艾伦·莱特曼

艾伦·佩吉·莱特曼（Alan Paige Lightman，1948年11月28日—）是美国物理学家、作家。 他曾在哈佛大学、麻省理工学院任教。艾伦·莱特曼也是麻省理工学院首批同时教授理科和人文学科的教师。 他主张应该将科学与哲学、宗教和灵性联系起来。 莱特曼也是爱因斯坦的梦一书的作者。

Alan Paige Lightman (born November 28, 1948) is an American physicist, writer, and social entrepreneur. He has served on the faculties of Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and is currently a professor of the practice of the humanities at MIT. He is a contributing writer for The Atlantic magazine.

Lightman was one of the first persons at MIT to hold a joint faculty position in both the sciences and the humanities. His thinking and writing explore the intersection of the sciences and humanities, especially the multilogues among science, philosophy, and religion.

Lightman is a past member of the United Nations’ Scientific Advisory Board. The purpose of this Board is to advise UN leaders on breakthroughs in science and technology and mitigate potential risks, including ethical and social issues.

Lightman is the author of the international bestseller Einstein's Dreams, and his novel The Diagnosis was a finalist for the National Book Award. He is also the founder of Harpswell, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to advance a new generation of women leaders in Southeast Asia.

Lightman hosts the public-television series Searching: Our Quest for Meaning in the Age of Science. He has also appeared in the documentaries 306 Hollywood, directed by Elan and Jonathan Bogerin, and A Trip to Infinity, directed by Drew Takahashi and Jon Halperin.

He has received six honorary doctoral degrees.

Early life and education

Alan Lightman was born and grew up in Memphis, Tennessee. His father Richard Lightman was a movie theater owner and played a major role in desegregating movie theaters in the South in 1962. His mother Jeanne Garretson was a dance teacher and Braille typist.

Lightman graduated from White Station High School. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa with an A.B. in physics from Princeton University in 1970 after completing a senior thesis, titled "Design and construction of a gas scintillation detector capable of time-of-flight measurements of fission isomer decays", under the supervision of Robert Naumann. He then received a Ph.D. in physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1974 after completing a doctoral dissertation, titled "I. Time-dependent accretion disks around compact objects. II. Theoretical frameworks for analyzing and testing gravitation theories", under the supervision of Kip S. Thorne.

Career

Lightman was a postdoctoral fellow in astrophysics at Cornell University (1974–1976); an assistant professor at Harvard University (1976–1979); a senior research scientist at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (1979–1989); and then a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (1989– ). During this period he began publishing poetry in small magazines and eventually essays in Science 80, the Smithsonian, The New Yorker, and other magazines.

At MIT, in the mid-1990s Lightman chaired the committee that established the communication requirement for all undergraduates. In 2001, he cofounded the graduate program in science writing. In 2005, he was a cofounder of the Catalyst Collaborative at MIT, a partnership between MIT and Central

Square Theater, in Cambridge, that sponsors plays involving science and the culture of science.

In August 2023, Lightman was appointed a member of the United Nations’ Scientific Advisory Board.