ALAN LIGHTMAN earned his PhD in physics from the California Institute of Technology and is the author of seven novels, including the international best seller Einstein's Dreams and The Diagnosis, a finalist for the National Book Award. His nonfiction includes The Transcendental Brain, The Accidental Universe, Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine, and Probable Impossibilities. He has taught at Harvard and at 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. He is the host of the public television series Searching: Our Quest for Meaning in the Age of Science.