Boston Book Festival 2018

From the acclaimed author of Einstein’s Dreams, here is an inspired, lyrical meditation on religion and science that explores the tension between our yearning for permanence and certainty and the modern scientific discoveries that demonstrate the uncertain nature of the world. As a physicist, Alan Lightman has always held a scientific view of the world. As a teenager, he was impressed by the logic and materiality of a universe governed by a small number of disembodied laws that decree 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. The Christian Science Monitor science editor Noelle Swan and science writer Eoin O’Carroll will lead a discussion with Lightman, whose new book Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine is an exploration of these seemingly contradictory impulses. Sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor.