Alan Lightman
Eremita
Although the history of science has not awarded Messenger the same laurels as Newton’s Principiaor Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, I regard it as one of the most consequential volumes of science ever published. In this little book, Galileo reports what he saw after turning his new telescope toward the heavens: strong evidence that the heavenly bodies are made of ordinary material, like the winter ice at Lute Island. The result caused a revolution in thinking about the separation between heaven and earth, a mind-bending expansion of the territory of the material world, and a sharp challenge to the Absolutes. The materiality of the stars, combined with the law of the conservation of energy, decrees that the stars are doomed to extinction. The stars in the sky, the most striking icons of immortality and permanence, will one day expire and die. Alan Lightman, Nautilus
Alan Lightman é um dos poucos cientistas que fazem ficção, ensaio e divulgação que admiro enquanto escritores. Este físico de apelido feliz escreveu, há muitos anos, um livro belíssimo que a Relógio de Água traduziu: Os Sonhos de Einstein - ainda à espera ainda uma resposta à altura de um biólogo, mas que só se poderá chamar Os Pesadelos de Darwin. Leiam-no.