Friday Sep 16, 2022

#79 Avi Loeb

This episode is with a guest who I wanted to have on for a while. Avi Loeb is a Professor of Science at Harvard and was the chair of its astronomy department from 2011 to 2020. He has written 8 books, including the best-seller “Extraterrestrial”, and hundreds of research papers. Among many other things, he is well-known for his views on the Oumuamua interstellar object, and he now heads the Galileo project, which is looking for further such objects. One of his upcoming projects is an expedition to try to retrieve fragments of another interstellar object from the ocean floor. If all this wasn’t interesting enough, we also talk about academia, the way science is pursued, and how we can ensure our kids maintain scientific curiosity. Enjoy!

Avi's book "Extraterrestrial":

https://www.amazon.com/Extraterrestrial-First-Intelligent-Beyond-Earth/dp/0358278147

Opportunities to learn more about space & the space economy:

Check out the edX/EPFL Space Economy MOOC: https://www.edx.org/course/new-space-economy
Do you want to specifically learn about investing in Space? Join the pre-release of Raphael's new live-taught course on Maven:
https://maven.com/space-business-institute/investing-course
Raphael's introductory book on the space economy recently came out in its Portuguese translation: https://www.amazon.com/Para-Cima-Economia-Espacial-Portuguese-ebook/dp/B09X5WV3WC/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1ROKTHNSCZCRI. Stay tuned for the English translation, which should come out soon.

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Timestamps

0:00 Intro

2:14 Avi's farm background and the "Indistinguishable grains of sand"

4:27 What makes humanity unique?

8:49 How academics can suppress innovation

12:01 Fixing the academic "system"

20:07 The Fermi Paradox

25:34 Cosmic archaeology

35:32 Is Earth worth visiting?