Physics, Poetry, Planetarium Shows

Alan Lightman, bestselling novelist and theoretical physicist who opens the Spring 2012 Visiting Writers Series on February 2nd, has applied his talents to number of genres, including musical adaptations of his bestselling novel Einstein's Dreams, as well as poetry, fables, essays, nonfiction and that least-studied of all literary genres: the planetarium show.

Below is a Library Journal review by Sue Russell of Lightman's book-length narrative in verse, Song of Two Worlds (2009):

"Here, novelist (Einstein's Dreams) and physicist Lightman has created a vivid and moving first-person narrative in verse. The two worlds of the title are the two sections of the book: 'Questions with Answers' and 'Questions without Answers,' with the former representing scientific inquiry and the latter the intuitive capacity that allows us to respond to great art. But this work is no simple intellectual exercise--it is the story of a man who is exiled within his own country, whose intelligence and aloneness keep him perpetually knocking at the door 'naked ... wearing only my questions....'"

And here's an article that discusses a planetarium show designed by Lightman for the newly renovated Charles Hayden Planetarium in Boston (which reopened in Feb. 2011).