Who Was James Webb? An honest conversation with Hakeem Oluseyi (#226)

Into the Impossible With Brian Keating

Brian Keating

Science, Physics, Natural Sciences

4.7 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 3 May 2022

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is NASA’s next great flagship observatory. It’s set to continue — and extend — the illustrious scientific tradition established by the Hubble Space Telescope, while peering deeper into the universe and observing what Hubble could not. But who was James Webb? Considering the controversy surrounding his legacy, I wanted to explore the allegations against him with my friend Hakeem Oluseyi and answer the question: Why was the James Webb Space Telescope named after him? Hakeem claims that some allegations wrongly accused an innocent man who was, among more well-known achievements, a hero of diversity and inclusion in American government. He worked with Lyndon Johnson and John F. Kennedy to use NASA facilities in America’s southern states to promote racial integration and equal opportunity in employment Hakeem Oluseyi is an American astrophysicist, cosmologist, inventor, educator, science communicator, author, actor, veteran, and humanitarian. Oluseyi was named a Visiting Robinson Professor at George Mason University in 2021, a distinction by which the university recognizes outstanding faculty. In 2021, he published an autobiography titled: A Quantum Life: My Unlikely Journey from the Street to the Stars co-authored with Joshua Horwitz. His memoir tells the inspiring unlikely hero’s journey story from dealing drugs to dishing out the hardest of hardcore science communication and inspiration! Hakeem’s best known scientific contributions are research on the transfer of mass and energy through the Sun’s atmosphere; the development of space-borne observatories for studying astrophysical plasmas and dark energy; and the development of transformative technologies in ultraviolet optics, detectors, computer chips, and ion propulsion. Hakeem Is the president-elect of the National Society of Black Physicists Get Hakeem’s Book: A Quantum Life: Follow Hakeem on Twitter https://twitter.com/hakeemoluseyi Find Hakeem’s article on Medium Please Visit our Sponsors: LinkedIn: LinkedIn.com/impossible to post a job for FREE Athletic Greens, makers of AG1 which I take every day. Get an exclusive offer when you visit https://athleticgreens.com/impossible AG1 is made from the highest quality ingredients, in accordance with the strictest standards and obsessively improved based on the latest science. Connect with me: Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrBrianKeating Subscribe https://www.youtube.com/DrBrianKeating?sub_confirmation=1 J oin my mailing list; just click here http://briankeating.com/mailing_list.php Detailed Blog posts here: https://briankeating.com/blog.php Listen on audio-only platforms: https://briankeating.com/podcast.php A production of http://imagination.ucsd.edu/ Support the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/drbriankeating Produced and Edited by Stuart Volkow P.G.A Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to another exciting episode of the Into the Impossible podcast featuring yours truly Dr Brian Keating and my friend and two-time guest Dr.
0:08.2	Hakim Olushei. Hakim was on last time to talk about his book, Quantum Leaps, a journey from the streets to the stars involving
0:17.5	his evolution as a scientist, but also as a human being from essentially a kid on the streets dealing drugs to
0:26.0	Stanford University's PhD program and working on solar physics and obtaining multiple patents
0:31.8	and technology in the semiconductor industry.
0:35.1	But today he's on for a different reason.
0:36.8	He's talking about his work to really restore a somewhat tarnish legacy of James Webb, the namesake of the James Webb space telescope.
0:45.8	You may not know this in all the buildup to the James Webb's launch and unfurling and first images
0:51.7	that are coming up and so exciting and stay tuned to the Into the
0:55.2	Impossible podcast on YouTube Dr Brian Keating channel because we are doing some
1:00.3	breaking news as it comes out from the Webb telescope.
1:03.7	But James Webb himself was a controversial figure.
1:06.2	There's some that say that he was deeply involved in the so-called lavender scare
1:10.3	that attempted to ostracize and punish people from the LGBT-QI-plus community back in the 50s and 60s
1:19.2	and Hakeem demanded an explanation as a member of a minority group himself as an African American
1:28.1	physicist, very prominent one. In fact, the current president of the National Society of Black Physicis
1:34.0	Hekeem saw it as his duty to see if this reputation deserved to be
1:40.0	burnished instead of tarnished. And today's episode describes the kind of very
1:45.8	fascinating and courageous undertaking that he sought out to really reveal whether or not Webb himself had this bigoted past and
1:59.2	what he found surprised him and I'll surprise you.
2:02.1	Hekeems faced a ton of backlash for this, so I encourage you to shout out to him if you listen to this episode,
2:08.4	find him on Twitter, Hakima Lachei, of links to it in the show notes. He deserves your support. He's a
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