"Harvard Book Store was pleased to welcome National Book Award finalist Alan Lightman for a discussion of his latest book, The Accidental Universe: The World You Thought You Knew. Alan Lightman brings a light touch to heavy questions. Here is a book about nesting ospreys, multiple universes, atheism, spiritualism, and the arrow of time. Throughout, Lightman takes us back and forth between ordinary occurrences'old shoes and entropy, sailing far out at sea and the infinite expanse of space."
Alan Lightman was born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1948 as son of Richard Lightman, a movie theater owner, and Jeanne Garretson, a dancing teacher and volunteer Braille typist. From an early age, he was entranced by both science and the arts and while in high school, he began independent science projects and writing poetry. He won state-wide science fairs and was the state winner of the National Council of Teachers of English literary award. In 1966, he graduated from White Station High School in Memphis. Lightman received his AB degree in physics from Princeton University in 1970, Phi Beta Kappa and Magna Cum Laude, and his PhD in theoretical physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1974. He has received three honorary degrees.