Alan P. Lightman

Alan Lightman was born in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1948 and studied at Princeton University and the California Institute of Technology, where he received his Ph.D. in physics in 1974. His books, which have been translated into 30 languages, include literary works such as "Einstein's Dreams" (1993), "Good Benito" (1995), "Dance for Two" (1996), as well as significant scientific books. In 1989, he was elected a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has taught theoretical physics and the art of writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard, and he holds the John E. Burchard Chair in the Humanities at MIT.