Probable Impossibilities: Musings on Beginnings and Endings

＂Before the discovery of quarks, we hadn’t imagined anything smaller than protons and neutrons. Are quarks the end of the line, the smallest imaginable objects in nature? Can the universe be divided into infinitely smaller units in the same way the universe is ever-expanding? Alan Lightman explores these questions in his characteristic accessible and lyrical prose, considering the igniting element behind consciousness, the origin of life, the anatomy of a smile, our fickle memories. Probable Impossibilities brings together recently published and four original essays. Throughout, Lightman guides a discussion on what we know of the universe, life, the mind, and the conception of things vastly larger than ourselves in time and space＂--

ALAN LIGHTMANis the author of six novels, including the international bestseller Einstein’s Dreams and The Diagnosis, a finalist for the National Book Award. He has taught at Harvard and MIT, where he was the first person to receive a dual faculty appointment in science and the humanities. He is currently a professor of the practice of the humanities at MIT.