Buddhism Through the Eyes of a Physicist

This book presents a view of Buddhism from the perspective of a theoretical physicist. It helps the reader comprehend deep Buddhist ideas by bringing them closer to a more familiar context. Concentrating on teachings of Mahayana school represented by Tibetan Buddhism, their structure and main ideas are compared with the structure of scientific theory and the modern understanding of the laws of the Universe. It particularly explains in simple terms how attempts to construct a theory of quantum gravity have led to discoveries, not yet covered in the popular science literature, which drastically change our ideas about the nature of matter, space and time, and why the resulting picture of the world nicely agrees with the Buddhist doctrine of emptiness. The book also addresses several misinterpretations and misconceptions appearing from time to time in the literature and private discussions. The volume will be of great interest to general readers as well as scholars and researchers of religion and science and technology studies.

Sergey Alexandrov is a theoretical physicist working in the field of quantum gravity and superstring theory. He has two PhD degrees received in 2003 from St. Petersburg State University in Russia and from the University of Paris XI in France. Since 2005, he has been working at the University of Montpellier where he currently holds the position of "directeur de recherche". He is the author of more than 80 scientific publications and is a practicing Buddhist in the Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism.

I. The religion of knowledge, or the Science of the mind II. Axioms III. The four seals IV. The two truths V. Emptiness VI. Death VII. Analogies VIII. Space and time IX. Synthesis