Harvard Science Book Talk: Avi Loeb, "Interstellar: The Search for Extraterrestrial Life and Our Future in the Stars"

Date: 

Thursday, February 8, 2024, 6:00pm

Where Science Center, Hall C:  ORDER FREE TICKETS
When February 8, 2024 @6:00PM
Organization/Sponsor Harvard Division of Science, Harvard Library, and Harvard Book Store
Speaker(s) Avi Loeb (Harvard)
Cost Free admission
Contact Info science_lectures@fas.harvard.edu


From acclaimed Harvard astrophysicist and bestselling author of Extraterrestrial comes a mind-expanding new book explaining why becoming an interstellar species is imperative for humanity’s survival and detailing a game plan for how we can settle among the stars.

Interstellar is a powerful call to arms that reimagines the idea of contact with extraterrestrial civilizations. Dismantling our science-fiction fueled visions of a human and alien life encounter, the book provides a realistic and practical blueprint for how such an interaction might actually occur, resetting our cultural understanding and expectation of what it means to identify an extraterrestrial object. From awe-inspiring searches for extraterrestrial technology, to the heated debate of the existence of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, Loeb provides a front-row view of the monumental progress in science and technology currently preparing us for contact. He also lays out the profound implications of becoming—or not becoming—interstellar; in an urgent, eloquent appeal for more proactive engagement with the world beyond ours, he powerfully contends why we must seek out other life forms, and in the process, choose who and what we are within the universe.
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Abraham (Avi) Loeb is the Frank B. Baird, Jr., Professor of Science at Harvard University, longest-serving chair of Harvard’s Department of Astronomy, founding director of Harvard’s Black Hole Initiative, and current director of the Institute for Theory and Computation (ITC) within the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. He also heads the Galileo Project, chairs the Advisory Committee for the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative, and is former chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies. Author of eight books and over a thousand scientific papers, Loeb is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the American Physical Society, and the International Academy of Astronautics. In 2012, Time selected Loeb as one of the twenty-five most influential people in space. He lives near Boston, Massachusetts.

For more information and videos of Harvard Science Book Talks, see https://science.fas.harvard.edu/book-talks.