131 | Avi Loeb on Taking Aliens Seriously

131 | Avi Loeb on Taking Aliens Seriously

The possible existence of technologically advanced extraterrestrial civilizations — not just alien microbes, but cultures as advanced (or much more) than our own — is one of the most provocative questions in modern science. So provocative that it's difficult to talk about the idea in a rational, dispassionate way; there are those who loudly insist that the probability of advanced alien cultures existing is essentially one, even without direct evidence, and others are so exhausted by overblown claims in popular media that they want to squelch any such talk. Astronomer Avi Loeb thinks we should be taking this possibility seriously, so much so that he suggested that the recent interstellar interloper `Oumuamua might be a spaceship built by aliens. That got him in a lot of trouble. We talk about the trouble, about `Oumuamua, and the attitude scientists should take toward provocative ideas.

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Abraham (Avi) Loeb received his Ph.D. in plasma physics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is currently the Frank B. Baird Jr. professor of science at Harvard University. He served as the Chair of Harvard's Astronomy department from 2011-2020. He is Director of the Institute for Theory and Computation of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and Founding Director of Harvard's Black Hole Initiative. He is chair of the Advisory Committee for the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative. His new book is Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth.


Jaksot(416)

218 | Raphael Bousso on Black Holes and the Holographic Universe

218 | Raphael Bousso on Black Holes and the Holographic Universe

Stephen Hawking's discoveries of black hole radiation, entropy, and the information-loss problem have both taught us an enormous amount about the relationship between quantum mechanics and gravity, an...

21 Marras 20221h 21min

217 | Margaret Levi on Moral Political Economy

217 | Margaret Levi on Moral Political Economy

Why do people voluntarily hand over authority to a government? Under what conditions should they do so? These questions are both timeless and extremely timely, as modern democratic governments struggl...

14 Marras 20221h 21min

AMA | November 2022

AMA | November 2022

Welcome to the November 2022 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). We take questions asked by Pa...

7 Marras 20223h

216 | John Allen Paulos on Numbers, Narratives, and Numeracy

216 | John Allen Paulos on Numbers, Narratives, and Numeracy

People have a complicated relationship to mathematics. We all use it in our everyday lives, from calculating a tip at a restaurant to estimating the probability of some future event. But many people f...

31 Loka 20221h 10min

215 | Barry Loewer on Physics, Counterfactuals, and the Macroworld

215 | Barry Loewer on Physics, Counterfactuals, and the Macroworld

The founders of statistical mechanics in the 19th century faced an uphill battle to convince their fellow physicists that the laws of thermodynamics could be derived from the random motions of microsc...

24 Loka 20221h 34min

214 | Antonio Padilla on Large Numbers and the Scope of the Universe

214 | Antonio Padilla on Large Numbers and the Scope of the Universe

It's a big universe we live in, so it comes as no surprise that big numbers are needed to describe it. There are roughly 10^22 stars in the observable universe, and about 10^88 particles altogether. B...

17 Loka 20221h 15min

AMA | October 2022

AMA | October 2022

Welcome to the October 2022 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). We take questions asked by Pat...

10 Loka 20223h 1min

213 | Timiebi Aganaba on Law and Governance in Space

213 | Timiebi Aganaba on Law and Governance in Space

With communication satellites, weather satellites, GPS, and much more, what happens in space is already important to our lives here on Earth. And the importance of space is only going to grow as we in...

3 Loka 20221h 16min

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