The importance of wasting time

In his new collection of essays, ''A Sense of the Mysterious: Science and the Human Spirit" (Pantheon, $23), novelist and physicist Alan Lightman (''Einstein's Dreams") digs into the contradictions in Albert Einstein's personality, discusses the uses of literary metaphor in science, and asks whether the notion of the scientist as detached observer best describes the role of those whose passion ... (Full article: 910 words)

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