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Searching: Our Quest for Meaning in the Age of Science show's poster

The Stars & The Osprey

Physicist and best-selling author Alan Lightman investigates how key findings of modern science help us find our bearings in the cosmos. What do these new discoveries tell us about ourselves, and how do we find meaning in them? Travel from the infinity of the small to the infinity of the large, meeting with the co-discoverer of one of the most distant galaxies yet known.

The Stars & The Osprey

Season 1 Episode 101 | 56m 44s | CC

“The Stars & The Osprey” begins with Alan Lightman's late-night experience alone on the ocean when he felt connected to the stars and ends with a memorable eye-to-eye encounter with a wild creature. Alan attempts to reconcile these transcendent experiences with the material world of atoms and molecules. Can science explain such experiences in terms of the brain? Are humans nothing but matter?

Distributed nationally by American Public Television