"But what is the past? Could it be, the firmness of the past is just illusion?..." - Alan Lightman

But what is the past? Could it be, the firmness of the past is just illusion? Could the past be a kaleidoscope, a pattern of images that shift with each disturbance of a sudden breeze, a laugh, a thought? And if the shift is everywhere, how would we know?

— Alan Lightman
Physicist, writer, and novelist

einstein einstein-s-dreams past time

About This Quote

About Alan Lightman

Alan Lightman was a contemporary American physicist, writer, and novelist. Alan Paige Lightman is an American physicist, writer, and social entrepreneur. He has served on the faculties of Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and is currently a professor of the practice of the humanities at MIT. Read more on Wikipedia →

Themes

Time — Reflections on the passage of time and how we spend it

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