In Praise of Wasting Time with MIT Professor Alan Lightman

According to novelist/essayist and theoretical physicist Alan Lightman, unstructured time that allows our minds to roam freely can lead to more creativity. “We need a new mental attitude,” he advocates—one “that values our inner reflection, values stillness, values privacy, values personal reflection—that honors the inner self.” Lightman—who is a professor of the practice of the humanities as well as a senior lecturer in physics at MIT—shared these and other thoughts on creativity with an audience of MIT alumni in late 2018. He delivered his lecture at MIT’s Endicott House during a holiday luncheon event jointly organized by the MIT Alumni Association’s Cardinal and Gray Society and Emma Rogers Society. Read more on the Slice of MIT blog: bit.ly/2TTn3MX Read the transcript: Photo: Jack Mohr ’50

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In Praise of Wasting Time with MIT Professor Alan Lightman is an episode from Slice of MIT: Stories from MIT Presented by the MIT Alumni Association by MIT Alumni Association | An Office of MIT.

This episode is 00:32:56 long.

This episode was published on Apr 4, 2019.

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