Latest / Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe / Are physics and religion in harmony or conflict?

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Are physics and religion in harmony or conflict? · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

0:08
Speaker 1: A lot of you out there love physics and love history,
0:11
Speaker 1: and so probably lots of you went to see the
0:14
Speaker 1: recent movie Oppenheimer, maybe the biggest blockbuster ever starring physicists.
0:20
Speaker 1: And some of you who know that I grew up
0:23
Speaker 1: in Los Alamos, that I went to Los Alamos High
0:25
Speaker 1: School and my parents worked in the weapons program at
0:28
Speaker 1: the lab wrote in to ask me what did I
0:31
Speaker 1: think of the movie? What's it like to see your
0:33
Speaker 1: hometown portrayed on the big screen in such dramatic fashion. Well,
0:37
Speaker 1: the answer is I decided to go see Barbie instead.
0:56
Speaker 2: Hi.
0:56
Speaker 1: I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, a professor at U,
1:00
Speaker 1: and I've been supported by the United States Department of
1:03
Speaker 1: Energy since I was about five years old. My parents
1:06
Speaker 1: worked at olamo's National Labs, and so the weapons program
1:10
Speaker 1: basically put food on our table, paid for my education,
1:14
Speaker 1: and later on, when I grew up to be a physicist,
1:17
Speaker 1: I actually wanted to avoid the moral quagmire of designing
1:21
Speaker 1: weapons of mass destruction, so I ended up sliding over
1:24
Speaker 1: to the much less practically useful field of particle physics,
1:28
Speaker 1: which of course is still funded by the Department of Energy.
1:32
Speaker 1: Maybe the folks over there believe that eventually the Higgs
1:35
Speaker 1: boson will have some practical use, or maybe they just
1:38
Speaker 1: love understanding the universe. Either way, I'm a very grateful
1:42
Speaker 1: lifelong recipient of government funding from building weapons to exploring
1:46
Speaker 1: and understanding the nature of the universe. And welcome to
1:50
Speaker 1: the podcast Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, where we
1:53
Speaker 1: dive deep into the issues of physics, whether or not
1:56
Speaker 1: they have practical use. We think that understanding the universe
2:00
Speaker 1: verse has deep inherent value to me, to you and
2:03
Speaker 1: all of future humanity who are desperate to understand how
2:08
Speaker 1: the world works, what the laws are that govern it
2:10
Speaker 1: at the smallest scale, how those come together to make
2:13
Speaker 1: our universe, whether it is in the end following some plans,
2:18
Speaker 1: some systems, some reasons, some logic that we can deduce,
2:21
Speaker 1: that we can understand, and that hopefully on this podcast
2:24
Speaker 1: we can explain to you. So we ask all of
2:26
Speaker 1: the biggest questions. We don't shy away from those that
2:29
Speaker 1: have philosophical consequences or deep implications for the nature of
2:33
Speaker 1: our lives. That's why we do physics, because we seek
2:35
Speaker 1: to understand our place in the universe. And when I
2:39
Speaker 1: was growing up in Los Almos. You know, physics was
2:42
Speaker 1: in the air. There were physicists everywhere. People were doing
2:44
Speaker 1: physics all over the place. You know, it's a small
2:47
Speaker 1: mountain town and it's really dominated by the lab I
2:51
Speaker 1: remember my mother went for jury dude one time, and
2:53
Speaker 1: a standard question the lawyers ask is who here has
2:56
Speaker 1: an advanced degree? But everybody in the room raised their hand,
3:00
Speaker 1: so they couldn't just disqualify the scientists like they usually do.
3:05
Speaker 1: Something else that's interesting about Los Almos, beyond the standard
3:08
Speaker 1: story that it's marinated in science, is the number of
3:12
Speaker 1: places of worship. You drive around Los Almos, you see
3:16
Speaker 1: lots and lots of different kinds of churches and temples
3:19
Speaker 1: and synagogues, and it's because people come from all over
3:23
Speaker 1: the world, and so there this incredible diversity of places
3:27
Speaker 1: of worship. It's fascinating to me how people come there
3:30
Speaker 1: for the science but end up seeking out their cultural
3:34
Speaker 1: and religious communities. And this, of course played a big
3:37
Speaker 1: role in the movie Oppenheimer, the religious identities of some
3:41
Speaker 1: of the scientists, the role that played in their fight
3:44
Speaker 1: against the Nazis and their Jewish identity, and Los Almos
3:48
Speaker 1: of course includes a vibrant Jewish community. When I was there,
3:52
Speaker 1: there was a very lively population of Jews, and that
3:54
Speaker 1: community was something I was a part of growing up.
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Speaker 1: My Eagle Scout project when I was seventeen was repainting
4:01
Speaker 1: the Los Almost Jewish Community Center. And more broadly, there's
4:05
Speaker 1: a fascinating connection between physics and Judaism. We all know,
4:10
Speaker 1: of course that there are lots of famous Jewish physicists.
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Speaker 1: You've got Albert Einstein, Neils Borr had Jewish background, Polly Born,
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Speaker 1: Beta Block Landau, Robbie Wigner, von Neumann, Richard Feynman, Julian Schwinger,
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Speaker 1: Marie Gelman, Stephen Weinberg, Oppenheimer himself, Edward Teller, ed Witten,
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Speaker 1: Lisa Meiitner. All of these folks have Jewish backgrounds. And
4:32
Speaker 1: beyond the anecdotal list of famous names, if you look
4:35
Speaker 1: at the Nobel Prize winners in physics, fully a quarter
4:39
Speaker 1: of them are Jews. So it makes you wonder, like,
4:42
Speaker 1: what's the connection there between Judaism and physics? Are Jews
4:46
Speaker 1: drawn to physics for some reason? And is it a
4:48
Speaker 1: cultural or a religious connection? Do the folks who are
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Speaker 1: trying to unravel the mysteries of the universe to reveal
4:55
Speaker 1: the laws that govern it. The cold heartless logic of
4:58
Speaker 1: the universe also lead the stories of Judaism. How do
5:01
Speaker 1: they reconcile these two things in their mind? Do they
5:04
Speaker 1: divide them up into separate questions? Do they find them
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Speaker 1: to be in conflict? And so today on the podcast,
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Speaker 1: we're going to be exploring the question our physics and
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Speaker 1: Judaism in harmony or in conflict. This is a bit
5:22
Speaker 1: of a departure for us where we usually dig deep
5:24
Speaker 1: into the details of the physics, but often on the
5:27
Speaker 1: podcast we are exploring the consequences of what physics has learned,
5:32
Speaker 1: the philosophical implications. If the universe works this way, what
5:35
Speaker 1: does it mean for me how I live my life,
5:37
Speaker 1: what I should do with myself? Because physics is more
5:41
Speaker 1: than just understanding how the world works. It gives us
5:43
Speaker 1: a sense of our place. Learning that the Earth is
5:46
Speaker 1: not the center of the universe, that there are billions
5:48
Speaker 1: of planets like ours out there, gives us a context
5:51
Speaker 1: for our lives and tells us something about how we
5:54
Speaker 1: should live it, which of course is something religion also
5:58
Speaker 1: speaks to. So this is a potential tricky topic. But
6:00
Speaker 1: we're going to try to tread sensitively and explore the
6:03
Speaker 1: overlap and understand the connection between these two ideas that
6:07
Speaker 1: are so important to so many people. And so of
6:10
Speaker 1: course I was curious what everybody out there thought about
6:13
Speaker 1: these things. Our listeners to this podcast religious do they
6:16
Speaker 1: find religion and physics to be in harmony or in conflict?
6:20
Speaker 1: So I went out there to our community volunteers and
6:22
Speaker 1: I asked them our physics and religion in harmony or
6:27
Speaker 1: in conflict? So think about it for a moment yourself.
6:30
Speaker 1: What do you think about this difficult question. Here's what
6:33
Speaker 1: our listeners had to say. The church has done awful
6:37
Speaker 1: things to scientists, So I would say physics and religion
6:41
Speaker 1: are in conflict.
6:43
Speaker 3: I think if a compartment, lize and let religion help
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Speaker 3: us with our spirituality, our faith community, and help us
6:53
Speaker 3: get a structure in life, et cetera, while we let
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Speaker 3: physics handle are why and how of the rovers and
7:02
Speaker 3: explain all the things we see around us.
7:04
Speaker 1: Well, there are in how many sometimes and they are
7:06
Speaker 1: in conflict sometimes, especially around the Newton period.
7:09
Speaker 4: So I'm going to say in how many is conflict.
7:13
Speaker 5: They don't need to be in conflict.
7:16
Speaker 1: But over the last few hundred, maybe even less millennia,
7:21
Speaker 1: they've been pushed to be in conflict with each other.
7:25
Speaker 6: I believe that physics and religion is in conflict because
7:31
Speaker 6: physics is based on scientific evidence and in the nicest
7:36
Speaker 6: way possible. Religion is based on fairy tales and what
7:42
Speaker 6: people believe to be true.
7:45
Speaker 2: I'd say it depends on your religion and how deeply
7:49
Speaker 2: are you believe in it. If you believe most of
7:53
Speaker 2: your religion, then then I'd say they're in conflict. But
7:57
Speaker 2: some people just believe that some sort of higher power
8:01
Speaker 2: start of the universe, and then that could be in
8:04
Speaker 2: harmony as long as you say that that creator didn't
8:07
Speaker 2: interfere after that.
8:10
Speaker 7: Yes, yes they are. It's both. Let me put it
8:14
Speaker 7: this way. I love physics with my brain. It's good
8:18
Speaker 7: for the mind. I love Jesus with my heart. He's
8:22
Speaker 7: good for the soul. These two things live on total
8:26
Speaker 7: opposite ends of my being. Sometimes it's hard to reconcile
8:32
Speaker 7: my interests in both. They can butt heads on certain topics,
8:36
Speaker 7: but at other times each one enhances the beauty of
8:40
Speaker 7: the other. They come together, and when one informs the other,
8:45
Speaker 7: it just makes them both so much better. So yes,
8:48
Speaker 7: it's both.
8:50
Speaker 8: I believe religion and physics are in conflict and pretty
8:53
Speaker 8: much always have been. But it's interesting that both try
8:57
Speaker 8: and understand our place in the universe and try and
9:00
Speaker 8: give our lives meaning. So in that sense they're in harmony.
9:05
Speaker 8: But the ideas of each are in conflict to each
9:10
Speaker 8: other's understanding.
9:13
Speaker 1: I'd think conflict. Physics expects imperial evidence, religion is based
9:19
Speaker 1: on faith and intangible proof.
9:24
Speaker 4: I guess it depends on which region we consider, but
9:27
Speaker 4: I wouldn't say they have to be fundamentally in conflict.
9:30
Speaker 4: I think they can be complementary, and their money can
9:32
Speaker 4: be found in front of the wonders of the universe.
9:36
Speaker 5: Personally, I think they are I guess in conflict given
9:39
Speaker 5: that religion doesn't believe in any form of evolution or anything.
9:44
Speaker 5: But then again, religion does believe that everything came from nothing.
9:48
Speaker 5: We have no idea what happened at the moment before
9:53
Speaker 5: the Big Bang, and we still can't explain consciousness or
9:57
Speaker 5: human feelings, so I'm not too sure.
10:02
Speaker 7: I would say that the amount of harmony or conflict
10:05
Speaker 7: involved in these two ideas is dependent on the two
10:09
Speaker 7: people who are discussing these ideas.
10:11
Speaker 1: So I love these answers, and thank you everybody for
10:13
Speaker 1: your honest and heartfelt replies. It really helps me to
10:16
Speaker 1: hear what you're thinking about. And already here you see
10:19
Speaker 1: part of the story emerging. You hear that some people
10:22
Speaker 1: separate these things and say physics is asking some questions
10:25
Speaker 1: and science is asking other questions, while other folks find
10:29
Speaker 1: them to be directly in conflict and prefer to go
10:31
Speaker 1: in one direction or the other. Personally, for me, I
10:35
Speaker 1: think that there are a lot of questions that science
10:37
Speaker 1: can answer and is the best equipped to answer, But
10:40
Speaker 1: there are also lots of questions that science just cannot answer,
10:43
Speaker 1: questions like what should I eat for lunch today? Or
10:46
Speaker 1: should I even get out of bed this morning? Science
10:48
Speaker 1: is not set up to answer every question in the universe.
10:52
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean that religion is necessarily the best way
10:55
Speaker 1: to answer it. There's lots of different ways to find
10:57
Speaker 1: joy and value in your life, but science doesn't necessarily
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Speaker 1: answer every question out there. And while I grew up
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Speaker 1: in a Jewish community and it's part of my identity,
11:07
Speaker 1: I'm not a terribly observant jee these days, and so
11:10
Speaker 1: to help me figure this out. I reached out back
11:13
Speaker 1: into my childhood and out to Los Almos to talk
11:17
Speaker 1: to the rabbi who leads the Los Almos Jewish Center
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Speaker 1: and is a physicist himself. So I had a fascinating
11:24
Speaker 1: conversation about Judaism and about physics, and about the Jewish
11:28
Speaker 1: community in Los Almos after the war, and how Judaism
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Speaker 1: was portrayed in the movie Oppenheimer. So here's my interview
11:35
Speaker 1: with rabbi and physicist Jack Schlacter. So then it's my
11:43
Speaker 1: great pleasure to welcome to the podcast doctor Jack Schlacter,
11:46
Speaker 1: also Rabbi Jack Schlacter. Doctor Schlacter got his PhD in
11:51
Speaker 1: physics from the University of California at San Diego and
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Speaker 1: his worked full time at Los Almost National Laboratory as
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Speaker 1: a physicist. He's also a long standing member of the
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Speaker 1: Almost Jewish Center and recently ordained as a rabbi. Jack,
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Speaker 1: thank you very much for joining us on the podcast.
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Speaker 9: It's my pleasure and honor. Daniel, thank you very much
12:09
Speaker 9: for inviting me.
12:10
Speaker 1: And it's been quite a few years since you and
12:12
Speaker 1: I have spoken. I think the last time might have
12:14
Speaker 1: been before I left for college.
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Speaker 9: That's a while ago. Yeah, so you'll have to refresh
12:22
Speaker 9: my memory, because that's one of the things that starts
12:25
Speaker 9: to go with time. But my ordination actually took place
12:30
Speaker 9: in nineteen ninety five, and I'm thinking that that's maybe
12:34
Speaker 9: just after you disappeared from Los Almas. I don't remember now.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I graduated from high school in ninety three and
12:40
Speaker 1: left for college and only visited occasionally back to see
12:44
Speaker 1: my parents. So yeah, when I left, you were not
12:47
Speaker 1: yet a rabbi. And something I only learned recently is
12:51
Speaker 1: that you were a physicist. I knew you my whole childhood,
12:54
Speaker 1: and I was always interested in physics, and of course,
12:56
Speaker 1: growing up in Los Alamos, the physics is in the air.
12:59
Speaker 1: But I wasn't really, like, concretely aware of which adults
13:01
Speaker 1: in my sphere were actually working physicists. So I only
13:05
Speaker 1: learned a couple of weeks ago that you've been a
13:07
Speaker 1: physicists this whole time.
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Speaker 9: That's correct, that's right. In fact, I like to tell
13:12
Speaker 9: people that from the age of four, I was set
13:15
Speaker 9: on a path for the physical sciences. I actually thought
13:19
Speaker 9: I was going to be an astronomer. And I'm a
13:22
Speaker 9: product of the Spotnek generation and the Mercury seven astronauts
13:28
Speaker 9: were my heroes, and I really was convinced I was
13:31
Speaker 9: going to do some kind of astronomy or I actually
13:35
Speaker 9: put in an application to be a mission specialist as
13:38
Speaker 9: an astronaut along with fourteen billion other people. I was
13:43
Speaker 9: not accepted into that program. But then when I matriculated
13:47
Speaker 9: at Caltech, there was incredible peer pressure to go into
13:51
Speaker 9: physics as opposed to astronomy, and so I shifted gears
13:55
Speaker 9: and very quickly became fascinated with physics. I don't think
13:59
Speaker 9: I knew what physics was when I showed up at Caltech,
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Speaker 9: but I quickly became interested in it.
14:05
Speaker 1: Well that's a pretty good place to learn some physics.
14:08
Speaker 1: So tell us a little bit about your physics expertise
14:10
Speaker 1: and your background of your scientific career. We'll talk about
14:13
Speaker 1: your rabbinical work in a minute, but I want to
14:15
Speaker 1: make sure everybody has the context of you as a scientist.
14:18
Speaker 1: What did you work on at Los Almos if you
14:20
Speaker 1: can tell us.
14:21
Speaker 9: Sure, absolutely so. My senior year at Caltech, I took
14:25
Speaker 9: a class that was like an introduction to fusion by
14:30
Speaker 9: one of the real pioneers in the field. It was
14:33
Speaker 9: really Gould and It intrigued me. The idea of blending
14:39
Speaker 9: a study of the physical sciences and the world around us,
14:42
Speaker 9: which to me is kind of physics in a nutshell,
14:45
Speaker 9: but also with doing something useful for the world. That
14:49
Speaker 9: fusion energy seemed like a really wonderful goal. So then
14:55
Speaker 9: when I went to graduate school, I had sought out
14:59
Speaker 9: somebody who was working in plasma physics and magnetic confinement fusion,
15:05
Speaker 9: and that was the area that I had my PhD in. Well,
15:11
Speaker 9: I actually completed my PhD at Los Almos and then
15:15
Speaker 9: was hired on as a staff member in what was
15:18
Speaker 9: then the Magnetic Fusion division, and I worked for well
15:22
Speaker 9: over a decade doing experimental plasma physics with the intent
15:28
Speaker 9: of trying to make confined magnetic plasma systems for fusion energy.
15:33
Speaker 1: Wow, amazing, it's incredible that we didn't run into each other.
15:38
Speaker 1: Even more because plasma fusion was my first for into physics,
15:41
Speaker 1: I joined the group working with Glenn Worden and Fred
15:45
Speaker 1: Weisaki at Los Almos.
15:48
Speaker 9: That was the the people I worked with at the
15:50
Speaker 9: time that you were doing stuff with those people, My
15:54
Speaker 9: interest was in a pretty bizarre approach to magnetic fusion.
15:59
Speaker 9: It was a linear z pinch but at very high densities,
16:03
Speaker 9: and the idea was to use omic heating straight up
16:09
Speaker 9: to ignition. And what we did, in fact, probably the
16:13
Speaker 9: most exciting day in the laboratory for me and my
16:17
Speaker 9: whole career, was extruding a solid fiber of frozen deuterium
16:23
Speaker 9: fifty microns in diameter and five centimeters long, so it
16:28
Speaker 9: was like a hair of frozen deuterium, and then it
16:33
Speaker 9: spanned an electrode gap and we did basically an exploding
16:38
Speaker 9: wire experiment with that. You put a very high current
16:42
Speaker 9: through initially insulating deuterium fiber, which rapidly broke down, and
16:47
Speaker 9: then the plan was to try to heat it to
16:50
Speaker 9: ignition by driving very high current at very short time
16:54
Speaker 9: scale through the deuterium wire.
16:56
Speaker 1: All right, so clearly you're working on the forefront of
16:59
Speaker 1: plasma physics. You're working specifically on technologies that you know
17:02
Speaker 1: could change our world if we had this kind of fusion.
17:06
Speaker 1: Certainly it would affect the trajectory of technology and the
17:08
Speaker 1: human race. But it sounded like you were also interested
17:11
Speaker 1: in physics for deeper reasons. I mean, you got into
17:14
Speaker 1: it for astronomical curiosity. Does that mean that you also
17:17
Speaker 1: like wanted to understand the nature of reality and you know,
17:21
Speaker 1: the fundamental fabric of space and time. Where there are
17:24
Speaker 1: also those motivations for you.
17:26
Speaker 9: You're probably putting me at a higher level of sophistication
17:30
Speaker 9: than I deserve. I mean, I was totally intrigued by
17:33
Speaker 9: the universe at large, and I think I received a
17:37
Speaker 9: telescope when I was four years old as a sonic
17:40
Speaker 9: at present, and you know, it was just a passion
17:43
Speaker 9: for me to try to see things at the furthest
17:48
Speaker 9: distances in the cosmos and to try to understand something
17:53
Speaker 9: about the nature of the universe at large. But I
17:56
Speaker 9: also knew my own limitations, and I knew that I
18:00
Speaker 9: needed to have an income, and the fusion seemed like
18:03
Speaker 9: a way to combine things where I would probably be
18:06
Speaker 9: able to get a job. People were being hired to
18:09
Speaker 9: do a magnetic fusion when I entered the field, and
18:13
Speaker 9: it also had something to do with helping the world out,
18:16
Speaker 9: And somehow I realized that life is finite and the goal,
18:22
Speaker 9: I think is to leave the world in a somewhat
18:25
Speaker 9: better position than when we enter it, and working on
18:29
Speaker 9: fusion seemed like a way to do that. And this
18:32
Speaker 9: is not at all to be critical of people who
18:35
Speaker 9: do what I would call pure physics, but there was
18:38
Speaker 9: no great loss to the world of physics by me
18:41
Speaker 9: focusing in a more applied area. It seemed to me
18:44
Speaker 9: to combine my interest in understanding things that nobody understood previously,
18:50
Speaker 9: you know, really doing novel experiments, but also with an
18:54
Speaker 9: end goal of something that could be useful.
18:57
Speaker 1: All right, this is a fascinating conversation and I'd love
19:00
Speaker 1: to hear some more, but first we have to take
19:02
Speaker 1: a quick break. Okay, we're back and we're talking with
19:17
Speaker 1: rabbi and physicist Jack Schlapter, who leads the Los Alamos
19:21
Speaker 1: Jewish Center and works at Los Almos National Laboratory as
19:24
Speaker 1: a physicist. Yeah, fascinating. One of the reasons I ask
19:29
Speaker 1: is because I'm curious about how physics for you connects
19:34
Speaker 1: with a desire to understand the universe and your sort
19:36
Speaker 1: of picture of the origin of creation and all of
19:39
Speaker 1: this stuff. Because I'd like to understand how you ended
19:43
Speaker 1: up also becoming a rabbi. I mean, we're a scientist,
19:46
Speaker 1: you're a physicist. You're working on practical details, manipulating the
19:50
Speaker 1: universe using our understanding of its laws and then later
19:54
Speaker 1: in life you became a rabbi. Is that something that
19:57
Speaker 1: came out of physics or that's something that came out
19:59
Speaker 1: of your feelings about Judaism and you know the role
20:02
Speaker 1: of Judaism and telling us how to live with each
20:04
Speaker 1: other and how to treat other people.
20:06
Speaker 9: So it's going to be a little bit embarrassing to
20:09
Speaker 9: be completely honest about it. But it's all serendipity, you know.
20:12
Speaker 9: I just happened to be in the right place at
20:14
Speaker 9: the right time for my life to end up with
20:17
Speaker 9: the trajectory that it had. As I said earlier, I
20:20
Speaker 9: came to Los Almos as a graduate student, and I
20:23
Speaker 9: actually completed my PhD here at Los Alamos. My thesis
20:28
Speaker 9: advisor had been a graduate student at Los Almos in
20:32
Speaker 9: the fifties, and then his first staff position after he
20:36
Speaker 9: got his PhD, which I think would have been maybe
20:40
Speaker 9: the late fifties, was also at Los Almos, so he
20:43
Speaker 9: still had a connection to the laboratory when I was
20:46
Speaker 9: working for him at UC San Diego, and we had
20:50
Speaker 9: worked on an experiment. And you can appreciate this, and
20:54
Speaker 9: I think any of your listeners, especially in experimental physics,
20:58
Speaker 9: can appreciate this. Had worked on an experiment for four
21:02
Speaker 9: years and it got us nowhere, and it was basically
21:06
Speaker 9: starting from scratch. My thesis advisor had a track record
21:10
Speaker 9: of people taking nine and ten years to complete their PhDs,
21:14
Speaker 9: and that was sort of hanging over my head. You know,
21:17
Speaker 9: Oh my goodness, I'm going to be following that same trajectory.
21:20
Speaker 9: So I had spent four years with It was a diagnostic.
21:23
Speaker 9: It was a laser scattering diagnostic to look at very
21:28
Speaker 9: low amplitude waves in a TOKAMAC, which is the kind
21:31
Speaker 9: of a leading magnetic plasma confinement device to configurations. And
21:36
Speaker 9: so we had this diagnostic and we took it up
21:39
Speaker 9: to UCLA where there was a small tokamac and we
21:42
Speaker 9: made it the diagnostic to the tokamac and we scattered
21:46
Speaker 9: light off of the plasma and we got no signal
21:50
Speaker 9: at all. And so here was four years of graduate
21:54
Speaker 9: work going nowhere, and my thesis advisor, rather than trying
21:58
Speaker 9: to through the laser system or do something to increase
22:03
Speaker 9: the sensitivity of the detector, he decided to change gears altogether.
22:08
Speaker 9: And he got interested in this dense z pinch approach
22:13
Speaker 9: that had been pioneered at Los Almos So he sent
22:16
Speaker 9: me to Los Almos for the summer, and the idea
22:20
Speaker 9: was to learn something about this approach and then come
22:24
Speaker 9: back to San Diego and we would build an experiment
22:28
Speaker 9: and we would pursue that. He was going to be
22:31
Speaker 9: applying for a grant while I was learning some techniques,
22:35
Speaker 9: and it all sounded good on paper, but it did
22:38
Speaker 9: look like this ten year trajectory might be my career.
22:43
Speaker 9: So while I was at Los Almos two things of importance. One,
22:47
Speaker 9: I came to the quick realization that here was a
22:50
Speaker 9: working experiment and I could take data now and not
22:54
Speaker 9: wait to build something and start from scratch at San Diego.
22:58
Speaker 9: So that was piece number one, and that's what worked out.
23:01
Speaker 9: He didn't get the grant, by the way, so it's
23:03
Speaker 9: really lucky that I ended up staying at Los Almos.
23:07
Speaker 9: Number two, though, and quite an unexpected change for me,
23:12
Speaker 9: is that I came to Los Almos not knowing a
23:15
Speaker 9: single person in town, and I showed up here. And
23:18
Speaker 9: this was in the days where it was not so
23:21
Speaker 9: common for people to be here as students. It's much
23:24
Speaker 9: more common today. But back when I came, I was
23:27
Speaker 9: a little bit of a loaner, and in my entire division.
23:31
Speaker 9: I was the only student who was working at the time,
23:34
Speaker 9: and I thought, Okay, I don't know anybody in town.
23:37
Speaker 9: I could do worse than go to the synagogue and
23:40
Speaker 9: meet a few people there. And I had probably not
23:43
Speaker 9: really done much actively in a synagogue for about a
23:47
Speaker 9: decade at that point. So I went to the synagogue
23:51
Speaker 9: in Los Almos. People were very friendly and welcoming. And
23:55
Speaker 9: then one other quirk that was to my advantage is
23:59
Speaker 9: that I could sing reasonably well. And I don't know
24:04
Speaker 9: if it's the altitude in Los Almos or the high
24:07
Speaker 9: physics population or what, but most people cannot sing well here.
24:12
Speaker 9: In fact, it generally does not sound good in the
24:15
Speaker 9: synegague unless somebody's really leading it and pushing everybody along
24:19
Speaker 9: to be in.
24:20
Speaker 1: The same Let me interrupt you with a comment and
24:22
Speaker 1: a question. First of all, you're being way too modest.
24:25
Speaker 1: You can't just sing reasonably well. You have a beautiful voice,
24:28
Speaker 1: like really, it's an incredible baritone. It made a huge
24:31
Speaker 1: impression on me as a kid as part of those services.
24:34
Speaker 1: But also I just wanted to clarify you're saying you
24:37
Speaker 1: joined the Los Almost Jewish community as a way to
24:39
Speaker 1: find community you're looking for people to connect with, maybe
24:42
Speaker 1: people with a similar background. Was it a social environment
24:45
Speaker 1: and a community you're looking for, or also a religious experience?
24:49
Speaker 9: I mean, to be completely honest, it was not for
24:51
Speaker 9: the religious experience. It was not because I had some
24:56
Speaker 9: spiritual craving. It was not because I wanted to connect
25:01
Speaker 9: with my heritage. It really was a social thing, and
25:04
Speaker 9: because I knew nobody in town, and there weren't very
25:07
Speaker 9: many students anyway in town. It's not like I could
25:10
Speaker 9: easily go meet people my age. I tried the synagogue
25:15
Speaker 9: route and what happened for me there, and I think
25:18
Speaker 9: it's probably a confluence of being at the right place
25:23
Speaker 9: and the right stage of life. I realized that I
25:27
Speaker 9: did not know anything about Judaism. I knew some of
25:30
Speaker 9: the mechanics. I knew, I could read Hebrew well, I
25:34
Speaker 9: could chant the prayers, but I really didn't understand the
25:38
Speaker 9: depth and profundity of Judaism. Because I had the arrogance
25:44
Speaker 9: of a physicist to reject things as being anachronistic or mythical,
25:50
Speaker 9: and I just didn't know what it was that I
25:53
Speaker 9: was throwing out. So I went through the usual thing.
25:56
Speaker 9: I had a very solid grounding in the mechanics of
26:00
Speaker 9: Judaism through a conservative synagogue where I grew up in
26:03
Speaker 9: a suburb of Chicago. And then, kind of like many
26:07
Speaker 9: people in my age demographic, I sort of left synagogue
26:14
Speaker 9: life after I became bar Mitzvah. So for about a decade,
26:18
Speaker 9: I did almost nothing Jewishly, And when I came to
26:22
Speaker 9: Los Almos and I started going to the synagogue, There's
26:26
Speaker 9: a few things that happened. One, I started questioning, you know,
26:30
Speaker 9: why are these things here, why do we do these
26:33
Speaker 9: things this way? And is there a logic to it?
26:36
Speaker 9: And I found out, you know, with my usual arrogance,
26:40
Speaker 9: that I had thought there was no logic to anything,
26:42
Speaker 9: but there's actually great wisdom in Jewish tradition. That was
26:45
Speaker 9: number one. Number two is that, as you may remember,
26:49
Speaker 9: there was a rabbi in Santa Fe, Rabbi Lendard Hellman
26:52
Speaker 9: of Blessed Memory, who used to come up periodically to
26:55
Speaker 9: Los Almos. And I have in my notes at home
27:01
Speaker 9: the materials from a class that he taught in nineteen
27:05
Speaker 9: eighty one, just an adult education series that he drove
27:09
Speaker 9: up to Los Almos and taught some classes. And I
27:13
Speaker 9: started realizing you know, I don't know anything about what
27:17
Speaker 9: I would call and I don't mean this in an
27:19
Speaker 9: X rated sense adult Judaism. I had experienced Judaism as
27:23
Speaker 9: a child, and what I had been taught was appropriate
27:26
Speaker 9: for a child, but nobody ever really explained to me
27:31
Speaker 9: there's a lot of wisdom here on interpersonal relations, on
27:35
Speaker 9: societal mechanics, and Judaism really has a lot to offer
27:40
Speaker 9: that I didn't realize. And even today, I learned new
27:43
Speaker 9: things every day. I realized that there just is a
27:47
Speaker 9: lot to Judaism that I love to expose other adults
27:52
Speaker 9: to because I think they share that same rejection of
27:57
Speaker 9: things that they don't know what it is quite that
27:59
Speaker 9: they're rejecting. And so I just was very, very lucky
28:03
Speaker 9: to connect with the Jewish Center for Social Reasons, but
28:07
Speaker 9: then to realize that if I'm going to lead some things,
28:12
Speaker 9: it would be good if I knew what it was
28:13
Speaker 9: that I was trying to lead. And the more I
28:15
Speaker 9: looked into it, the more I realized there's a lot
28:18
Speaker 9: to this.
28:18
Speaker 1: So I think that's really fascinating because it's sort of
28:20
Speaker 1: an unusual trajectory. I think a lot of people learn
28:24
Speaker 1: about Judaism as a child, and if they have it
28:27
Speaker 1: as an adult, it's because they grew up in the
28:29
Speaker 1: tradition and they learned it and they sort of became
28:32
Speaker 1: part of who they were. I think it's more rare
28:35
Speaker 1: for people to end up embracing this in adulthood, especially
28:38
Speaker 1: if they have such a strong, rigorous scientific background. And
28:43
Speaker 1: so that's the reason I'm very curious to hear from
28:46
Speaker 1: your perspective, how do these two things live in your
28:49
Speaker 1: mind simultaneously? Are these two different parts of your life
28:52
Speaker 1: the way like a physicist can also be a father
28:55
Speaker 1: or a basketball player, and those don't have to necessarily
28:57
Speaker 1: be in conflict with being a physicist. How do these
29:00
Speaker 1: two things accommodate each other.
29:02
Speaker 9: That's an excellent question, And maybe I haven't fully resolved
29:07
Speaker 9: that for myself, but I think that physics is a
29:12
Speaker 9: questioning discipline, maybe to the point of distraction. My wife
29:17
Speaker 9: is not a scientist at all, and she finds it
29:20
Speaker 9: frustrating at times that I need to know why that
29:24
Speaker 9: you know, I will ask why is this? And why
29:27
Speaker 9: do we do this this way? And why do you
29:29
Speaker 9: suppose your coffee stayed hot in the tall cup more
29:32
Speaker 9: than a stick hot in the short cup, and maybe
29:34
Speaker 9: we need to do some experiments here I can drive
29:37
Speaker 9: people to distraction, I think of asking questions like that.
29:40
Speaker 9: But for me, Judaism also encourages a questioning attitude. It's
29:48
Speaker 9: not a dogma as such the way I view it,
29:51
Speaker 9: and I probably should have caveated everything in our conversation
29:55
Speaker 9: here that there is no authority in GDA the way
30:01
Speaker 9: there might be in other traditions, such that we're not
30:06
Speaker 9: obligated to think a certain way. And asking questions I
30:11
Speaker 9: think is inherent in Judaism, just like it is in physics.
30:14
Speaker 9: So for me, the issues that Judaism addresses are different issues,
30:21
Speaker 9: perhaps than what a physicist looks at. Of course, things
30:27
Speaker 9: like the origin of the universe and the nature of
30:30
Speaker 9: interaction are bread and butter for physicists and have some
30:34
Speaker 9: overlap with Judaism. But I think by and large Judaism
30:38
Speaker 9: is a way of life. It's not in conflict for
30:41
Speaker 9: me with the rational world, if you will, the way
30:45
Speaker 9: it might be for people from other traditions.
30:48
Speaker 1: I see. That's fascinating. So the things you take from
30:51
Speaker 1: Judaism are how we should treat each other, how we
30:54
Speaker 1: should live our lives, how we should feel about each other,
30:57
Speaker 1: not necessarily like the literal truth of the creation of
31:01
Speaker 1: the universe.
31:02
Speaker 9: Yes, and I think, look texts that are thousands of
31:05
Speaker 9: years old, who wrote them, and what languages used and
31:11
Speaker 9: what metaphors are used obviously shifts over time. And let's
31:17
Speaker 9: just take the Five Books of Moses, which is a
31:19
Speaker 9: central text, as you well know in Judaism and in
31:22
Speaker 9: other traditions as well. The Five Books of Moses have
31:27
Speaker 9: been central to Jewish tradition for millennia, and very wise
31:34
Speaker 9: people have looked at those texts and interpreted them and
31:40
Speaker 9: looked for meaning in those texts. And whether we know
31:44
Speaker 9: exactly how those texts were composed, or who wrote them,
31:49
Speaker 9: or the details of their composition, the commentary alone brings
31:56
Speaker 9: us in touch with brilliant people from the Jewish past
32:01
Speaker 9: who offer insights in a way that's meaningful to me
32:07
Speaker 9: at least. So I tend not to dwell so much
32:11
Speaker 9: on the issue of is this the hand of God?
32:15
Speaker 9: And literal text, but it's text that can serve as
32:19
Speaker 9: a springboard for deep inquiry and meaningful discussion. And I
32:25
Speaker 9: think meaningful life a meaningful way to live our lives
32:30
Speaker 9: without getting into the details about when it says the
32:34
Speaker 9: world was created in six days? What does that mean?
32:36
Speaker 9: I mean, obviously, from a scientific point of view, I
32:40
Speaker 9: can't take those texts literally. But I'm not the first
32:43
Speaker 9: to say that. Within a very traditional Jewish context, there
32:48
Speaker 9: are commentators from many, many, many years ago who well
32:53
Speaker 9: understood that this text is not to be taken literally,
32:57
Speaker 9: and that that's not a problem. So I don't get
33:01
Speaker 9: hung up on those things. And as you know, we
33:04
Speaker 9: have an annual cycle for reading the Five Books of Moses,
33:07
Speaker 9: and last week we were in the Book of Exodus,
33:11
Speaker 9: in a section that's filled with a bunch of detailed
33:15
Speaker 9: laws about society, one of which is something about cooking
33:21
Speaker 9: an animal maybe it's a small goat in the milk
33:25
Speaker 9: of its mother. And this is an interesting text because
33:29
Speaker 9: it's actually repeated verbatim three times in the Five Books
33:32
Speaker 9: of Moses. That's unusual. That suggests there's some importance to it,
33:36
Speaker 9: because why else would you repeat it three times. And
33:40
Speaker 9: we had at the synagogue that I lead in Santa
33:43
Speaker 9: Fe a half hour discussion about why that text is
33:49
Speaker 9: there and what does it have to teach us? And
33:52
Speaker 9: I think there are many incredibly valuable messages from that text,
33:59
Speaker 9: whether somebody chooses to live their life following that in
34:03
Speaker 9: either a literal sense or in maybe the more expanded
34:07
Speaker 9: traditional sense, what somebody does with their own dietary practices
34:13
Speaker 9: can be put aside for a bit as we explore
34:16
Speaker 9: what value is there too a statement like that. And
34:20
Speaker 9: I thought it was a wonderful discussion. We had somebody
34:23
Speaker 9: talking about health reasons, we had somebody talking about idolatrous
34:27
Speaker 9: practice of related people who were contemporaneous. We had people
34:32
Speaker 9: talking about reasons that evoke a care for animals in
34:36
Speaker 9: us as human beings. It was a very wide ranging discussion,
34:41
Speaker 9: all of which are commentaries that come from the early commentators.
34:47
Speaker 9: And to me, that was just a beautiful way to
34:50
Speaker 9: make that text come alive, to make the text useful,
34:54
Speaker 9: and for me, as a practical matter, we incorporate that
34:58
Speaker 9: into our practice at home. So I just found that
35:02
Speaker 9: a fascinating way to look at an ancient text and
35:06
Speaker 9: to derive value from it based on the wisdom of
35:10
Speaker 9: people who have looked at it over the millennia.
35:13
Speaker 1: Thank you. Yeah, that's very insightful and it makes a
35:15
Speaker 1: lot of sense to me. And I want to get
35:17
Speaker 1: back to the question of how Judaism teaches us to
35:21
Speaker 1: think and to question and to discuss and to explore
35:24
Speaker 1: the universe. But before, I just wanted to make one
35:27
Speaker 1: clarifying question, which is you're talking about interpreting the Torrahs
35:31
Speaker 1: a certain way and not taking it literally and maybe
35:34
Speaker 1: using it as a way to motivate the choices we
35:36
Speaker 1: make in life. That to me reflects something about the
35:39
Speaker 1: specific Jewish tradition that you embraced. But of course there's
35:42
Speaker 1: a whole spectrum from orthodox to very reform. Do you
35:47
Speaker 1: think that it's possible? And apologies if this is an
35:50
Speaker 1: inappropriate question. Have you met anybody who is more in
35:54
Speaker 1: the Orthodox side of things who takes literally to be
35:57
Speaker 1: truth the story of Genesis and all also has a
36:01
Speaker 1: sort of scientific mind, a practicing scientist. Do you know
36:04
Speaker 1: anybody who lives that intersection?
36:06
Speaker 9: I don't think I do, because the people I know
36:11
Speaker 9: who follow what I would call orthodox practice and are
36:16
Speaker 9: physical scientists, I don't think look at the text in
36:20
Speaker 9: a literal sense either. I don't think they have that
36:25
Speaker 9: kind of a dichotomy either. I think people who observe
36:30
Speaker 9: what I would call a traditional Jewish life are doing practices,
36:36
Speaker 9: But it does not inhibit their rational thinking. So I
36:40
Speaker 9: don't know people who we would call literalists who also
36:46
Speaker 9: are doing physical science inquiry as part of their daily routine.
36:51
Speaker 9: Having said that, I don't know that many people who
36:54
Speaker 9: are both scientists and traditional practicing Jews, so I could
36:59
Speaker 9: just be not aware of people in that category. But
37:03
Speaker 9: I will say my approach to Judaism is that we've
37:07
Speaker 9: never been fundamentalist. If fundamentalism is defined as people who
37:13
Speaker 9: take the text literally, and I say that with some
37:17
Speaker 9: degree of confidence that it's actually applicable in Judaism across
37:22
Speaker 9: the board, because some practices, some Jewish practices, and I'd
37:27
Speaker 9: have to work to come at a good example, are
37:30
Speaker 9: actually at odds with the literal text. And that's because
37:34
Speaker 9: Judaism has evolved. It's a multimillennial tradition, and I don't
37:39
Speaker 9: think we've ever really been fundamentalists as such. I know
37:43
Speaker 9: you know this stuff, but it may be valuable for
37:46
Speaker 9: your listeners. There was a movement, one of many schisms
37:51
Speaker 9: in Jewish history, this one that I'm referring to in
37:54
Speaker 9: particular as the Karaite. So this goes back to probably
37:57
Speaker 9: around eight hundred of the Common Era, and the Karayites
38:01
Speaker 9: I mean literally from their name were fundamentalists. They read
38:05
Speaker 9: the text and they used the text as the basis
38:08
Speaker 9: for their practice, and they rejected the evolution of Judaism
38:14
Speaker 9: through the so called rabbinic period that developed the Talmud.
38:19
Speaker 9: They said, this is just made up by human beings.
38:22
Speaker 9: This is not what Judaism should be. We need to
38:25
Speaker 9: go back to the literal texts. And that was a
38:28
Speaker 9: divergence from what is today normative Judaism, and that's not
38:33
Speaker 9: Judaism of today. So I think we've always looked at
38:36
Speaker 9: the text as a basis, but not as a dictate
38:41
Speaker 9: for how Judaism should be practiced.
38:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's really fascinating, especially in the context of my
38:48
Speaker 1: own family. I don't know how much you met or
38:51
Speaker 1: knew my father, because he had basically drifted away from
38:53
Speaker 1: Judaism by the time we moved to Los Alamos. But
38:56
Speaker 1: he was an Orthodox Rabbi before we moved to Los
38:59
Speaker 1: Alamos and literal believer in the story of Genesis, a
39:02
Speaker 1: Young Earth creationist. And I asked him once about why
39:06
Speaker 1: he ended up leaving Judaism and working at Los Alamos
39:09
Speaker 1: basically as a scientist. He told me that one of
39:12
Speaker 1: the things that attracted him to Judaism, something that you mentioned,
39:15
Speaker 1: this spirit of debate, of questioning, of arguing, of exploration.
39:19
Speaker 1: In the end turned out to be something that really
39:21
Speaker 1: frustrated him because instead of building up a picture of
39:26
Speaker 1: the universe the way science does, you know, a set
39:29
Speaker 1: of laws and ideas that have to be consistent and
39:31
Speaker 1: survive experimental tests, he found that Judaism felt more like
39:36
Speaker 1: they were sliding away from the revelation, the moment of insight.
39:40
Speaker 1: Instead of building up knowledge, we were like grabbing at
39:43
Speaker 1: it to avoid losing that inspiration. And for listeners who
39:47
Speaker 1: aren't familiar with it, you know, the Jewish tradition has,
39:50
Speaker 1: of course Torah, but there's also the oral law that
39:53
Speaker 1: you know, Moses heard from God and passed on to
39:56
Speaker 1: Joshua and passes on from rabbi to rabbi. And according
40:00
Speaker 1: to my father's telling of it, it's difficult to argue
40:04
Speaker 1: with a rabbi from a previous generation because they're closer
40:08
Speaker 1: to the revelation and therefore have a deeper, more intuitive
40:11
Speaker 1: insight to this valuable knowledge that we're sort of sliding
40:15
Speaker 1: away from. And to me and I think to him,
40:18
Speaker 1: this seemed very different from the scientific approach, where it
40:21
Speaker 1: doesn't matter whose idea it was, and old theories can
40:23
Speaker 1: be overturned if they fail tests, and every idea has
40:26
Speaker 1: to stand on its own, on its merits, of course,
40:29
Speaker 1: not on the age or the authority of the thinkers,
40:32
Speaker 1: you know. In that sense, scientists are scholars of a
40:34
Speaker 1: truth that's still being revealed, rather than an ancient truth
40:38
Speaker 1: that we're sort of clinging to. Do you see those
40:41
Speaker 1: traditions in conflict the same way to.
40:44
Speaker 9: Me, there is a tension. Science generally has the appearance,
40:51
Speaker 9: if you will, maybe with some detours, but of sort
40:55
Speaker 9: of slowly increasing knowledge with and what you described is
41:04
Speaker 9: maybe that as we advance in time, we're drifting away
41:09
Speaker 9: from some revelatory experience and losing something in the process,
41:15
Speaker 9: and so there would be some tension there. And I
41:17
Speaker 9: can understand your father grappling with that, And maybe this
41:21
Speaker 9: touches for me on this huge issue about is Judaism
41:26
Speaker 9: even a religion. I think of the revelatory experience that
41:31
Speaker 9: Mount Sinai has described in the Five Books of Moses
41:36
Speaker 9: as the formation of the Jewish people, and that's what
41:41
Speaker 9: was the singular event, if you will, that was what
41:45
Speaker 9: was revealed was the revelation that there is an identifiable
41:49
Speaker 9: Jewish people. The first book of the five Books of Moses,
41:53
Speaker 9: the Book of Genesis, follows an individual family or actually
41:57
Speaker 9: some individuals, and then the creation of somebody who is
42:01
Speaker 9: thought of as the progenitor of the Jewish people, but
42:04
Speaker 9: it's not a Jewish people as such, and it's the
42:07
Speaker 9: exodus from Egypt and the revelatory experience at Sinai that
42:12
Speaker 9: really forms the Jewish people. And so, yes, we've drifted
42:15
Speaker 9: away from when the people were created as a people,
42:20
Speaker 9: But have we drifted away from the teachings of that period.
42:25
Speaker 9: I think the teaching of that period includes the fact
42:29
Speaker 9: that it's given to us to learn now, and so
42:33
Speaker 9: we're doing that learning by doing our physics or doing
42:37
Speaker 9: whatever it is that we do in our lives. We're
42:40
Speaker 9: advancing our knowledge in accordance with what the tradition would
42:45
Speaker 9: tell me we're supposed to be doing. So I don't
42:47
Speaker 9: quite see the dichotomy. Though I totally understand the tension
42:51
Speaker 9: that your father felt, I don't know that for me
42:54
Speaker 9: it's the same friction, if you will.
42:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, fascinating, Well, I think it's not so hard to
43:01
Speaker 1: see physics and Judaism in conflict because they do have
43:06
Speaker 1: different traditions of exploration, and of course the stories they
43:09
Speaker 1: tell are different. But I think it's more interesting to
43:12
Speaker 1: look for harmony, and I really appreciate the way you
43:16
Speaker 1: find a resonance between the two traditions. So I spend
43:19
Speaker 1: some time trying to think about the connection between these
43:22
Speaker 1: two things and if they can serve a similar purpose
43:25
Speaker 1: in our lives, because for me, physics is not just
43:27
Speaker 1: about the knowledge, it's about the way we think, and
43:29
Speaker 1: Judaism and religion are not just about the stories of
43:33
Speaker 1: the creation of the universe, but about the way we
43:35
Speaker 1: treat each other and all this is really about what
43:38
Speaker 1: is it like to be human in the world and
43:40
Speaker 1: to ask questions. So I was thinking about the intersection
43:43
Speaker 1: between the two, and for me, one of the appealing
43:45
Speaker 1: aspects of religion, at least as a child, because I
43:48
Speaker 1: mostly have a child's view of Judaism was the sense
43:52
Speaker 1: of order and purpose that it brings, like, maybe you
43:55
Speaker 1: don't understand everything, but there's supposed to be a reason
43:58
Speaker 1: why things happen. Somebody who's in charge is a purpose
44:01
Speaker 1: in an order of the universe is not just capricious
44:04
Speaker 1: and cruel. And I wonder sometimes if my desire to
44:08
Speaker 1: go into physics is a desire to find a reason
44:12
Speaker 1: and an order in the universe. I mean, maybe physics
44:15
Speaker 1: provides a different kind of comfort. You know, it's cold
44:19
Speaker 1: and it's mindless, the laws of physics, but at least
44:21
Speaker 1: it's telling you that there's a sense to the universe, right,
44:24
Speaker 1: that there's order, There is a reason things happen. The
44:27
Speaker 1: reason is it follows these laws of physics. In that sense,
44:30
Speaker 1: I can find some sort of comfort in physics, not
44:34
Speaker 1: exactly the same as one could in judaism, but to me,
44:37
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of a resonance there. Do you
44:40
Speaker 1: feel the same way. Do you see the same overlap
44:42
Speaker 1: and sort of the role of these two things in
44:44
Speaker 1: our lives.
44:46
Speaker 9: That's very interesting how you state that. And I agree
44:49
Speaker 9: that the laws of the universe that we uncover exploring
44:54
Speaker 9: the world through physics do give us some comfort. I
44:59
Speaker 9: few will that things are not just happening willy nilly.
45:04
Speaker 9: That you know, we're not just going to float off
45:06
Speaker 9: the surface of the Earth at a moment, because the
45:09
Speaker 9: law of gravity dictates that things work a certain way.
45:13
Speaker 9: But I actually think there's another thing that we haven't
45:16
Speaker 9: touched on that's important and shows that both physics and
45:21
Speaker 9: judaism have things to offer, but they're not necessarily the same.
45:25
Speaker 9: And I'm probably doing a terrible job here of paraphrasing
45:29
Speaker 9: what I think I remember reading from the great physicist
45:33
Speaker 9: Richard Feinman. Physics does not say anything really about ethics.
45:38
Speaker 9: It doesn't say how you should treat somebody. And in
45:43
Speaker 9: that sense, judaism is answering different questions than physics is answering.
45:48
Speaker 9: Physics can tell you what the implication would be if
45:51
Speaker 9: you do a certain thing, but it doesn't say whether
45:54
Speaker 9: that's good or bad. It doesn't do a judgment if
45:57
Speaker 9: you will, And I think maybe adds that extra dimension
46:03
Speaker 9: about ethics, about the proper thing to do, not just
46:08
Speaker 9: the consequence of doing something, but what's right and what's wrong.
46:12
Speaker 9: And I think that's very important to navigate the world
46:15
Speaker 9: in a healthy way.
46:17
Speaker 1: Hold that thought. We have to take another break. Okay,
46:33
Speaker 1: we're back, and I'm talking to Jack Schlackter, physicists at
46:36
Speaker 1: Los Almos and Rabbi of the Los Alamos Jewish Center. No,
46:40
Speaker 1: I totally agree, and that actually brings us to our
46:42
Speaker 1: next topic, because even if physics doesn't tell us how
46:46
Speaker 1: to live our lives, there are enormous potential consequences to
46:50
Speaker 1: doing physics. And that, of course is the context of
46:53
Speaker 1: Los Alamos, where you discovered your Judaism and where I
46:57
Speaker 1: discovered my love for physics. Los Almos and the forty
47:00
Speaker 1: and fifties is a town centered on the weapons lab,
47:03
Speaker 1: and people who decided to live in this sort of
47:05
Speaker 1: bizarre town in the middle of nowhere did it because
47:07
Speaker 1: they're passionate about the physics or maybe the larger mission
47:11
Speaker 1: of national security. But there's also a significant fraction who
47:15
Speaker 1: build this Jewish community. Do you know much about the
47:18
Speaker 1: early Jewish community in Los Alamos. Is it made out
47:21
Speaker 1: of observant Jews who are also world class physicists, or
47:24
Speaker 1: is it also people like you who were just looking
47:27
Speaker 1: for some sort of cultural community at the time.
47:30
Speaker 9: So my exploration as an amateur historian into the Jewish
47:36
Speaker 9: origins of Los Almos back to the days of the
47:39
Speaker 9: Manhattan Project nineteen forty three to forty five suggest and
47:43
Speaker 9: I titled a talk that I prepared once in kind
47:47
Speaker 9: of a tongue in cheek intentional title Jews in theory,
47:52
Speaker 9: meaning the Jews in theoretical division, but also that they
47:56
Speaker 9: were Jews in theory because very few, if any, were
48:00
Speaker 9: what I would call practicing Jews with a deep religious
48:05
Speaker 9: commitment to Jewish practice. I think by and large they
48:09
Speaker 9: were secular Jews. That doesn't mean that they were hiding
48:14
Speaker 9: their Jewishness at all, I think for them, certainly, in
48:18
Speaker 9: the midst of fighting World War Two, I think they
48:22
Speaker 9: understood full well that there was a threat to the
48:26
Speaker 9: Jewish people, and that developing a bomb, which was the
48:30
Speaker 9: purpose of the Manhattan Project, was in part motivated by
48:35
Speaker 9: the need to be protective of the Jewish people. There
48:39
Speaker 9: are some fascinating individuals. I mean, talk about we're now
48:43
Speaker 9: distant from the giants of yesteryear. Every time I look
48:47
Speaker 9: in depth at an individual Jewish scientist from the Manhattan
48:52
Speaker 9: Project time I'm struck with what amazing individuals these were.
48:58
Speaker 9: One of them, in particular, who comes to mind was
49:01
Speaker 9: Joseph Rotblot, who went on to win the Nobel Prize
49:05
Speaker 9: in Peace. But he came to the laboratory, barely came
49:09
Speaker 9: to the laboratory from Warsaw, Poland, leaving Warsaw a few
49:14
Speaker 9: weeks before September one, nineteen thirty nine, his wife was
49:19
Speaker 9: in recovery from some illness, I don't remember what, and
49:24
Speaker 9: the plan was for her to join him, and then
49:27
Speaker 9: September first came, she never joined him. He spent time
49:31
Speaker 9: while at Los almost desperately trying to find out what
49:34
Speaker 9: had happened to her. She did actually die in a
49:37
Speaker 9: concentration camp, it's my understanding, but he couldn't find that
49:41
Speaker 9: out for quite some time, and he eventually went on
49:46
Speaker 9: to put his effort into peace and was the recipient
49:51
Speaker 9: of the Nobel Prize in Peace. So it's an interesting story,
49:55
Speaker 9: and his Jewishness was probably not what we would call
49:58
Speaker 9: traditional Orthodox's practice, but he knew better than anybody the
50:04
Speaker 9: horrors of the Second World War and tragically lost his
50:09
Speaker 9: wife and probably others in his family as well.
50:12
Speaker 1: And there certainly were a lot of Jews in Los
50:14
Speaker 1: Almo's participating in important roles in the Manhattan Project. But
50:18
Speaker 1: there seems to be also a larger connection between Judaism
50:22
Speaker 1: and physicists. Like somehow, there are a lot of physicists
50:26
Speaker 1: who are Jews, and a lot of Jews who are physicists,
50:28
Speaker 1: and some huge fraction of the Nobel Prize winners in
50:31
Speaker 1: physics are Jews, at least culturally. I've heard people say
50:35
Speaker 1: that there's a connection between Judaism and physics because Judaism
50:41
Speaker 1: has this belief in sort of like an abstract world.
50:43
Speaker 1: That's the foundation that the physical world is just a
50:46
Speaker 1: reflection of the abstract world. And you can see this
50:49
Speaker 1: and how the story of Genesis is told that God
50:52
Speaker 1: created the world by speaking, that these words are somehow
50:56
Speaker 1: more real than the physical world. They were primary, and
51:00
Speaker 1: this kind of thinking lends better to abstract thought and
51:04
Speaker 1: therefore to physics. I don't know if you think there's
51:07
Speaker 1: any truth in that, If you have any of your
51:09
Speaker 1: own theories about why there seems to be at least
51:11
Speaker 1: this confluence or this overlap demographically between Jews and physics.
51:16
Speaker 9: Well, that's an interesting take on it that I'm not
51:18
Speaker 9: sure I had heard before about the comfort level that
51:22
Speaker 9: Jews may have with the concept of the abstract, and
51:25
Speaker 9: I'll keep that in mind. I will try to remember
51:27
Speaker 9: to quote you in fact, because I'm hoping to prepare
51:31
Speaker 9: a presentation for May of this year through the Los
51:36
Speaker 9: Almos Public Library System, because I think may might be
51:41
Speaker 9: Jewish American Heritage Month, and I was asked if I
51:45
Speaker 9: would be willing to give a talk, and I wanted
51:47
Speaker 9: to narrow it down, and I thought I would narrow
51:49
Speaker 9: it down to what seemingly would be a tiny topic,
51:53
Speaker 9: which was Jewish American Nobel Physics Prize winners. But that's
51:58
Speaker 9: actually a huge talk. And so in trying to answer
52:02
Speaker 9: the question why is that a huge topic? I think
52:05
Speaker 9: I will keep in mind what you just said. It's
52:07
Speaker 9: not what I would have thought of immediately. I actually
52:11
Speaker 9: had thought it was more the questioning attitude that is
52:14
Speaker 9: inherent in Judaism that lends itself to that same questioning
52:19
Speaker 9: attitude in how we look at the world around us.
52:22
Speaker 9: And I'm reminded by the way of a wonderful passage
52:26
Speaker 9: that is captured in the Hagadad, the text that we
52:30
Speaker 9: use that passover at the Fader, the evening ceremony for Passover.
52:36
Speaker 9: The Hagadad that the Los Amos Jewish Center has used
52:39
Speaker 9: on some occasions includes a passage because there's a section
52:44
Speaker 9: in that ceremony where questions are asked and there's a quotation.
52:50
Speaker 9: I can picture that on the page where the famous
52:54
Speaker 9: Nobel Prize winning Jewish physicist II Robbie shares an anecdote
52:59
Speaker 9: from his child, and he says that when the other
53:03
Speaker 9: kids would come home from school, their mothers would ask
53:06
Speaker 9: them what did you learn today, And when he would
53:09
Speaker 9: come home from school, his mother would say, did you
53:12
Speaker 9: ask any good questions today? And he believes that that
53:15
Speaker 9: was a contributor to his passion for physics and his success.
53:20
Speaker 9: It is this idea of asking questions. So I had
53:24
Speaker 9: always thought that that might be the primary reason why
53:27
Speaker 9: the overlap between physicists and Jews might be higher than
53:32
Speaker 9: you would expect. But I like what you say about
53:35
Speaker 9: the abstract also, I think that's equally interesting.
53:38
Speaker 1: Well, you, Sash probably credit my father. That was definitely
53:41
Speaker 1: an idea of his. But to me, physics is a
53:44
Speaker 1: reflection of a search for the underlying truth of the world.
53:48
Speaker 1: And you know, the structure, the mathematical nature of the
53:51
Speaker 1: laws makes us wonder if we're seeing the structure of
53:54
Speaker 1: the universe itself or whether we're just reflecting our own minds.
53:58
Speaker 1: But to me, it definitely is a hunt for those
54:01
Speaker 1: fundamental foundations with intellectual girders of reality. My last question
54:05
Speaker 1: for you is also about history and the Manhattan project.
54:09
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if you've seen the movie Oppenheimer, and what
54:11
Speaker 1: you think of the portrayal of Los Alamos and Jews
54:15
Speaker 1: and physicists. Being a physicist and a Jew in Los Alamos.
54:19
Speaker 9: It would be criminal, I think if I had not
54:22
Speaker 9: seen the movie. I actually saw the movie twice, and
54:25
Speaker 9: I'm not much of a moviegoer, so for me to
54:27
Speaker 9: see the movie twice, that's got a lot. And I
54:30
Speaker 9: did enjoy the movie. I think it's three hours long,
54:33
Speaker 9: but the three hours went by quite quickly for me.
54:35
Speaker 9: I thought it was a very effective tool for sharing
54:39
Speaker 9: an interesting story. I will tell you that Los Alamos
54:43
Speaker 9: went crazy as this film was being produced and prepared
54:48
Speaker 9: for release. My wife and I were gone to New
54:51
Speaker 9: York for a few years, but we came back into
54:54
Speaker 9: town in time to catch some of the filming that
54:57
Speaker 9: was taking place in Los Almas, and the town was
55:00
Speaker 9: completely in a tizzy over the filming. And then when
55:04
Speaker 9: the movie was getting ready to be released, it was
55:07
Speaker 9: in even more of a tizzy because there was this
55:09
Speaker 9: expectation that we would be inundated with tourists. So in
55:13
Speaker 9: conjunction with that, the J. Robert Oppenheimer Memorial committee set
55:20
Speaker 9: up a series of talks, and I was asked by
55:22
Speaker 9: the chair of the committee if I would give a
55:26
Speaker 9: talk about Oppenheimer and his Jewishness. And I thought about
55:31
Speaker 9: that for a bit, and I decided to modify the topic,
55:35
Speaker 9: and I ended up speaking about two Jewish people, Oppenheimer
55:40
Speaker 9: and Lewis Straws, and the contrast between the two because
55:45
Speaker 9: of their different approaches to Judaism. It just seemed like
55:49
Speaker 9: an intriguing topic to me, and I gave that talk
55:53
Speaker 9: two weeks before the film was released, not knowing that
55:57
Speaker 9: Straws played such an important role in the movie, and
56:00
Speaker 9: I think that was fortuitous because I just happened to
56:04
Speaker 9: again guess that this might be interesting. The movie did
56:08
Speaker 9: not make a huge deal about the Jewishness of either
56:13
Speaker 9: of those two individuals. Those who had heard my talk
56:16
Speaker 9: before they saw the movie said that it gave them
56:20
Speaker 9: a little more insight to some lines that might have
56:23
Speaker 9: slipped past them, or some schemes that might have gone
56:26
Speaker 9: by too quickly. Otherwise that they were prepared for paying
56:30
Speaker 9: attention to the Jewish aspects. I don't think it was
56:34
Speaker 9: a major part of the movie, but for me, it's
56:37
Speaker 9: another interesting dimension of the movie that the Jewishness of
56:42
Speaker 9: not just Oppenheimer, but Oppenheimer and Straws and Einstein and
56:47
Speaker 9: the list goes on. Of course, Hans Beta was Jewish
56:50
Speaker 9: by birth, though his family converted, I think, and Keller
56:55
Speaker 9: was Jewish. You know that all these people were Jewish,
56:58
Speaker 9: and there was some aspect of that that must have
57:02
Speaker 9: been underlying what was going on. I think the movie
57:05
Speaker 9: probably appropriately did not make that a major theme, but
57:10
Speaker 9: it's there, and I think it adds to our understanding
57:13
Speaker 9: and appreciation of that period of history to know something
57:17
Speaker 9: about the Jewishness. And I'll just say, in a nutshell,
57:20
Speaker 9: Oppenheimer had a very conflicted understanding of his Jewishness, which
57:25
Speaker 9: he inherited from his parents and his upbringing at the
57:29
Speaker 9: Ethical Cultural School in New York, and Straws had a
57:32
Speaker 9: quite different understanding of his Jewishness. He made his way
57:36
Speaker 9: successfully as a businessman in a world that was pretty
57:40
Speaker 9: anti Semitic at the time, and so he wore his
57:43
Speaker 9: Judaism proudly. Oppenheimer, I think more or less did his Judaism,
57:49
Speaker 9: and I think that was at least one dimension of
57:52
Speaker 9: the clash between the two. That was the tragic arc
57:56
Speaker 9: of the movie of both of them rising to great
57:59
Speaker 9: heights and then both of them falling down afterwards, Oppenheimer
58:04
Speaker 9: because of the loss of his security clearance and Straws
58:07
Speaker 9: because the nomination to the Cabinet Physicition failed.
58:12
Speaker 1: Fascinating. Thanks very much for sharing your thoughts, and thanks
58:15
Speaker 1: very much for sharing your personal reflections on living life
58:19
Speaker 1: as a physicist and as a Jew. And thank you
58:22
Speaker 1: very much for helping shape my Jewish identity. Your role
58:25
Speaker 1: in that community there definitely changed my appreciation of Judaism
58:30
Speaker 1: and specifically Jewish songs and melodies.
58:33
Speaker 9: Oh, I'm so pleased to get that feedback, Daniel, and
58:36
Speaker 9: I really do appreciate that. And I am continuing to sing.
58:40
Speaker 9: I do some secular singing now as well, because I
58:43
Speaker 9: am retired from the laboratory, and it's just a great
58:47
Speaker 9: joy for me. It was just a tremendous gift to
58:50
Speaker 9: have been given a good singing voice, and I've just
58:54
Speaker 9: enjoyed immensely the opportunity to sing both in the synagogue
58:58
Speaker 9: and in a secular choir. Just been grateful.
59:02
Speaker 1: Well, it was sort of a canonical part of my experience,
59:04
Speaker 1: and when I went on to other cities and other
59:06
Speaker 1: Jewish communities. I was sort of looking around and I
59:10
Speaker 1: was like, where's there, Jack Schlachter. There's nobody here with
59:13
Speaker 1: a beautiful baritone to lead these songs. I really felt
59:16
Speaker 1: like there was something lacking in the experience, and so
59:20
Speaker 1: thank you. But you also sort of cursed me.
59:22
Speaker 9: Oh no, how is that?
59:25
Speaker 1: Nothing?
59:25
Speaker 8: Ever?
59:26
Speaker 1: Felt like it matched up to my childhood Jewish experience.
59:30
Speaker 9: After that, well, I know that you have a wonderful
59:33
Speaker 9: position and have a very successful career, but you knows
59:37
Speaker 9: almost is still looking for physicists, and so maybe you
59:40
Speaker 9: can get over that curse by coming back sometime.
59:43
Speaker 1: We'll see. Well, thanks very much for spending some time
59:46
Speaker 1: talking to us about these really fascinating topics. Really appreciate it.
59:50
Speaker 9: My pleasure really was a distinct privilege and honor to
59:53
Speaker 9: connect with you. Thank you so much for reaching out,
59:56
Speaker 9: and I do hope that we cross paths at some
59:58
Speaker 9: point as well.
1:00:00
Speaker 1: So that was my conversation with Jack Schlackter, which was
1:00:03
Speaker 1: fascinating for me personally because I haven't spoken to Jack
1:00:06
Speaker 1: in thirty years or so, but he played a big
1:00:08
Speaker 1: role in shaping my Jewish cultural identity, and so it's
1:00:12
Speaker 1: fascinating to me to have physics in common with him
1:00:15
Speaker 1: as well. Thanks very much for listening to this episode
1:00:18
Speaker 1: about this tricky topic that connects physics to larger issues
1:00:21
Speaker 1: in our lives. I hope you learned something and enjoyed it.
1:00:25
Speaker 1: Thanks very much. For more science and curiosity, come find
1:00:33
Speaker 1: us on social media where we answer questions and post videos.
1:00:36
Speaker 1: We're on Twitter, disc Org, Instant and now TikTok. Thanks
1:00:40
Speaker 1: for listening and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain the
1:00:43
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