framing the dialogue between religion and science as a contrast between absolutes and relatives, Lightman explores our human quest for truth and meaning and the different methods of religion and science in that quest. Along the way, he draws from sources ranging from St. Augustine's conception of absolute truth to Einstein's relativity, from a belief in the divine and eternal nature of stars to their discovered materiality and mortality, from the unity of the once indivisible atom to the multiplicity of subatomic particles and the recent notion of multiple universes. What emerges is not only an understanding of the encounter between science and religion but also a profound exploration of the complexity of human existence.

General

Imprint:	Corsair
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Release date:	April 2018
Authors:	Alan Lightman
Dimensions:	206 x 131 x 21mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Hardcover
Pages:	240
ISBN-13:	978-1-4721-5282-4
Categories:	Books > Science & Mathematics > Science: general issues > Philosophy of science Books > Humanities > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Metaphysics & ontology Books > Humanities > Philosophy > Western philosophy > Modern Western philosophy, c 1600 to the present > Western philosophy, from c 1900 - > Phenomenology & Existentialism Books > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Metaphysics & ontology Books > Philosophy > Western philosophy > Modern Western philosophy, c 1600 to the present > Western philosophy, from c 1900 - > Phenomenology & Existentialism
LSN:	1-4721-5282-4
Barcode:	9781472152824

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