Theorists In The Desert 2 | Avi Loeb

Alien Theorists Theorizing

Big Theory Podcasts

True Crime, Philosophy, Society & Culture

4.6 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 26 May 2021

⏱️ 47 minutes

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Summary

Professor Loeb received a PhD in plasma physics at age 24 from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1986) and was subsequently a long-term member at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (1988-1993), where he started to work in theoretical astrophysics. In 1993 he moved to Harvard University where he was tenured three years later. He is now the Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science and former chair of the department.

He also holds a visiting professorship at the Weizmann Institute of Science and a Sackler Senior Professorship by special appointment in the School of Physics and Astronomy at Tel Aviv University.

Loeb has authored nearly 700 research articles and 4 books. For full publications and biographies, visit his Professional Site

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Alien Theorizing, we got a special episode today, we have Avi Lobon, I'm
0:28.4	I'm Zell. I'm Dan. And this, of course, is Avi Lob, that is Avi Lob over there on the other end.
0:35.4	Thanks for coming on the show. And for those of you who don't know, Avi Lob is the founding
0:40.4	director of Harvard University's Black Hole Initiative, director of the Institute for Theory
0:45.2	and Computation at the Harvard Smith-Sony and Center for Astrophysics. The former chair of
0:50.4	the Astronomy Department at Harvard University, he chairs the Advisory Board for the Breakthrough
0:55.4	Starshot project and is a former member of the President's Council of Advisors on Science
1:00.3	and Technology and a former chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies.
1:07.0	Safe to say, the smartest men we've interviewed on the show thus far. Yeah, barred down, 100%.
1:15.3	He's going to be speaking at Contact in the Desert at the end of June here. So,
1:20.4	Avi, just the first question I want to ask you is, what was the catalyst that got you started
1:25.4	into, like, astrophysics, astronomy, just space in general? Was there like a central event as a
1:30.8	child or what got you going? Well, it was just circumstances. I grew up on a farm, I used to collect
1:36.6	eggs every afternoon and I was mostly interested as a kid in philosophy, in the most fundamental
1:43.9	questions. And I used to read philosophy books while driving a tractor to the hills of the
1:48.8	village every weekend. But then I was born in Israel and I had to serve in the military. That's
1:54.9	obligatory at age 18. And I had two options, either to pursue physics and get recruited to a
2:02.1	program that allowed me to get a PhD in physics or to run in the fields with a gun. And I preferred
2:09.4	the first because it's closer to philosophy. And then I proposed a project that was funded,
2:17.8	the first international project to be funded by the Star Wars Initiative of President Reagan
2:23.6	back in the mid 1980s. And that became a whole department. And I was one of the leaders of that
2:35.0	project and visited the Washington DC. In one of the visits, I went to Princeton, New Jersey and
	...

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