Probable Impossibilities: Musings on Beginnings and Endings
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Probable Impossibilities: Musings on Beginnings and Endings Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Alan Lightman (Author), Christopher Grove (Narrator), Random House Audio (Publisher)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 458 ratings
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The acclaimed author of Einstein’s Dreams tackles "big questions like the origin of the universe and the nature of consciousness...in an entertaining and easily digestible way” (Wall Street Journal) with a collection of meditative essays on the possibilities - and impossibilities - of nothingness and infinity, and how our place in the cosmos falls somewhere in between.

Can space be divided into smaller and smaller units, ad infinitum? Does space extend to larger and larger regions, on and on to infinity? Is consciousness reducible to the material brain and its neurons? What was the origin of life, and can biologists create life from scratch in the lab?

Physicist and novelist Alan Lightman, whom The Washington Post has called “the poet laureate of science writers”, explores these questions and more - from the anatomy of a smile to the capriciousness of memory to the specialness of life in the universe to what came before the Big Bang.

Probable Impossibilities is a deeply engaged consideration of what we know of the universe, of life and the mind, and of things vastly larger and smaller than ourselves.

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  1. Listening Length
    5 hours and 45 minutes
  2. Author
    Alan Lightman
  3. Narrator
    Christopher Grove
  4. Audible release date
    February 9, 2021
  5. Language
    English
  6. Publisher
    Random House Audio
  7. ASIN
    B08BG6K7DQ
  8. Version
    Unabridged
  9. Program Type
    Audiobook
  10. See all details
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Product details

Listening Length 5 hours and 45 minutes
Author Alan Lightman
Narrator Christopher Grove
Whispersync for Voice Ready
Audible.com Release Date February 09, 2021
Publisher Random House Audio
Program Type Audiobook
Version Unabridged
Language English
ASIN B08BG6K7DQ
Best Sellers Rank #45,855 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals)
#62 in History of Science
#80 in Science Essays & Commentary (Books)
#135 in Physics (Audible Books & Originals)

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
458 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Clare G.
5.0 out of 5 stars Where a Literary Work and Physics Embrace
Reviewed in the United States on April 18, 2021
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Alan Lightman is probably best known for his 6 novels, especially Einstein's Dreams. But, with his newest non-fiction book, Probable Impossibilities, Lightman combines his expertise in physics with his literary skills. Lightman, a professor of humanities at MIT, writes in a literary style that almost makes you forget you're reading a book on science, taking readers from the Big Bang into Nothingness and from Chaos to Order, finally looking at the question "Is Life Special?" (Immortality) and onward into Infinity. Lightman's beautifully written prose gives you the sense that while the universe may be huge and the science of it's beginning difficult to understand, the "Miracles" that we experience as citizens of the Universe are as close as our own dreams.
17 people found this helpful
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Sotto voce
4.0 out of 5 stars Yet another opinion ...
Reviewed in the United States on November 23, 2021
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Alan Lightman and I are very close in age. We are both Ph.D.'s in Physics. I, like Lightman, have no Nobel to laud. Lightman spent his career in academia. I spent mine in aerospace … landing men on the moon and back again, designing and fixing the great celestial observatories, and shooting robots to Mars and beyond. We might have met at some point.

We both spent an excessive amount of our lives in and around Caltech. Mine between and among Caltech and the combined scientific communities and disciplines brought together under Jet Propulsion Labs projects just down the I-210 from where Lightman may have resided.

I share 80% of Lightman's reflections and experiences. I do enjoy revisiting the domains of incomprehensibly large and small. It's a beauty best left inconceivable. Lightman's observation and a book meme that humans are positioned between nominally comprehensible powers of ±30 between atom and sun is an interesting metaphor. But let's be frank, man straddles the quantum, vastly smaller than the relative scale of the atomic and the universe, not simply our measly solar class.

Alas, the gap is at least twice again the powers of vast large and small. Light from the universe hasn't yet reached us from 14-some B years ago. The universe will get larger in millions of years at the speed of c. Then again, I've not seen a better elucidation in layman's terms of vast than Lightman delivers. Kudo's to Lightman

Lightman harkens back to Pascal frequently through the narrative. I imagined that Lightman might go the distance and embrace the scientific/philosophical Pascal universe. But, no. Lightman uses Pascal as a foil by the end. Lightman seems trite, announcing an error in Pascal's philosophy of science. His opinion. Many modern cosmologists won't mention Pascal for the reason. Lightman's universe is materialistic. That's shorthand for god-less. There is no room in Lightman's universe for another domain that many of us sense in our being.

My favorite aspect was Lightman's firm belief that the Plancks are solid and unchanging. Just what I've been saying for years! So, I agree with Lightman. However, Lightman explains that unchanging Plancks in some concept supports the end state of multi-verse and string theory.

Oppositely, I regard the Plancks unchanging existence as the very reason that multi-universe theories fail. However, all the propositions are untestable. No matter, multi-verse/string propositions 'yes/no' is moot in our existence. The propositions I've explored implicitly require the Plancks to metamorphose within the underlying mathematics to birth another universe. That's incomprehensible. Science rule #257: 'If it can't be imagined, even a tiny bit, on deep consideration, it can't exist. Oppositely, all that can be imagined could exist.' #257 has served me well.

Though nearby in location, Lightman and I circulated in different circles. Lightman believes that only a slight minority of cosmology brethren discern a God among the irrationals and transcendentals. I'd guess far more have quiet regard for the otherness saturating the gap between science and perception of other and, unfortunately, I believe they do so for job security reasons. No matter again, God appears unmoved by popularity polls. I once supposed that mathematicians might be the most materialistic among the sciences due to precision, but I decided I was wrong after a deep discussion among them. Mathematicians must imagine and consider the transfinite in high order mathematics … Ω, ω, אּ. More than 'shorthand', there is a mystery here in the philosophy of mathematics despite materialist counterarguments.

Lightman's godless universe feels incomplete. It's simply not satisfying. I liked it less and less as Lightman elucidates. Materialism answers none of the minds unique in all of known nature, human intuitions. "Is there more to it?" Lightman's search for proof of God will be fruitless. The transcendental nothingness of Buddhism is no shelter. 100-and-some-thousand Hindu gods are no help. No man can find God. God finds men, and men believe. It is an irresistible call. It's not a mystery at all.

From 'Probable Impossibilities,' "Spirituality does not require belief in miracles." Except that it does.
48 people found this helpful
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Timothy C. Lawson
5.0 out of 5 stars great book
Reviewed in the United States on September 19, 2022
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Get ready to have your head exploded. The author writes about things that are too difficult for me or other normal humans to understand but he does a good job in “dumbing it down” for those of us who do not have the intellect that he has. A very good book which I recommend to everyone.
3 people found this helpful
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George/Princeton
5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinary series of essays by one of the great minds of our time
Reviewed in the United States on November 5, 2021
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Alan Lightman is a unique person, a distinguished physicist and at the same time a man of letters, a novelist. He has a gift for making the most mind-bending concepts of higher physics and cosmology accessible to those without highly specialized training in those fields. Each essay in this collection is a gem, each should be read more than once to appreciate both the substance and the clarity of expression. This is a book not to be browsed but studied and savored.
4 people found this helpful
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Delta D.
4.0 out of 5 stars 5* content delivered in 4* style. Perhaps I'm being mean in witholding 1*
Reviewed in the United States on April 27, 2021
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The content is ideal for me. A very intelligent scientist comtemplates various aspects of mankind's relationship with the universe with a most engaging set of perspectives. Much of the material was familiar to me, but the context in which it is presented stimulated new thoughts.

I'd happily recommend this book to friends who have a less scientific background than mine. Most of the scientific technicalities are explained very clearly.

Alas, the writing style troubles me a little. As with so many books I read these days, the author is far too keen to insert himself (and his family) into the story. Put simply, there are far too many first-person singular pronouns. Perhaps this is a standard feature of 21st century authorship, and I am simply an antediluvian has-been who can't appreciate the merits of this. But, whilst I feel a touch mean in doing so, I'm holding back the fifth star for this reason.
42 people found this helpful
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Minnesota Sage
3.0 out of 5 stars Impossibly Ironic
Reviewed in the United States on June 4, 2023
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Why can’t supposedly open minded intelligentsia hold and respect opposing views on spirituality? I naively believed the author would avoid consistently reminding the reader of his atheism, while ironically acknowledging observations worthy of a Creator. Narcissists and nihilists walk amongst us and use science to endorse a narrative that’s dangerous to humanity, because they believe their myopic machinations can’t be wrong.
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Santa Barbara Joe
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful writing and simply clear.
Reviewed in the United States on February 2, 2022
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I give Dr Lightman a 5 because he takes the reader into his mind and thereby the universe we can share and live in together with humility. I cannot recommend this book more highly it is a mind expanding adventure with great quotes from many disciplines, medical, art, physics. All done tastefully and openly. You know where he is coming from throughout. Excellent read, thank you Alan.
3 people found this helpful
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Dr. Stanley A. White
5.0 out of 5 stars So who is Alan Lightman? Philosopher? Dreamer? Poet? Classicist? Teacher? Scientist? Absolutely!
Reviewed in the United States on May 22, 2021
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I have a well-stocked wine rack and liquor cabinet, a party deck overlooking the ocean, and a great eclectic bunch of friends whose interests are boundless. Alan Lightman is the person I'd most like to invite to our next informal gathering to analyze the all of existence and solve mankind's known problems ... or at least what strikes our collective interest at the moment. What could be more fun other than to read another collection of his no-holds-barred essays. The biggest disappointment is always that each collection ends. But, Alan, keep 'em coming!
11 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Peter Baxter
5.0 out of 5 stars Science and Philosophy gem 💎 ✨
Reviewed in Canada on May 9, 2022
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The amazing connection of how life beginning with a single atom ⚛ and how all of life is connected. The chapter "In Defense of Disoder" resonated in that nature not only requires disorder but thrives on it explained to me how adversity is required to effect transformational change in science and human development. Worth the read!
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Edoardo Angeloni
5.0 out of 5 stars A clear vision of last progresses in physics.
Reviewed in Italy on October 18, 2021
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The author explicates his arguments between the quantum theory and the relativity with great competence. His approach is intelligent and is moved by constant interests for those questions. The style is also very elegant. The central question is the progress about the real measures in the experiments. So also the theory should be more exact in the computation.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Intreguing
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 22, 2021
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Fascinating and beautifully written.
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Lynne Bedbrook
5.0 out of 5 stars DEEP INSIGHTS
Reviewed in Canada on September 23, 2022
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good read
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