Alan Lightman is one of those rare individuals who is as comfortable writing about quantum mechanics as he is writing about the drama of the ancient Greeks. Both a scientist and a novelist, the MIT professor recently released a collection of essays under the title “The Accidental Universe” (Pantheon Books).

Although he is a self-described atheist and humanist, Lightman tolerates the beliefs of those who posit an intelligence that transcends physical laws. He has respected colleagues who choose to believe that the physical laws governing the universe were set in place by a supreme intelligence outside the realm of science. He delineates a spectrum of belief from strong atheist, to agnostic, to deist, to the interventionist and personal god of the major religions. But, for Lightman, the elegance of scientific knowledge as it has emerged over the last 500 years is convincing evidence that physical laws apply equally throughout the cosmos. This guiding principle informs his reverence for the natural world, and so he leaves speculation about things outside of science to those who see a need for it.

!In all the essays, Lightman contrasts the objective, abstract, and often inaccessible world of science with the subjective, messy world of human experience. He describes his experience sailing in the Aegean, feeling inconsequentially small and in awe of the vastness of the ocean, and yet being able to navigate reliably using mathematics and technology. Mind boggling descriptions of the cosmos are juxtaposed against meditations on our emotional and spiritual condition, and it is from the richness of these observations that the book draws its strength.

!There is not a lot new here for the scientifically literate reader, but no reader need be daunted by Lightman’s lucid expositions of current cosmology. Indeed, Lightman offers any reader a tour of a great mind, one that embraces the beauty of science and humanity alike.