Shrinivas Kulkarni: 2024 Shaw Prize in Astronomy winner talks about his fascination with variable and transient objects

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Hello and welcome to the Physics world weekly

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podcast. I'm Hamish Johnston.

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This episode is sponsored by the Shaw prize

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Foundation.

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In this podcast,

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I'm in

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conversation with Sri K.

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Who is the winner of the 20 24

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shaw prize in astronomy.

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For his groundbreaking

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discoveries about millisecond P sars,

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gamma ray bursts,

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supernova,

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and other variable or transient astronomical

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objects.

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He's also cited for his leadership of the

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Palo transient facility, and its successor the Wiki

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transient facility.

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Which have revolutionized our understanding of the time

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variable

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optical sky.

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This episode also features an interview with Scott

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T,

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who is the chair of the selection committee

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for the 20 24

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shop prize in astronomy.

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The shaw prize is an international prize based

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in Hong Kong.

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It consists of 3 annual awards.

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The prize in astronomy,

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the prize in life science and medicine,

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and the prize in mathematical sciences.

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Each prize carries a monetary award of 1200000.0

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Us dollars.

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The prize was established by run run shaw

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a media mo and philanthropist

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and was first presented in 2004.

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Celebrating its 20 first

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anniversary, the prize has honored over 100

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individuals from across the world.

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This year, the shaw prize is awarded to

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4 distinguished scientists

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and

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mathematicians.

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They are Sri K,

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for the prize in astronomy.

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She lay

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and Stuart Or for life science and medicine

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and Peter Sa for mathematical sciences.

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Sri K was born in India and completed

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an Ms degree in physics at the Indian

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Institute of technology

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in New delhi in 19 78.

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He then went to the Us where he

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did a Phd in astronomy in 19 83

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at the University of California

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Berkeley.

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In 19 85,

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he joined Cal where he is now George

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Elle Hale professor of astronomy and planetary science

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is. He joins me down the line from

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California.

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Hi, S. Welcome to the podcast and

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congratulations on winning the sharp prize in astronomy.

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Happy to join Amy.

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So, I wanted to start by asking you

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about the focus of your research.

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What fa you about variable

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and transient

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astronomical

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objects?

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Well, how can you 2 answers to that?

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The first 1 is in my view,

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I'm

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fascinated,

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I would say by

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almost everything in life.

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And

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I think honestly,

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you know, if you're,

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think about anything,

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any phenomena.

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For more than how say, maybe a minute,

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you'd find it fascinating.

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For example,

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you know, sharks can go at very high

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speed in the water.

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Where turns out nature has developed a certain

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kind of

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their skin, which is actually not very smooth

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as you might think, but slightly

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rough that allows them to have less turbulence

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and go faster.

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Why, I think that's extremely fascinating.

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You may not get a nobel prize for

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that. But I think it is very fascinating.

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That's, I would say number 1

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a part of the question... A first part

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of my response.

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Second 1 is, I'm a bit more of

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a what... I might call in a good

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way hook an

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scientist.

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That is

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I don't believe,

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personally again that I had to

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take an important question and address it.

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My view is that at any given time

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as a result of our technology and

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the capacity we have. Some questions are more

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answer than others.

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And

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I would rather use that as a way

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to choose my direction,

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than the more classical way which is your

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fascinated by particular

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question or a issue, and then you said

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about your life to answer that.

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No value judgment here. I'm just giving you

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my views on that,

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So,

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the time I would say starting with the

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turn of the millennium has been ripe for

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variable and transient

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astronomical

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the study of these objects,

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mainly because the technology to too, so

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has grown and in fact, it makes it

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affordable

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as well as,

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practical

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to repeatedly serve with a sky and look

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for changes.

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If we try to do the sort of

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projects I've done in the last 15 years.

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Let's say 30 years ago, it would have

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been just not possible there. Sensors would cost

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more. The computation was simply not there.

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So

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that's the reason why in the you know,

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let's say,

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the last 50 years, much of the focus

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has been in catalog loving the sky, in

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various bands. A radio and optical ultra ultraviolet

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x rays and on.

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But having done that,

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now the sensor and computing technology has decreased

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the next obvious step realized is to do

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repeated surveys of the sky. Was a long

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answer to your short question.

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Transient and variable objects. So these these are

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objects that blink on and off or and

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or or maybe they come on really brightly

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for a short amount of time and then

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fade away. Is the we have a good

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way of describing them. Yeah. They'll basically 3

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categories.

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The first 1

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moving from the solar system outward. The first

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1 is actually

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moving objects. So if I take a picture,

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let's say a sky

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now. And even if I take a picture,

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maybe even

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few minutes later.

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Some objects would have moved because there are

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loa earth orbit,

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a bit away, know, near earth asteroid.

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And if I take 1, like, an hour

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away, then you the main belt asteroids would

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vote. Okay? So

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you would think

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if you just sat on that pixel, oh,

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the object has disappeared No. It's just

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reappeared somewhere else. So moving objects in that

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sense are a part of this search. Okay?

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So where should call this as moving, variable

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and tries and objects. So I finished moving.

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Variable is,

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many stars

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Oh, I would say,

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depending on how your sensitivity be,

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easily,

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to 10 percent of the stars,

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actually are not steady.

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We are lucky. The sun is an extremely

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steady star.

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Can you imagine if the sun where in

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its output by 1 percent. I mean, our

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global warming problems would be very minor.

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But

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many stars vary at the 1 percent level,

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at least a few of stars simply vary

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for a variety of underlying reasons.

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They may be p shading. They may have

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rotating with large star,

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or there may be in a binary system

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showing eclipse or re

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modulation.

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So that's a fairly

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major phenomena variability.

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And going out of a galaxy,

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quasars,

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also vary, you know, super massive black holes

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in the centers of galaxies,

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a acc matter from the from the, you

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know, gas. They also vary.

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And transient and some are the 1 that

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most people are fascinated and the biggest character

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the biggest

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phenomena has super,

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stellar death.

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When

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massive stars die, it's a very violent process.

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And that sort of thing that happens on

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human.

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At times because we actually understands. It would

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be

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seconds, you know, where the explosion happens, of

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course it takes a while for the light

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to come out.

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And,

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Know whether you be surprised if I told

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you there's a supernova

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somewhere in the universe every second.

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Of course,

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and every server doesn't find, you know, because

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some of them will be very faint. There'll

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be somewhere else in the sky.

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But this project that we'll talk a little

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later. I suppose the Wiki tri facility. We

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find, oh, maybe about 20000

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super Arena a year

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or candidates of which we pursue 2000. We'll

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come back to that later.

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And so, Sherry, why why do we need

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to understand

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these phenomena, you know, by understanding

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variable and transient objects. What do we learn

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about some

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about astronomy and about astro physics?

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Okay. Well, I will give my answer and

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2 parts.

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First is why do we do astronomy at

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all? I would say,

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is sometimes, you know, it's frequently,

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I asked that because it all seems so

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far out.

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And

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I would claim

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that,

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the most,

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the supreme goal of the human

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civilization should be understand the universe into which

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we are born.

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I would say this is far more important

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than anything else because

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we can actually do that.

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I still have very fascinated that sitting around

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on earth,

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already, you know, with only a few people

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left earth and come back. Already, we can

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Actually start to understanding the universe. So when

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I said the universe I'm talking was an

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astronomy of the, you stuff outside of, but

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I'm also talking about geology,

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biology

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and all this stuff. I I think this

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is the

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supreme achievement of man mankind in my view.

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It's not the literature. It's not the other

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stuff because those are things we do for

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ourselves. This is absolute when you understand the

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universe.

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You can explain to another alien the... It

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may be in different words, but it is

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understanding is universal.

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Okay.

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That's a philosophical answer.

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The more,

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narrower answer is

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the

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let's start with

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something as simple as

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asteroids. Okay? You know, a hundred years ago,

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00:11:17,972 --> 00:11:20,125
there was a massive blast.

287
00:11:20,618 --> 00:11:21,356
In Siberia,

288
00:11:22,285 --> 00:11:23,476
called the Tu sky event.

289
00:11:24,270 --> 00:11:26,493
Well, if I think will that happened today

290
00:11:26,493 --> 00:11:28,215
and not in Siberia, but

291
00:11:28,572 --> 00:11:30,265
you know, let's say in California,

292
00:11:30,799 --> 00:11:32,628
the damage would be in men's. I mean,

293
00:11:34,537 --> 00:11:35,037
and

294
00:11:35,411 --> 00:11:36,150
if the

295
00:11:38,134 --> 00:11:39,968
asteroid was a little larger. It could be

296
00:11:39,968 --> 00:11:42,599
in more. There been ideas, maybe that Dino

297
00:11:42,599 --> 00:11:44,193
died that way and so on. But no

298
00:11:44,193 --> 00:11:46,224
question. It would be a life changing

299
00:11:46,681 --> 00:11:47,500
situation. So

300
00:11:48,197 --> 00:11:50,612
in some practical terms, it is important to

301
00:11:50,670 --> 00:11:52,346
accept and understand that, you know,

302
00:11:53,239 --> 00:11:55,816
our life yet could be impacted by these

303
00:11:56,035 --> 00:11:57,014
objects. So

304
00:11:58,592 --> 00:12:02,221
that's extremely practical. And then only by catalog

305
00:12:02,519 --> 00:12:05,173
and then maybe thinking of missions to

306
00:12:06,508 --> 00:12:09,335
slightly nudge away. Those hazardous

307
00:12:09,711 --> 00:12:10,427
objects. Okay.

308
00:12:11,542 --> 00:12:13,237
At the other end, Super,

309
00:12:15,126 --> 00:12:16,183
you know, if we

310
00:12:16,653 --> 00:12:18,793
in, most of our bodies is water. Okay.

311
00:12:18,952 --> 00:12:20,855
Let's get rid of that. And then we

312
00:12:20,855 --> 00:12:23,233
have things like calcium, in our teeth and

313
00:12:23,233 --> 00:12:24,159
bones and

314
00:12:25,079 --> 00:12:26,120
iron in a blood.

315
00:12:26,679 --> 00:12:28,279
Where do you think this came from? This

316
00:12:28,279 --> 00:12:30,120
did not come from the universe directly? When

317
00:12:30,120 --> 00:12:31,559
the universe was born,

318
00:12:32,614 --> 00:12:34,132
there's hydrogen and helium,

319
00:12:34,692 --> 00:12:36,450
a little bit of lithium maybe, and that's

320
00:12:36,450 --> 00:12:36,770
about it.

321
00:12:37,729 --> 00:12:37,969
Okay?

322
00:12:38,848 --> 00:12:41,665
It's the stars which turned out to be

323
00:12:42,456 --> 00:12:42,956
factories

324
00:12:44,125 --> 00:12:46,827
synthesized new elements through fusion reaction.

325
00:12:48,257 --> 00:12:50,585
So low mass style, like the sun, they

326
00:12:51,134 --> 00:12:53,052
by the time they die there to produced,

327
00:12:53,212 --> 00:12:54,011
you know, carbon.

328
00:12:54,650 --> 00:12:56,408
That sort of that. So they go through

329
00:12:56,408 --> 00:12:58,486
hydrogen to Helium then Helium to carb.

330
00:13:00,498 --> 00:13:03,216
But stars more massive than that they can

331
00:13:03,216 --> 00:13:05,533
produce all the way to ions through fusion,

332
00:13:06,492 --> 00:13:08,111
and then some very exotic

333
00:13:08,890 --> 00:13:11,774
it's lo produced stuff beyond iron all the

334
00:13:11,774 --> 00:13:13,926
way out to gold and thinks that. Some

335
00:13:13,926 --> 00:13:14,563
of us like.

336
00:13:15,759 --> 00:13:16,259
So

337
00:13:17,209 --> 00:13:19,286
I would say, understanding the can... The...

338
00:13:19,925 --> 00:13:22,342
Basically, how did the universe, which was a

339
00:13:22,482 --> 00:13:24,810
very simple physical object? You know, how did

340
00:13:24,810 --> 00:13:28,231
chemistry get introduced namely the periodic table? That's

341
00:13:28,231 --> 00:13:30,402
very much the domain of supernova

342
00:13:30,777 --> 00:13:31,095
physics?

343
00:13:32,468 --> 00:13:34,625
So that's sort of a grand quest of

344
00:13:34,625 --> 00:13:37,361
which we have astronomers have made amazing progress

345
00:13:37,501 --> 00:13:38,060
in the last,

346
00:13:38,792 --> 00:13:40,944
Oh, I would say about 70 years, we

347
00:13:40,944 --> 00:13:42,001
actually sort of

348
00:13:43,174 --> 00:13:45,166
understand the chemical buildup of the universe.

349
00:13:46,059 --> 00:13:48,139
And, S, I wanted to ask you about

350
00:13:48,139 --> 00:13:50,720
your involvement with, you know, some of the

351
00:13:50,940 --> 00:13:52,700
ob trees and facilities that,

352
00:13:53,594 --> 00:13:56,308
that have made that possible made our understanding

353
00:13:56,308 --> 00:13:58,144
of of transient possible.

354
00:13:58,543 --> 00:14:00,160
You led the Palo

355
00:14:00,698 --> 00:14:01,198
transient

356
00:14:01,576 --> 00:14:02,076
factory

357
00:14:02,709 --> 00:14:03,986
and its successor,

358
00:14:04,465 --> 00:14:06,083
the wiki transient

359
00:14:06,461 --> 00:14:09,734
facility. What were the goals of these facilities?

360
00:14:09,894 --> 00:14:11,331
And and what have they achieved?

361
00:14:12,862 --> 00:14:13,899
Yeah. So

362
00:14:14,855 --> 00:14:16,290
I took you a little bit of background

363
00:14:16,290 --> 00:14:18,203
on how these projects came about.

364
00:14:21,169 --> 00:14:21,669
I

365
00:14:23,889 --> 00:14:25,649
I'm very curious... As I told you, I'm

366
00:14:25,649 --> 00:14:28,549
very curious. I find almost anything very curious.

367
00:14:29,184 --> 00:14:30,705
The only question is, how do you spend

368
00:14:30,705 --> 00:14:31,184
time then?

369
00:14:32,225 --> 00:14:33,985
Well, you to have some talent, and you

370
00:14:33,985 --> 00:14:35,825
had to have something in that field that

371
00:14:35,825 --> 00:14:38,708
gives Ad. Gives you an to work in

372
00:14:38,708 --> 00:14:39,344
that field.

373
00:14:41,490 --> 00:14:41,888
So

374
00:14:43,160 --> 00:14:46,115
over my career about Oh, I know. Every

375
00:14:46,115 --> 00:14:48,181
5 to 10 years, I switched fields because

376
00:14:48,181 --> 00:14:49,690
the other side of being curious is after

377
00:14:49,769 --> 00:14:50,905
I understand something

378
00:14:51,278 --> 00:14:53,662
to a reasonable level Actually, I lose interest

379
00:14:53,662 --> 00:14:55,423
in that because I'm and then I wanna

380
00:14:55,423 --> 00:14:57,167
to go to the next stuff that seems

381
00:14:57,167 --> 00:14:57,563
interesting.

382
00:14:58,673 --> 00:14:58,990
So,

383
00:15:01,289 --> 00:15:03,768
about 96 and my friend Dale Fail and

384
00:15:03,847 --> 00:15:04,904
I started a program

385
00:15:05,439 --> 00:15:05,939
to

386
00:15:06,315 --> 00:15:07,748
understand a gamma ray bus,

387
00:15:08,623 --> 00:15:10,056
we thought there's an opportunity.

388
00:15:10,707 --> 00:15:11,661
So I also I had to tell you

389
00:15:11,661 --> 00:15:13,410
that there's a... I sort of look at

390
00:15:13,410 --> 00:15:15,318
many of what I do in a slightly

391
00:15:15,318 --> 00:15:16,931
more business like fashion

392
00:15:17,305 --> 00:15:18,498
because what I do with to me is

393
00:15:18,498 --> 00:15:20,583
not as important, but you know, whether can

394
00:15:20,663 --> 00:15:23,699
I do it because everything's interesting? The only

395
00:15:23,699 --> 00:15:26,016
question are, which wants to choose and a

396
00:15:26,016 --> 00:15:26,916
part of choosing,

397
00:15:28,027 --> 00:15:30,041
how to make a choice of a project

398
00:15:30,099 --> 00:15:30,418
is,

399
00:15:31,852 --> 00:15:33,149
my sense with a

400
00:15:33,526 --> 00:15:34,960
rapid progress can be made.

401
00:15:35,614 --> 00:15:37,210
Sort of a person, I guess he could

402
00:15:37,210 --> 00:15:37,370
say,

403
00:15:38,248 --> 00:15:41,122
lives on Ad Hill, and I wanna produce

404
00:15:41,122 --> 00:15:42,001
something very fast.

405
00:15:42,799 --> 00:15:44,795
Make progress in in a short time.

406
00:15:46,086 --> 00:15:46,485
Anyway, we...

407
00:15:47,601 --> 00:15:49,993
Our hunch on, you know, the... That G

408
00:15:49,993 --> 00:15:51,268
b's was going to be a big game

409
00:15:51,268 --> 00:15:52,623
that worked very well we.

410
00:15:54,554 --> 00:15:57,131
Made huge progress on that in and by

411
00:15:58,229 --> 00:16:00,307
you know, lots of papers in nature and

412
00:16:00,307 --> 00:16:02,145
the usual sort of stuff, that scientists,

413
00:16:02,718 --> 00:16:03,218
haven't.

414
00:16:04,313 --> 00:16:05,829
But by 2004,

415
00:16:06,547 --> 00:16:09,179
Nasa launched, on 2004 coming back from a

416
00:16:09,259 --> 00:16:09,657
Nasa,

417
00:16:10,136 --> 00:16:12,860
a launch of what has got the swift

418
00:16:12,860 --> 00:16:13,973
gamma ray observatory,

419
00:16:15,801 --> 00:16:16,539
which was

420
00:16:17,708 --> 00:16:20,608
which is gonna convert a gamma burst studies

421
00:16:20,826 --> 00:16:22,582
into AAA little industry.

422
00:16:23,858 --> 00:16:25,215
That was it was going to find about

423
00:16:25,215 --> 00:16:26,730
a hundred gamma burst in the year.

424
00:16:27,542 --> 00:16:28,042
And

425
00:16:28,814 --> 00:16:30,245
until then through,

426
00:16:30,881 --> 00:16:33,028
the previous mission or it does only 1

427
00:16:33,028 --> 00:16:34,777
a month. So this is a huge jump.

428
00:16:35,509 --> 00:16:37,026
And I said, well, this is the time

429
00:16:37,026 --> 00:16:39,900
to leave the field because now very popular

430
00:16:39,900 --> 00:16:41,417
and it's not what I call as low

431
00:16:41,417 --> 00:16:42,055
hanging fruits.

432
00:16:42,694 --> 00:16:44,131
The fruits are getting a little higher on

433
00:16:44,131 --> 00:16:44,450
the tree.

434
00:16:45,264 --> 00:16:47,202
And I start thinking about

435
00:16:49,019 --> 00:16:50,158
what is an interesting

436
00:16:51,336 --> 00:16:52,135
project to do?

437
00:16:53,107 --> 00:16:55,811
And I a more engineering bent of mind

438
00:16:55,811 --> 00:16:57,822
on on on these things. So

439
00:16:59,883 --> 00:17:00,201
And,

440
00:17:01,076 --> 00:17:03,781
1 of things was fascinated was, the study

441
00:17:03,781 --> 00:17:04,440
of Su,

442
00:17:05,928 --> 00:17:06,428
which

443
00:17:06,818 --> 00:17:08,727
in those days, was what I call as

444
00:17:08,727 --> 00:17:10,875
a small scale operation. You know, there's, like,

445
00:17:10,955 --> 00:17:12,864
a graduate student and a professor,

446
00:17:14,310 --> 00:17:16,458
the best anyone could do was take a

447
00:17:16,458 --> 00:17:17,276
small telescope,

448
00:17:18,685 --> 00:17:19,185
observe

449
00:17:19,719 --> 00:17:20,458
nearby galaxies.

450
00:17:22,438 --> 00:17:24,420
And during the day, analyze,

451
00:17:25,292 --> 00:17:27,774
the images, See something new has come up

452
00:17:28,066 --> 00:17:29,597
against nearby galaxy,

453
00:17:30,223 --> 00:17:32,454
And then a few days later, I, know,

454
00:17:33,092 --> 00:17:34,048
another student or,

455
00:17:34,924 --> 00:17:38,124
would take a spectrum and say, oh, this

456
00:17:38,124 --> 00:17:39,953
is a a this kind of super way

457
00:17:39,953 --> 00:17:41,169
to to a

458
00:17:41,543 --> 00:17:43,770
find super is easy, in the sense, you

459
00:17:43,770 --> 00:17:44,883
see something pop up.

460
00:17:45,613 --> 00:17:47,443
But to say what kind it is? Oh,

461
00:17:47,522 --> 00:17:49,352
and there's a nearly dozen sub classes,

462
00:17:49,829 --> 00:17:51,920
you need a spectrum, which is a more

463
00:17:52,629 --> 00:17:54,780
is like a fingerprint of the chemicals it

464
00:17:54,780 --> 00:17:55,417
has produced,

465
00:17:56,294 --> 00:17:58,525
oh, or the elements to be more accurate.

466
00:17:59,894 --> 00:18:00,925
And I was thinking well,

467
00:18:01,718 --> 00:18:03,305
and the record then was about, oh, let's

468
00:18:03,305 --> 00:18:05,289
say, yeah, it was done in, from a

469
00:18:05,289 --> 00:18:07,431
colleague of mine in Berkeley, Alex Silver bank

470
00:18:07,431 --> 00:18:10,633
it was about hundred a year. Okay? They're

471
00:18:10,633 --> 00:18:12,968
finding a hundred supernova year through a dedicated

472
00:18:13,027 --> 00:18:13,506
program,

473
00:18:13,904 --> 00:18:15,875
and the other more, you know, sort of

474
00:18:15,993 --> 00:18:18,930
focus pro... Other progress, maybe I let's another

475
00:18:18,930 --> 00:18:19,747
hundred also

476
00:18:20,596 --> 00:18:20,834
worldwide.

477
00:18:22,263 --> 00:18:23,056
I was thinking well,

478
00:18:25,059 --> 00:18:26,118
I thought the technology

479
00:18:26,497 --> 00:18:28,495
to do this can be highly automated,

480
00:18:30,253 --> 00:18:32,591
as well as the detectors were getting

481
00:18:33,863 --> 00:18:34,262
cheaper,

482
00:18:35,060 --> 00:18:37,772
you know, in electronics, there's a thing, lock

483
00:18:37,772 --> 00:18:39,309
or moore's law, which is

484
00:18:39,925 --> 00:18:41,919
depending exactly what component it is,

485
00:18:43,116 --> 00:18:45,221
the the the cost per

486
00:18:47,024 --> 00:18:50,042
you know, item, or transistor or sensors of

487
00:18:50,042 --> 00:18:50,542
falls

488
00:18:50,915 --> 00:18:52,821
every 18 months to 2 years.

489
00:18:53,874 --> 00:18:54,374
And

490
00:18:54,832 --> 00:18:57,229
I could foresee that in another few years,

491
00:18:58,268 --> 00:18:58,667
law

492
00:18:59,147 --> 00:19:00,665
sensors, meaning images,

493
00:19:02,669 --> 00:19:05,610
would become affordable to make large field of

494
00:19:05,610 --> 00:19:05,849
view,

495
00:19:07,280 --> 00:19:08,155
images. Okay.

496
00:19:09,361 --> 00:19:10,631
If you call... You can call it as

497
00:19:10,631 --> 00:19:13,248
a grass, which is the product of the

498
00:19:13,248 --> 00:19:16,024
size of the telescope. So the bigger telescope

499
00:19:16,024 --> 00:19:16,976
more collect,

500
00:19:17,788 --> 00:19:19,863
times how much of the sky you can

501
00:19:19,863 --> 00:19:22,178
use, you can survey at a given time.

502
00:19:23,934 --> 00:19:24,434
And

503
00:19:24,892 --> 00:19:26,923
the larger the grass the more

504
00:19:27,378 --> 00:19:27,855
unit.

505
00:19:28,651 --> 00:19:29,128
And

506
00:19:29,527 --> 00:19:30,027
so

507
00:19:32,471 --> 00:19:33,688
the 2 basic

508
00:19:34,476 --> 00:19:35,510
innovations there where,

509
00:19:36,703 --> 00:19:37,101
you know,

510
00:19:38,055 --> 00:19:38,555
build

511
00:19:39,964 --> 00:19:40,815
images with large

512
00:19:41,253 --> 00:19:43,667
very large field of you as as

513
00:19:44,125 --> 00:19:45,720
only limited by how much money you want

514
00:19:45,720 --> 00:19:46,757
to spend on sensors,

515
00:19:48,352 --> 00:19:49,330
and then

516
00:19:49,708 --> 00:19:50,505
say, you know,

517
00:19:51,396 --> 00:19:53,386
automate a lot of these things. That that

518
00:19:53,386 --> 00:19:54,762
was my goal was

519
00:19:55,376 --> 00:19:57,844
we don't need grad students and so on

520
00:19:57,844 --> 00:19:59,935
that that worked well for a while. But

521
00:20:00,231 --> 00:20:02,265
right data reduction pipelines

522
00:20:02,724 --> 00:20:03,224
that

523
00:20:04,164 --> 00:20:04,984
they... You

524
00:20:05,285 --> 00:20:07,044
obtain, you a pipeline,

525
00:20:07,365 --> 00:20:09,125
and, you know, subtract the images,

526
00:20:09,858 --> 00:20:12,171
oh, some intelligence is put in the software

527
00:20:12,171 --> 00:20:13,687
that says, okay. This looks pretty good.

528
00:20:14,803 --> 00:20:16,957
And that is part 1 of this project.

529
00:20:17,116 --> 00:20:18,313
And part 2 was as I told you

530
00:20:18,313 --> 00:20:19,683
had to get spec from.

531
00:20:20,399 --> 00:20:22,308
Well, there are many things that change in

532
00:20:22,308 --> 00:20:25,332
the sky, for example, variable stars. Now those

533
00:20:25,332 --> 00:20:27,574
you can more or less element eliminate by

534
00:20:27,574 --> 00:20:30,199
saying, it only varies by a percent or

535
00:20:30,199 --> 00:20:32,983
2 or a tenth of a percent. Okay?

536
00:20:33,143 --> 00:20:33,643
So

537
00:20:34,595 --> 00:20:35,975
but even within Supernova,

538
00:20:36,994 --> 00:20:37,875
there could be,

539
00:20:38,674 --> 00:20:39,075
false,

540
00:20:40,515 --> 00:20:43,406
nonetheless, there's such a large background of wearing

541
00:20:43,406 --> 00:20:44,383
phenomena that

542
00:20:45,076 --> 00:20:47,065
if you... If we are simply not in

543
00:20:47,065 --> 00:20:49,076
a position to go and

544
00:20:50,103 --> 00:20:52,815
get a detailed spectrum of everything that burp

545
00:20:52,815 --> 00:20:53,315
and

546
00:20:53,852 --> 00:20:56,187
explodes in the sky because our ability to

547
00:20:56,803 --> 00:20:59,377
find them at high confidence level isn't

548
00:21:00,166 --> 00:21:02,706
wasn't that high at that point. So part

549
00:21:02,706 --> 00:21:04,159
2 was to actually

550
00:21:05,484 --> 00:21:05,984
improve

551
00:21:06,913 --> 00:21:08,048
understanding of that supernova

552
00:21:09,152 --> 00:21:09,710
and for that,

553
00:21:11,064 --> 00:21:12,657
the innovation I had in mind was to

554
00:21:12,657 --> 00:21:15,207
use another telescope scope, a bigger telescope scope

555
00:21:15,207 --> 00:21:15,525
actually,

556
00:21:16,814 --> 00:21:19,042
to get roughly what are called colors, which

557
00:21:19,042 --> 00:21:19,940
is is it

558
00:21:20,475 --> 00:21:22,066
is it blue? Is it yellow? Is it

559
00:21:22,066 --> 00:21:23,817
red? Because that tells you what kind of

560
00:21:23,817 --> 00:21:25,664
supernova it is as well as it's a

561
00:21:25,664 --> 00:21:27,825
way to also eliminate some of the false

562
00:21:27,825 --> 00:21:28,305
positives.

563
00:21:28,785 --> 00:21:30,945
So they stand the idea of using 2

564
00:21:30,945 --> 00:21:32,404
telescopes curves simultaneously,

565
00:21:34,305 --> 00:21:37,133
sounds you know, it's not a the deepest

566
00:21:37,191 --> 00:21:39,025
idea, but that was, I would say, a

567
00:21:39,025 --> 00:21:41,120
bit major innovation. The idea of using

568
00:21:41,736 --> 00:21:44,781
automated pipelines was around, but insisting that they

569
00:21:44,781 --> 00:21:47,755
work every night, it with a very high

570
00:21:48,133 --> 00:21:50,686
fault tolerance runs. Yeah. And that's what led

571
00:21:50,686 --> 00:21:51,299
to the power

572
00:21:51,895 --> 00:21:54,302
factory. Came in with a 48 inch

573
00:21:54,676 --> 00:21:55,176
Palo

574
00:21:55,788 --> 00:21:56,662
Schmidt telescope scope

575
00:21:57,457 --> 00:21:58,195
called the

576
00:21:59,140 --> 00:21:59,878
ocean telescope

577
00:22:00,650 --> 00:22:01,763
with a Schmidt camera,

578
00:22:02,319 --> 00:22:02,819
and

579
00:22:03,432 --> 00:22:05,045
the palo 60 inch

580
00:22:05,976 --> 00:22:07,486
with the ability to do colors.

581
00:22:09,326 --> 00:22:09,826
And,

582
00:22:10,595 --> 00:22:11,071
finally,

583
00:22:11,468 --> 00:22:12,761
with a software pipeline

584
00:22:13,610 --> 00:22:14,800
that actually,

585
00:22:16,324 --> 00:22:18,322
did not require a human in the loop.

586
00:22:18,722 --> 00:22:20,900
K? So there's pipelines ran

587
00:22:21,359 --> 00:22:22,318
while we are asleep.

588
00:22:23,037 --> 00:22:25,615
And so we speed it up also the

589
00:22:26,088 --> 00:22:27,599
the the whole process.

590
00:22:28,474 --> 00:22:30,963
Finally, in at the end of Palo the

591
00:22:31,338 --> 00:22:32,611
the Pt t project,

592
00:22:33,184 --> 00:22:34,801
we able to go from

593
00:22:36,615 --> 00:22:37,993
identifying supermarket candidates.

594
00:22:38,611 --> 00:22:40,766
Having some confidence is a good candidate through

595
00:22:40,766 --> 00:22:43,500
this color observations and getting the spectrum the

596
00:22:43,500 --> 00:22:43,980
same night.

597
00:22:44,779 --> 00:22:45,919
The spectrum usually

598
00:22:46,619 --> 00:22:48,460
requires a much larger telescope scope, which we

599
00:22:48,460 --> 00:22:50,624
didn't have you know, we only had limited

600
00:22:50,624 --> 00:22:52,372
access. We had good access but limited.

601
00:22:53,405 --> 00:22:55,472
That's what led to Pt t, and

602
00:22:55,869 --> 00:22:57,720
I was quite surprised that

603
00:22:58,429 --> 00:22:58,929
these

604
00:22:59,308 --> 00:23:00,666
engineering goals could be met.

605
00:23:01,624 --> 00:23:04,021
And I was talking with my nephew, Rohan,

606
00:23:04,341 --> 00:23:06,583
Rohan And He said, well, you should you

607
00:23:06,583 --> 00:23:08,250
should call this the automated discovery of the

608
00:23:08,250 --> 00:23:11,107
universe. And I like that. So, that that

609
00:23:11,107 --> 00:23:12,059
was the founder foundation.

610
00:23:12,789 --> 00:23:14,221
I give a talk about Pt t at

611
00:23:14,460 --> 00:23:15,733
Mit and as in the audience and.

612
00:23:17,801 --> 00:23:19,893
Anyway, that led to Z t where

613
00:23:20,285 --> 00:23:21,085
at this point,

614
00:23:21,644 --> 00:23:23,325
this was everything on steroids,

615
00:23:24,605 --> 00:23:27,025
including spectroscopy, which was done robotic.

616
00:23:28,377 --> 00:23:30,130
And so you you mentioned a figure of

617
00:23:30,130 --> 00:23:32,838
a, was it a hundred objects a year?

618
00:23:32,997 --> 00:23:35,467
Are you how how how many objects a

619
00:23:35,467 --> 00:23:38,271
year are you detecting now? Are you detecting

620
00:23:38,271 --> 00:23:40,265
a similar number, but just doing a much

621
00:23:40,265 --> 00:23:40,765
better

622
00:23:41,541 --> 00:23:42,499
job at analog loss.

623
00:23:43,455 --> 00:23:46,167
With Z etf, we probably have, I would

624
00:23:46,167 --> 00:23:46,566
say,

625
00:23:48,097 --> 00:23:51,549
how to be somewhere between 20000 to 30000

626
00:23:52,166 --> 00:23:54,320
candidates that is in our data,

627
00:23:54,814 --> 00:23:55,793
you'll find something

628
00:23:56,810 --> 00:24:00,402
plausible next to a, you know, galactic object

629
00:24:00,402 --> 00:24:01,759
goes up, then comes down,

630
00:24:03,037 --> 00:24:03,776
of which

631
00:24:04,650 --> 00:24:06,890
we only study 10 percent of them, so

632
00:24:06,890 --> 00:24:09,150
we... Were able to get the spec

633
00:24:10,009 --> 00:24:11,929
classification. So we know it's a supernova and

634
00:24:11,929 --> 00:24:13,945
we know what kind it is to a

635
00:24:13,945 --> 00:24:14,585
certain level.

636
00:24:15,144 --> 00:24:17,065
So that's about 2000 a year. So we've

637
00:24:17,065 --> 00:24:19,485
gone from a hundred to 2000

638
00:24:19,625 --> 00:24:20,125
classified.

639
00:24:21,078 --> 00:24:21,712
But probably,

640
00:24:22,267 --> 00:24:25,122
oh, certainly a 20000, maybe even 30000, not

641
00:24:25,122 --> 00:24:27,580
classified, but we know they're super because they're

642
00:24:27,580 --> 00:24:30,534
light curves that is how they behave, how

643
00:24:30,534 --> 00:24:31,091
they come up,

644
00:24:31,807 --> 00:24:33,476
have a plateau or not a plateau and

645
00:24:33,476 --> 00:24:35,328
then they decline. We know it's a super

646
00:24:35,385 --> 00:24:37,873
with a high degree of confidence or probability

647
00:24:38,009 --> 00:24:38,566
that they are.

648
00:24:40,409 --> 00:24:42,317
And you you mentioned that you've worked on

649
00:24:42,317 --> 00:24:44,860
on gamma ray bursts. You've worked on supernova.

650
00:24:45,575 --> 00:24:47,665
Do do you have a a favorite

651
00:24:48,532 --> 00:24:49,032
object

652
00:24:50,046 --> 00:24:52,835
that you've looked at during your career or

653
00:24:52,835 --> 00:24:54,588
is it just the 1 that you happen

654
00:24:54,588 --> 00:24:56,739
to be working on today that's your favorite?

655
00:24:58,430 --> 00:24:58,990
Yeah. Well,

656
00:25:00,109 --> 00:25:01,470
as Joe come to my kids says,

657
00:25:03,230 --> 00:25:05,869
I always... You know, my first 2... First

658
00:25:05,869 --> 00:25:07,444
bets were 2 rabbits and

659
00:25:07,963 --> 00:25:08,282
So...

660
00:25:08,841 --> 00:25:10,197
And then I always had a, you know,

661
00:25:10,357 --> 00:25:12,032
pits or after they died,

662
00:25:14,426 --> 00:25:15,086
and then

663
00:25:15,877 --> 00:25:17,414
I didn't have when I was a,

664
00:25:18,430 --> 00:25:19,786
grad student. But when

665
00:25:20,822 --> 00:25:22,258
you know, we had kids. They wanted to

666
00:25:22,258 --> 00:25:23,614
have pets. So I said, oh, yeah. They

667
00:25:23,614 --> 00:25:25,105
wanted a dog. I said, let's go and

668
00:25:26,100 --> 00:25:26,896
went to the pet

669
00:25:27,533 --> 00:25:29,045
shop and immediately got a rabbit.

670
00:25:31,673 --> 00:25:33,597
And then since that we've been doing of

671
00:25:33,597 --> 00:25:34,097
rescue,

672
00:25:34,471 --> 00:25:36,297
people abandoned private after the Easter.

673
00:25:37,647 --> 00:25:39,553
So I've had I know in the last

674
00:25:39,871 --> 00:25:40,982
not anymore right now.

675
00:25:41,794 --> 00:25:43,791
About 7... 0, it's 8 now, you know,

676
00:25:43,951 --> 00:25:45,969
that we rescued then. They

677
00:25:46,428 --> 00:25:48,265
they stay at some point pass away.

678
00:25:49,157 --> 00:25:50,748
It's how hard to say what's my favorite

679
00:25:50,748 --> 00:25:51,861
driver because I like them all.

680
00:25:53,293 --> 00:25:53,793
Food

681
00:25:55,043 --> 00:25:55,543
So

682
00:25:57,841 --> 00:25:58,817
I would say

683
00:25:59,428 --> 00:26:01,356
perhaps, for me, the 1

684
00:26:02,363 --> 00:26:04,132
that is in some sense of favorite

685
00:26:04,584 --> 00:26:05,084
was

686
00:26:05,789 --> 00:26:07,778
the very first discovery I made as a

687
00:26:07,778 --> 00:26:08,574
graduate student,

688
00:26:09,370 --> 00:26:10,961
working with the Dawn Ba,

689
00:26:11,836 --> 00:26:12,871
was that I received,

690
00:26:13,364 --> 00:26:14,323
radio observatory,

691
00:26:14,882 --> 00:26:17,359
and I got the first millisecond pulse. Oh,

692
00:26:17,439 --> 00:26:19,116
this is more than about 40 years ago.

693
00:26:20,409 --> 00:26:22,087
That is a a favorite because,

694
00:26:22,726 --> 00:26:23,685
a was my first,

695
00:26:24,404 --> 00:26:24,883
and b,

696
00:26:26,641 --> 00:26:28,253
it was sort of you know, I was

697
00:26:28,253 --> 00:26:30,751
there all alone set up the whole process

698
00:26:30,810 --> 00:26:31,310
and

699
00:26:31,769 --> 00:26:34,486
analyze and discovered, and it was very thrilling.

700
00:26:35,779 --> 00:26:36,279
And

701
00:26:37,773 --> 00:26:39,449
after that, you know, working with students

702
00:26:40,007 --> 00:26:41,762
we found the first brown wolf. That was

703
00:26:41,762 --> 00:26:42,320
kind of fun.

704
00:26:43,291 --> 00:26:44,881
So, you know, when you find a new

705
00:26:44,881 --> 00:26:45,915
class of object,

706
00:26:47,028 --> 00:26:49,335
there's a certain thrill knowing that you maybe

707
00:26:49,335 --> 00:26:51,417
and your students are only people in the

708
00:26:51,417 --> 00:26:52,848
world aware what this is,

709
00:26:54,199 --> 00:26:55,868
in the grand scheme of things, perhaps, it

710
00:26:55,868 --> 00:26:58,173
means nothing. But in the very small scheme

711
00:26:58,173 --> 00:26:59,842
of things size of that day or that

712
00:26:59,842 --> 00:27:01,373
month. It means a lot.

713
00:27:02,492 --> 00:27:04,830
Yeah. So I've sort of the the

714
00:27:05,688 --> 00:27:06,188
the

715
00:27:06,727 --> 00:27:10,517
focus on transient and Sand explosive events and

716
00:27:10,894 --> 00:27:12,808
is to me, this has been in the

717
00:27:12,808 --> 00:27:13,946
last roughly

718
00:27:14,324 --> 00:27:17,195
20 years with Gamma ray and Pt t

719
00:27:17,195 --> 00:27:19,005
and Z t of the 2 projects we

720
00:27:19,124 --> 00:27:19,283
us.

721
00:27:19,998 --> 00:27:21,747
But before that I've been through, you know,

722
00:27:21,906 --> 00:27:22,541
other fears,

723
00:27:23,098 --> 00:27:24,052
big instruments,

724
00:27:24,846 --> 00:27:25,880
you know, observing,

725
00:27:28,994 --> 00:27:31,140
neutron stars, black holes, that sort of stuff.

726
00:27:33,445 --> 00:27:34,875
Tri, I'd like to ask you to look

727
00:27:34,875 --> 00:27:35,375
forward

728
00:27:35,829 --> 00:27:36,862
you know, to the future.

729
00:27:37,994 --> 00:27:40,634
Bigger and better telescopes are being built?

730
00:27:41,674 --> 00:27:43,595
What what do you look forward to? Are

731
00:27:43,595 --> 00:27:44,255
there any

732
00:27:44,808 --> 00:27:47,283
ob or instruments out there that are about

733
00:27:47,283 --> 00:27:50,475
to come online that you're really interested in

734
00:27:50,475 --> 00:27:51,832
seeing the data from?

735
00:27:53,043 --> 00:27:54,078
Well, I'll...

736
00:27:55,431 --> 00:27:55,829
Oh,

737
00:27:57,103 --> 00:27:58,933
I'll again, give the answer in 2 parts.

738
00:27:59,093 --> 00:28:00,627
So the the first 1

739
00:28:01,178 --> 00:28:03,328
is this is a fantastic time to do

740
00:28:03,328 --> 00:28:04,285
astronomy. I mean,

741
00:28:05,878 --> 00:28:07,493
the instruments we're building

742
00:28:09,080 --> 00:28:09,580
are

743
00:28:09,956 --> 00:28:14,020
just have enormous capacity of information delivery.

744
00:28:15,629 --> 00:28:17,146
Just, you know, I know, like, a week

745
00:28:17,146 --> 00:28:17,465
ago,

746
00:28:19,381 --> 00:28:22,117
the European space agency, released pictures

747
00:28:22,495 --> 00:28:24,810
of the sky taken with the up euclid.

748
00:28:25,383 --> 00:28:27,372
Okay? I know they saw that. They're like

749
00:28:27,372 --> 00:28:27,872
gorgeous

750
00:28:28,247 --> 00:28:30,474
pictures, and you first look at it, and

751
00:28:30,474 --> 00:28:32,877
they actually give you the the with the

752
00:28:32,877 --> 00:28:35,663
real data as other Jpeg of its files.

753
00:28:36,300 --> 00:28:38,450
And I was looking, you know, you can

754
00:28:38,450 --> 00:28:41,334
keep zooming the like about every time you

755
00:28:41,334 --> 00:28:43,412
zoom, it's a factor of 2 it it

756
00:28:43,412 --> 00:28:44,051
mag signifies.

757
00:28:44,690 --> 00:28:46,129
I don't no I think I went about

758
00:28:46,129 --> 00:28:46,629
maybe

759
00:28:47,008 --> 00:28:49,086
10 times before I could see the pixels.

760
00:28:49,326 --> 00:28:50,285
It was just so rich.

761
00:28:50,937 --> 00:28:53,645
So a single image you know, is, like,

762
00:28:54,442 --> 00:28:57,149
few square degrees or that they're giving maybe

763
00:28:57,149 --> 00:28:58,902
a square degrees was just amazing.

764
00:29:00,035 --> 00:29:02,755
That's number 1. So the data flow, but

765
00:29:02,755 --> 00:29:04,835
the instruments is is

766
00:29:05,875 --> 00:29:06,595
exponentially growing.

767
00:29:09,407 --> 00:29:09,907
And

768
00:29:10,441 --> 00:29:10,679
so...

769
00:29:11,395 --> 00:29:12,747
And the, you know us, you know, has

770
00:29:12,747 --> 00:29:15,134
been around for about nearly 14000000000 years.

771
00:29:16,103 --> 00:29:18,490
There 10 to the 11 stars in each

772
00:29:18,490 --> 00:29:20,399
galaxy like our own, and they 10 to

773
00:29:20,399 --> 00:29:22,387
the 11 galaxy like a milky way.

774
00:29:23,199 --> 00:29:24,718
So the us has had, first of all,

775
00:29:24,797 --> 00:29:27,355
many opportunity do some very strange things and

776
00:29:27,355 --> 00:29:29,432
a very long time to cook up those

777
00:29:29,432 --> 00:29:29,672
things.

778
00:29:30,311 --> 00:29:31,530
So there's no shortage

779
00:29:31,843 --> 00:29:32,162
of

780
00:29:32,957 --> 00:29:33,912
phenomena to explore.

781
00:29:36,299 --> 00:29:38,788
That's first part. The second 1 is

782
00:29:39,098 --> 00:29:41,244
many times people think and try to just

783
00:29:41,244 --> 00:29:41,744
finish

784
00:29:42,118 --> 00:29:43,788
writing what I call as a creed,

785
00:29:45,139 --> 00:29:46,888
that, you know, bigger telescopes is better, of

786
00:29:46,888 --> 00:29:48,894
course, that is true. You know, bigger telescopes

787
00:29:48,894 --> 00:29:50,734
scope means you can study more faint. Thanks

788
00:29:50,734 --> 00:29:52,095
or you can study the bright things with

789
00:29:52,095 --> 00:29:52,974
better precision.

790
00:29:53,934 --> 00:29:54,434
However,

791
00:29:56,589 --> 00:29:58,349
I just finished this article and the title

792
00:29:58,349 --> 00:30:00,450
is something that there is more room sideways.

793
00:30:01,309 --> 00:30:04,049
By that, I mean, the l... The the

794
00:30:04,190 --> 00:30:04,690
the

795
00:30:05,483 --> 00:30:07,471
you know, the usual idea for subject is

796
00:30:07,471 --> 00:30:09,619
like a pair... There's an Apex, a Pyramid.

797
00:30:09,778 --> 00:30:11,209
You know, we build the base and we

798
00:30:11,209 --> 00:30:13,277
keep going up to the very top. Well,

799
00:30:13,436 --> 00:30:15,205
that's at the top. But when I say

800
00:30:15,205 --> 00:30:17,837
more room sideways is we can employ a

801
00:30:17,837 --> 00:30:18,895
variety of telescopes

802
00:30:19,273 --> 00:30:21,905
to study the universe. They don't... Don't... Don't

803
00:30:21,905 --> 00:30:23,420
have to be big at all actually.

804
00:30:25,432 --> 00:30:26,172
So the

805
00:30:26,550 --> 00:30:28,468
Z t and it... You know, Z was

806
00:30:28,468 --> 00:30:30,246
based on a 48 inch telescope.

807
00:30:31,680 --> 00:30:34,000
Which was commissioned in 19 49,

808
00:30:35,039 --> 00:30:37,920
and a 16 telescope commissioned in 19 72

809
00:30:37,920 --> 00:30:40,214
and for spectroscopy used the 200 inch

810
00:30:41,128 --> 00:30:42,241
commissioned in 19 50,

811
00:30:42,797 --> 00:30:43,751
also so. Okay?

812
00:30:44,625 --> 00:30:47,327
So here we are that with these old

813
00:30:47,327 --> 00:30:49,725
telescopes scope, but with new instruments, we can

814
00:30:49,725 --> 00:30:51,177
study the Scott ferocious.

815
00:30:51,788 --> 00:30:51,947
Okay?

816
00:30:53,930 --> 00:30:55,993
The number papers, Z t published,

817
00:30:56,469 --> 00:30:58,391
I was surprised. I think the team itself

818
00:30:58,391 --> 00:31:01,176
was publishing 1 every 10 days. And because

819
00:31:01,176 --> 00:31:02,848
we put the data out, the rest of

820
00:31:02,848 --> 00:31:05,236
the word was publishing for every, we published

821
00:31:05,236 --> 00:31:08,199
they're publishing 4 others using the data made

822
00:31:08,199 --> 00:31:09,577
available to them. So

823
00:31:10,596 --> 00:31:11,895
so there's many

824
00:31:12,593 --> 00:31:13,712
different ways.

825
00:31:14,111 --> 00:31:15,490
You can study the universe

826
00:31:15,965 --> 00:31:17,825
It doesn't have to with the larger sales.

827
00:31:19,725 --> 00:31:21,565
And there's no shortage of phenomena.

828
00:31:22,205 --> 00:31:23,884
I would say absolutely no shortage.

829
00:31:26,535 --> 00:31:27,912
You know, we could

830
00:31:29,245 --> 00:31:29,404
be,

831
00:31:30,919 --> 00:31:31,578
tell me

832
00:31:32,273 --> 00:31:34,360
anything that fast it to you a you

833
00:31:34,360 --> 00:31:36,351
know, you know, or what... Ask me a

834
00:31:36,351 --> 00:31:37,148
question and then about...

835
00:31:38,184 --> 00:31:40,574
Oh, maybe about 30 seconds I can come

836
00:31:40,574 --> 00:31:41,609
with a project for that.

837
00:31:42,819 --> 00:31:44,259
So I know it doesn't... You know I'm

838
00:31:44,259 --> 00:31:45,859
not... I'm not trying to be specific for

839
00:31:45,859 --> 00:31:47,880
a simple reason. I really want,

840
00:31:48,579 --> 00:31:51,872
young people to understand that there is no

841
00:31:51,872 --> 00:31:53,945
set way of approaching science.

842
00:31:55,381 --> 00:31:57,875
This idea, you know, I would say somewhat

843
00:31:58,092 --> 00:31:58,592
popular

844
00:31:59,049 --> 00:32:00,006
by high energy,

845
00:32:00,976 --> 00:32:03,121
physics switch has been, you know, physics in

846
00:32:03,121 --> 00:32:05,106
general has been a race, perhaps the most

847
00:32:05,106 --> 00:32:06,774
successful part of our science,

848
00:32:07,886 --> 00:32:08,386
sciences,

849
00:32:09,094 --> 00:32:10,927
you know, you had to build bigger accelerators

850
00:32:10,927 --> 00:32:12,840
to find things. Yes. That is... But that's

851
00:32:12,840 --> 00:32:14,594
just 1 particular approach,

852
00:32:15,631 --> 00:32:17,087
in contrast, astronomy

853
00:32:17,558 --> 00:32:19,011
and biology geology.

854
00:32:19,782 --> 00:32:21,315
We can do many things

855
00:32:22,483 --> 00:32:24,231
across the board, and you don't know until

856
00:32:24,231 --> 00:32:26,217
you're done whether which is a more important

857
00:32:26,217 --> 00:32:26,375
thing.

858
00:32:27,821 --> 00:32:30,128
And and finally, Sri, what? I mean, it

859
00:32:30,128 --> 00:32:31,321
sounds to me like,

860
00:32:32,196 --> 00:32:33,946
you think this is a golden age.

861
00:32:34,517 --> 00:32:36,580
Of astronomy. And I'm guessing that you would

862
00:32:36,580 --> 00:32:40,071
encourage young people to to become interested in

863
00:32:40,071 --> 00:32:41,999
it, and, you know, maybe do a Phd

864
00:32:42,134 --> 00:32:44,928
or and and become a an astronomer. What

865
00:32:44,928 --> 00:32:48,740
advice would you give to early career people

866
00:32:48,740 --> 00:32:51,777
or students who are interested in following in

867
00:32:51,777 --> 00:32:52,575
your footsteps.

868
00:32:53,852 --> 00:32:55,688
Yeah. I would say, definitely, there's a golden

869
00:32:55,688 --> 00:32:57,784
age for astronomy perhaps biology.

870
00:32:58,641 --> 00:33:01,989
Any these... The fields which require data, they're

871
00:33:01,989 --> 00:33:03,044
exploding because

872
00:33:03,416 --> 00:33:06,509
the sensors have increased. Believe the computer increased

873
00:33:06,509 --> 00:33:09,384
and those fields are producing far more data.

874
00:33:09,702 --> 00:33:10,758
I our data

875
00:33:11,292 --> 00:33:12,746
exponentially larger than the

876
00:33:13,199 --> 00:33:14,256
number of users.

877
00:33:15,600 --> 00:33:18,169
And that's always means to me

878
00:33:18,545 --> 00:33:20,375
an opportunity for a young person to get

879
00:33:20,375 --> 00:33:22,205
in with fresh perspective.

880
00:33:22,699 --> 00:33:24,537
You know, someone like me has been around

881
00:33:24,537 --> 00:33:26,774
doing research for more than 40 years. I'll

882
00:33:26,774 --> 00:33:28,612
be very good. I'll be very cunning in

883
00:33:28,612 --> 00:33:31,260
doing things that I can. But I lag

884
00:33:31,260 --> 00:33:33,011
the fresh perspective. So this is a very

885
00:33:33,011 --> 00:33:35,478
good time to be in this data which

886
00:33:35,478 --> 00:33:35,796
fields.

887
00:33:36,831 --> 00:33:39,537
And what I... The main advice I'll give

888
00:33:39,537 --> 00:33:41,299
to a young person is,

889
00:33:44,475 --> 00:33:46,221
figure out who you are, not what do

890
00:33:46,221 --> 00:33:48,700
you want to be. Okay? Yeah. It's okay

891
00:33:48,700 --> 00:33:50,291
to say, oh, I want to be an

892
00:33:50,291 --> 00:33:51,906
eye einstein, which is, you know, largely

893
00:33:52,440 --> 00:33:55,146
very cerebral here did go work. Okay? And

894
00:33:55,146 --> 00:33:56,658
it's a nice thing. Know, I einstein. So

895
00:33:56,658 --> 00:33:57,056
famous.

896
00:33:57,706 --> 00:33:59,530
He sat in the patent office and figured

897
00:33:59,530 --> 00:34:00,957
out this and that and so. I mean,

898
00:34:01,036 --> 00:34:03,414
it's like amazing. Okay. I don't even understand

899
00:34:03,414 --> 00:34:04,762
how that even could happen.

900
00:34:05,494 --> 00:34:07,569
Okay. Much easier to understand someone like myself.

901
00:34:07,729 --> 00:34:10,363
Yeah. You know, you collect data, You see

902
00:34:10,363 --> 00:34:13,018
patterns. You write papers. It seems more

903
00:34:13,476 --> 00:34:13,715
clear.

904
00:34:14,606 --> 00:34:17,382
But don't confuse what he aspire to be

905
00:34:17,382 --> 00:34:20,475
to what you can do. And it's good

906
00:34:20,475 --> 00:34:21,744
to say, yeah, I can do a lot,

907
00:34:21,903 --> 00:34:24,012
but I think we all have

908
00:34:24,789 --> 00:34:26,008
some talent in

909
00:34:26,466 --> 00:34:27,983
directions that we need to know what it

910
00:34:27,983 --> 00:34:30,138
is. And I know that I don't have

911
00:34:30,138 --> 00:34:32,628
talent in some other directions or let me

912
00:34:32,628 --> 00:34:34,143
say it comes more slowly.

913
00:34:34,940 --> 00:34:37,014
So for example, you ought been astronomer. There

914
00:34:37,014 --> 00:34:38,391
are roughly 3 categories.

915
00:34:38,769 --> 00:34:40,763
Either you can be a adhere that is

916
00:34:40,763 --> 00:34:41,661
you sort of

917
00:34:42,134 --> 00:34:44,451
do put a lot of time, understand the

918
00:34:44,451 --> 00:34:44,691
physics,

919
00:34:45,330 --> 00:34:47,886
especially mathematics you should have really good skills

920
00:34:47,886 --> 00:34:48,980
and mathematics though

921
00:34:49,977 --> 00:34:52,370
equations and so on. And then you look

922
00:34:52,370 --> 00:34:55,242
at the observations and try to make sense

923
00:34:55,242 --> 00:34:56,175
of it by

924
00:34:56,690 --> 00:34:58,987
applying physics to it. Okay. That's 1 kind.

925
00:34:59,701 --> 00:35:01,760
At the other end is you build Gizmos

926
00:35:01,760 --> 00:35:03,107
like I do, you say, okay.

927
00:35:03,839 --> 00:35:05,437
You look at the world So, what is

928
00:35:05,437 --> 00:35:07,754
it I can do with the technology today.

929
00:35:08,793 --> 00:35:09,293
And

930
00:35:09,911 --> 00:35:11,644
that gizmo more... In order to know what

931
00:35:11,844 --> 00:35:13,837
kind of build how to understand the the

932
00:35:13,837 --> 00:35:16,229
large landscape and say, okay. I won't do

933
00:35:16,229 --> 00:35:18,223
this. And you can connect very poor choices.

934
00:35:18,382 --> 00:35:19,817
If we don't understand the landscape.

935
00:35:20,216 --> 00:35:20,296
Okay?

936
00:35:21,899 --> 00:35:23,882
So it's not just like, big Gizmos and

937
00:35:23,882 --> 00:35:26,024
things will happen. You to build sensible Gizmos

938
00:35:26,024 --> 00:35:27,214
and then things will happen.

939
00:35:28,023 --> 00:35:30,961
Okay? And then another person could be what

940
00:35:30,961 --> 00:35:32,732
you call roughly a model?

941
00:35:33,106 --> 00:35:35,250
Okay, sort of in between a theorist and

942
00:35:35,250 --> 00:35:35,488
observer.

943
00:35:36,456 --> 00:35:38,758
This could be people who do numerical, it

944
00:35:38,758 --> 00:35:40,846
they they take the equations in theory

945
00:35:41,378 --> 00:35:43,815
and apply that in a computer, and that's

946
00:35:44,013 --> 00:35:45,679
become a very big field it's called numerical

947
00:35:45,679 --> 00:35:46,473
astro physics.

948
00:35:47,901 --> 00:35:49,591
I... You need the rough 3 categories,

949
00:35:50,519 --> 00:35:51,019
and

950
00:35:51,329 --> 00:35:52,769
The first thing a student has to do

951
00:35:52,769 --> 00:35:54,049
be a young person has to do is

952
00:35:54,049 --> 00:35:54,609
who you are?

953
00:35:55,730 --> 00:35:57,089
Are you a, b or c,

954
00:35:57,650 --> 00:35:59,945
not who you want to be? Okay. Have

955
00:36:00,624 --> 00:36:02,541
so you to try those things and see...

956
00:36:02,702 --> 00:36:05,498
And feel naturally where you think your inclination

957
00:36:05,498 --> 00:36:07,815
is and where you're growing fast.

958
00:36:09,106 --> 00:36:11,572
The second thing is you confidence, I would

959
00:36:11,572 --> 00:36:11,811
say,

960
00:36:13,164 --> 00:36:14,141
you to confidence,

961
00:36:16,506 --> 00:36:17,461
in the following sense,

962
00:36:18,112 --> 00:36:18,907
it's easy.

963
00:36:20,100 --> 00:36:22,485
Few people are just over confident, which is

964
00:36:22,485 --> 00:36:23,519
not useful because,

965
00:36:26,237 --> 00:36:28,942
it you, you know, but actually it's easiest

966
00:36:28,942 --> 00:36:30,851
to find out if you're very all confident,

967
00:36:31,249 --> 00:36:33,238
you set forth on of Voyage and it

968
00:36:33,238 --> 00:36:34,431
the incident is disaster,

969
00:36:34,924 --> 00:36:36,521
Next time we set forth ends in a

970
00:36:36,521 --> 00:36:38,117
disaster. So after a while you'll figure out.

971
00:36:38,596 --> 00:36:40,990
So actually, being over confident is something that,

972
00:36:41,070 --> 00:36:43,465
you know, reality will eventually inform you.

973
00:36:44,116 --> 00:36:46,259
Many people are actually have the opposite problem.

974
00:36:46,418 --> 00:36:48,958
They is shy about themselves, and they don't

975
00:36:48,958 --> 00:36:51,102
want to push and understand their limits.

976
00:36:53,191 --> 00:36:55,686
And for that, you got to undergo failure

977
00:36:55,984 --> 00:36:57,262
and resilience. Okay.

978
00:36:58,299 --> 00:36:59,816
I don't know how to teach this, because

979
00:36:59,976 --> 00:37:02,619
I now I'd wise, oh, is it 31

980
00:37:02,619 --> 00:37:03,256
grad students.

981
00:37:04,052 --> 00:37:05,804
Mentored maybe 52 post stocks.

982
00:37:06,441 --> 00:37:08,192
It... This has been the hard 1 to

983
00:37:08,192 --> 00:37:10,036
actually try to to teach.

984
00:37:11,705 --> 00:37:14,169
But I think I've been moderately successful,

985
00:37:14,725 --> 00:37:16,077
at least in few cases.

986
00:37:17,681 --> 00:37:19,589
And in most cases certainly by the end

987
00:37:19,589 --> 00:37:20,782
of their, you know, stay,

988
00:37:21,815 --> 00:37:23,723
they do leave better off than they started.

989
00:37:24,041 --> 00:37:24,859
Yeah. So

990
00:37:26,363 --> 00:37:28,758
the the 1 thing I would add advocate...

991
00:37:29,157 --> 00:37:31,312
1 trick advocate to a young person is,

992
00:37:32,669 --> 00:37:35,636
step outside your body and look at yourself

993
00:37:35,636 --> 00:37:36,912
and what happened during the day.

994
00:37:37,949 --> 00:37:39,305
When I was young, I do that all

995
00:37:39,305 --> 00:37:40,581
the time. End of the day hey, I

996
00:37:40,581 --> 00:37:42,974
would sort of... It's a pretend exercise. You're

997
00:37:42,974 --> 00:37:44,465
you're sitting there, You said, okay. I'm gonna

998
00:37:44,505 --> 00:37:46,978
step outside my body. And once you step

999
00:37:46,978 --> 00:37:49,132
outside, you look at this person, I you

1000
00:37:49,451 --> 00:37:51,046
surgical, not with any emotions.

1001
00:37:51,859 --> 00:37:53,076
What are the things that

1002
00:37:53,532 --> 00:37:55,865
this person did write optimal

1003
00:37:56,401 --> 00:37:58,871
strategic today. And most importantly, what are the

1004
00:37:58,871 --> 00:38:01,122
things in red respect would have been done

1005
00:38:01,122 --> 00:38:01,921
better and so on.

1006
00:38:03,439 --> 00:38:05,457
And this sort of a surgical analysis

1007
00:38:06,555 --> 00:38:07,010
will

1008
00:38:07,369 --> 00:38:09,068
help you improve,

1009
00:38:10,086 --> 00:38:12,483
in a search very business like way. So,

1010
00:38:13,842 --> 00:38:15,780
you to learn how to suspend ego

1011
00:38:16,174 --> 00:38:18,568
on analyzing yourself. But at the same time

1012
00:38:18,568 --> 00:38:21,919
of confidence requires having confidence in yourself, which

1013
00:38:21,919 --> 00:38:24,164
is sort of, like, having some stake in

1014
00:38:24,164 --> 00:38:27,340
yourself. So life is always, you know, understanding

1015
00:38:27,340 --> 00:38:29,325
the 2 extremities and trying to learn to

1016
00:38:29,325 --> 00:38:31,945
operate that. So to summarize, I tell a

1017
00:38:31,945 --> 00:38:32,501
young person,

1018
00:38:33,073 --> 00:38:34,587
stone is a fantastic field. You want to

1019
00:38:34,587 --> 00:38:35,144
do research,

1020
00:38:36,339 --> 00:38:38,729
come. This is things are really happening in

1021
00:38:38,729 --> 00:38:39,526
a very big way.

1022
00:38:41,690 --> 00:38:43,521
And bring your fresh perspective,

1023
00:38:44,635 --> 00:38:47,818
bring energy, you got to work hard, no

1024
00:38:47,818 --> 00:38:49,171
excuse on that. If you don't work hard,

1025
00:38:50,063 --> 00:38:52,059
you know, there are other people who want

1026
00:38:52,059 --> 00:38:53,416
to work hard, and, you know, who will

1027
00:38:53,416 --> 00:38:54,693
get the job and so on.

1028
00:38:56,449 --> 00:38:58,365
And develop confidence yourself,

1029
00:38:59,414 --> 00:39:00,050
analyze yourself,

1030
00:39:00,766 --> 00:39:03,707
and improve. Life is a process of continual

1031
00:39:03,707 --> 00:39:05,217
improvement, continual education,

1032
00:39:06,251 --> 00:39:07,546
and continual curiosity.

1033
00:39:08,807 --> 00:39:11,342
Well, that's great, Sure. That's that's fantastic advice.

1034
00:39:11,739 --> 00:39:14,195
And thanks again. Thanks so much for coming

1035
00:39:14,195 --> 00:39:14,987
on the podcast.

1036
00:39:15,478 --> 00:39:15,978
And

1037
00:39:16,666 --> 00:39:17,141
congratulations

1038
00:39:17,538 --> 00:39:19,122
for winning the sharp price.

1039
00:39:20,152 --> 00:39:21,262
Oh, thanks, Har.

1040
00:39:30,766 --> 00:39:33,636
Scott T is professor Em am at the

1041
00:39:34,114 --> 00:39:37,701
Institute for advanced study in Princeton, New Jersey.

1042
00:39:38,434 --> 00:39:39,891
He's made important

1043
00:39:40,507 --> 00:39:44,277
contributions to our understanding of the formation and

1044
00:39:44,575 --> 00:39:46,989
evolution of a wide range of astronomical

1045
00:39:47,447 --> 00:39:47,846
systems.

1046
00:39:48,734 --> 00:39:49,527
Including planets,

1047
00:39:50,082 --> 00:39:51,772
black holes, and galaxies.

1048
00:39:52,699 --> 00:39:55,792
He served as chair of the selection committee,

1049
00:39:56,284 --> 00:39:57,980
for the 20 24

1050
00:39:58,039 --> 00:39:59,634
shaw prize in astronomy,

1051
00:40:00,112 --> 00:40:02,346
and he joins me down the line from

1052
00:40:02,346 --> 00:40:05,775
the Us to talk about this year's Lau.

1053
00:40:14,282 --> 00:40:17,007
So, Scott, can you highlight some of Ko

1054
00:40:17,540 --> 00:40:18,040
achievements

1055
00:40:18,653 --> 00:40:21,434
that led the selection committee to award him

1056
00:40:21,434 --> 00:40:21,991
the prize.

1057
00:40:23,119 --> 00:40:26,079
C achievements have been focused on the area

1058
00:40:26,079 --> 00:40:28,739
of time domain astronomy that is on

1059
00:40:29,359 --> 00:40:30,639
on trying to,

1060
00:40:31,760 --> 00:40:32,260
identify

1061
00:40:32,813 --> 00:40:33,313
astronomical

1062
00:40:33,768 --> 00:40:35,996
events or objects that only last for a

1063
00:40:35,996 --> 00:40:39,019
short time. This is a very challenging area

1064
00:40:39,019 --> 00:40:41,747
of astronomy because you have to sift through

1065
00:40:42,217 --> 00:40:43,172
huge amounts of,

1066
00:40:44,206 --> 00:40:45,422
huge amounts of data

1067
00:40:45,956 --> 00:40:47,172
to try to isolate,

1068
00:40:48,581 --> 00:40:50,625
a, single event that may only last

1069
00:40:51,141 --> 00:40:52,650
for a fraction of a second.

1070
00:40:53,841 --> 00:40:55,032
Within that area,

1071
00:40:56,065 --> 00:40:56,382
his,

1072
00:40:57,574 --> 00:40:59,718
the crown achievement of his career,

1073
00:41:00,449 --> 00:41:03,020
has been the development of 2 surveys,

1074
00:41:04,193 --> 00:41:06,127
the, Palo transient

1075
00:41:06,902 --> 00:41:09,292
factory in the Wiki transient facility,

1076
00:41:10,024 --> 00:41:13,050
that has been purpose built to find,

1077
00:41:14,005 --> 00:41:16,018
short duration transient events

1078
00:41:17,271 --> 00:41:17,748
in that,

1079
00:41:18,799 --> 00:41:19,299
area,

1080
00:41:20,478 --> 00:41:22,016
they've been extraordinarily

1081
00:41:22,555 --> 00:41:23,055
successful.

1082
00:41:23,914 --> 00:41:26,071
So, for example, 1 of the events that

1083
00:41:26,071 --> 00:41:29,266
they felt look for is supernova in distant

1084
00:41:29,266 --> 00:41:29,766
galaxies,

1085
00:41:31,010 --> 00:41:31,906
which last

1086
00:41:32,516 --> 00:41:32,912
for,

1087
00:41:33,546 --> 00:41:34,601
periods of,

1088
00:41:35,306 --> 00:41:36,181
weeks to months.

1089
00:41:36,976 --> 00:41:39,044
They've been able to find many of these

1090
00:41:39,044 --> 00:41:40,021
within hours

1091
00:41:40,396 --> 00:41:42,861
of the time the explosion first occurs.

1092
00:41:43,671 --> 00:41:46,158
And have contributed a significant fraction

1093
00:41:46,611 --> 00:41:49,472
of all of the, Supernova that have been

1094
00:41:49,472 --> 00:41:50,289
discovered recently.

1095
00:41:52,031 --> 00:41:54,418
And and, Scott, 1 thing that struck me.

1096
00:41:54,577 --> 00:41:56,565
I mean, I'm not an astronomer, but when

1097
00:41:56,724 --> 00:41:58,890
I looked at the the sort of broad

1098
00:41:58,890 --> 00:42:02,876
range of object types that that he's studied

1099
00:42:02,876 --> 00:42:05,369
and also, you know, some of the amazing

1100
00:42:05,586 --> 00:42:06,086
instruments

1101
00:42:06,398 --> 00:42:08,148
that he's helped develop.

1102
00:42:08,943 --> 00:42:10,534
You know, to me, that that seemed like

1103
00:42:10,534 --> 00:42:14,431
a very broad and interesting career so far.

1104
00:42:14,924 --> 00:42:17,099
I mean, is is that a reasonable,

1105
00:42:18,194 --> 00:42:20,746
way to describe what what he's done, you

1106
00:42:20,746 --> 00:42:23,139
know, sort of the length and breadth of

1107
00:42:23,139 --> 00:42:23,777
his research?

1108
00:42:25,228 --> 00:42:26,503
Very very much so,

1109
00:42:27,300 --> 00:42:28,119
K Ka

1110
00:42:28,655 --> 00:42:30,011
has been interested in,

1111
00:42:30,808 --> 00:42:32,801
almost all areas of astronomy.

1112
00:42:33,534 --> 00:42:34,094
1 of the,

1113
00:42:35,771 --> 00:42:39,607
really remarkable features of the facilities that he's

1114
00:42:39,607 --> 00:42:40,107
built

1115
00:42:40,566 --> 00:42:41,765
has been there

1116
00:42:43,612 --> 00:42:46,021
discoveries over a wide range of

1117
00:42:47,032 --> 00:42:48,464
astronomy, everything from,

1118
00:42:49,751 --> 00:42:49,910
of,

1119
00:42:50,704 --> 00:42:53,643
binary stars with orbital periods as short a

1120
00:42:53,643 --> 00:42:54,382
few hours

1121
00:42:54,994 --> 00:42:55,232
to,

1122
00:42:56,265 --> 00:42:58,751
exploding store stars at distant galaxies,

1123
00:42:59,777 --> 00:43:00,277
to

1124
00:43:00,735 --> 00:43:02,011
solar system objects,

1125
00:43:04,882 --> 00:43:07,355
Cl county has been interested in in almost

1126
00:43:07,355 --> 00:43:08,791
all areas of astronomy.

1127
00:43:09,283 --> 00:43:11,368
And although the award was focused

1128
00:43:12,057 --> 00:43:15,068
on his work and time domain astronomy. He's

1129
00:43:15,068 --> 00:43:16,019
also made

1130
00:43:16,669 --> 00:43:17,486
other major

1131
00:43:17,939 --> 00:43:19,050
contributions, for example,

1132
00:43:20,162 --> 00:43:21,376
he had his collaborators

1133
00:43:22,147 --> 00:43:24,076
discovered the first really

1134
00:43:24,846 --> 00:43:25,346
persuasive

1135
00:43:26,447 --> 00:43:26,685
and,

1136
00:43:27,478 --> 00:43:30,727
unique brown dwarf, stars intermediate between,

1137
00:43:32,075 --> 00:43:32,947
stars and planets.

1138
00:43:33,759 --> 00:43:34,398
And although,

1139
00:43:35,037 --> 00:43:37,833
and and so the the award partly represented,

1140
00:43:38,632 --> 00:43:39,611
his overall

1141
00:43:39,990 --> 00:43:42,322
contribution to astronomy, although those have been focused

1142
00:43:42,322 --> 00:43:43,840
on time domain astronomy.

1143
00:43:45,039 --> 00:43:47,596
And in terms of his legacy, I mean,

1144
00:43:47,756 --> 00:43:49,210
I know it may maybe it's a too

1145
00:43:49,210 --> 00:43:50,569
early to talk about that.

1146
00:43:51,130 --> 00:43:54,329
But because my understanding is that he's he's

1147
00:43:54,329 --> 00:43:55,469
still actively

1148
00:43:55,849 --> 00:43:56,250
working.

1149
00:43:56,823 --> 00:43:59,764
But what... I mean, what influence so far

1150
00:43:59,764 --> 00:44:03,659
has he had on modern astronomy? He... You

1151
00:44:03,659 --> 00:44:05,511
know, would he be the sort of astronomer

1152
00:44:05,567 --> 00:44:08,677
that that many astronomers were would have heard

1153
00:44:08,677 --> 00:44:11,692
of, you know, that young astronomers would aspire

1154
00:44:11,692 --> 00:44:12,405
to be like.

1155
00:44:14,407 --> 00:44:16,237
Well, I can't I can't speak for the

1156
00:44:16,237 --> 00:44:18,487
young astronomers, of course, but

1157
00:44:19,896 --> 00:44:22,371
and it it probably is early to speak

1158
00:44:22,371 --> 00:44:23,268
about his legacy.

1159
00:44:24,275 --> 00:44:26,442
His legacy is particularly complicated

1160
00:44:26,973 --> 00:44:27,425
because

1161
00:44:27,782 --> 00:44:30,565
in the next year or 2 the ruben

1162
00:44:30,565 --> 00:44:31,518
telescope will,

1163
00:44:32,155 --> 00:44:32,870
come online.

1164
00:44:33,506 --> 00:44:36,311
Its focus is on time domain astronomy.

1165
00:44:37,098 --> 00:44:37,598
And

1166
00:44:38,132 --> 00:44:40,519
because it's a much bigger, much more expensive,

1167
00:44:41,155 --> 00:44:41,655
telescope,

1168
00:44:42,826 --> 00:44:43,144
than,

1169
00:44:44,034 --> 00:44:45,492
than Ko telescopes,

1170
00:44:46,030 --> 00:44:48,424
it has the potential to discover much more.

1171
00:44:49,063 --> 00:44:49,781
But I think,

1172
00:44:51,058 --> 00:44:52,356
C work

1173
00:44:52,748 --> 00:44:55,232
has to a large extent paved the way

1174
00:44:55,367 --> 00:44:57,295
for the the Ruben telescope.

1175
00:44:57,827 --> 00:45:00,208
And many of the problems that he's had

1176
00:45:00,208 --> 00:45:01,025
to solve

1177
00:45:01,494 --> 00:45:02,314
have been

1178
00:45:03,012 --> 00:45:05,409
our our problems that the ruben telescope is

1179
00:45:05,409 --> 00:45:07,088
is going to have to solve as well.

1180
00:45:07,807 --> 00:45:09,425
I think 1 of the really

1181
00:45:09,898 --> 00:45:11,515
important features of his legacy

1182
00:45:12,052 --> 00:45:13,328
has been the

1183
00:45:15,641 --> 00:45:16,460
the democrat

1184
00:45:16,917 --> 00:45:17,635
of science,

1185
00:45:19,644 --> 00:45:20,144
Cl,

1186
00:45:22,035 --> 00:45:22,535
telescopes,

1187
00:45:23,630 --> 00:45:26,659
don't save the data. It's not analyzed first

1188
00:45:26,659 --> 00:45:27,376
by his group.

1189
00:45:27,949 --> 00:45:30,336
It goes through an automated pipeline and then

1190
00:45:30,336 --> 00:45:31,393
it's made available

1191
00:45:31,848 --> 00:45:34,634
over an alert system to astronomers around the

1192
00:45:34,634 --> 00:45:35,032
world.

1193
00:45:35,763 --> 00:45:36,320
And so,

1194
00:45:36,958 --> 00:45:39,050
Ko has been 1 of the leaders

1195
00:45:39,665 --> 00:45:40,643
in democrat

1196
00:45:41,337 --> 00:45:43,487
the study of time domain astronomy.

1197
00:45:44,139 --> 00:45:45,335
And, making,

1198
00:45:45,813 --> 00:45:46,212
really,

1199
00:45:46,770 --> 00:45:50,619
useful and unique alerts available to astronomers

1200
00:45:51,235 --> 00:45:52,112
in every country.

1201
00:45:52,924 --> 00:45:55,074
I see. And is that something Scott that

1202
00:45:55,074 --> 00:45:58,441
that you and and the selection committee members

1203
00:45:59,056 --> 00:46:00,967
considered when you made your choice? Or is

1204
00:46:00,967 --> 00:46:02,677
that just an added

1205
00:46:03,213 --> 00:46:06,880
bonus of of Cole Career that that you

1206
00:46:06,880 --> 00:46:09,431
that you can talk about his contribution there.

1207
00:46:10,722 --> 00:46:13,436
The focus of the shaw price is on,

1208
00:46:14,793 --> 00:46:15,272
rewarding

1209
00:46:17,027 --> 00:46:17,527
unique

1210
00:46:17,905 --> 00:46:21,353
contributions to astronomical knowledge and to research. So

1211
00:46:21,513 --> 00:46:23,509
I would characterize this as a bonus,

1212
00:46:25,904 --> 00:46:26,404
Cl,

1213
00:46:28,393 --> 00:46:32,463
Ko Carney approach to distributing his data has

1214
00:46:32,463 --> 00:46:32,862
made it,

1215
00:46:34,618 --> 00:46:37,107
has has been a real asset for astronomers

1216
00:46:37,107 --> 00:46:38,565
who may not have access

1217
00:46:39,022 --> 00:46:40,719
to the biggest telescopes,

1218
00:46:42,213 --> 00:46:42,713
and

1219
00:46:44,378 --> 00:46:46,443
we think that's AAA

1220
00:46:46,443 --> 00:46:47,078
great addition.

1221
00:46:47,952 --> 00:46:49,857
We think the, you know, the the shop

1222
00:46:49,857 --> 00:46:51,151
price is intended

1223
00:46:52,177 --> 00:46:52,735
to be,

1224
00:46:53,531 --> 00:46:56,398
rewarding people who have an international impact. And

1225
00:46:56,398 --> 00:46:58,651
this is 1 unique way in which Ko

1226
00:46:59,186 --> 00:47:00,324
really has had

1227
00:47:00,874 --> 00:47:02,231
an impact around the world.

1228
00:47:03,508 --> 00:47:05,344
Well, that's great, Scott. Thanks so much for

1229
00:47:05,344 --> 00:47:07,739
coming on the podcast and talking to me

1230
00:47:07,739 --> 00:47:10,869
about the winner of this year's shop prize

1231
00:47:10,869 --> 00:47:11,670
and astronomy.

1232
00:47:12,150 --> 00:47:12,789
My pleasure.

1233
00:47:22,312 --> 00:47:23,986
I'm afraid that's all the time we have

1234
00:47:23,986 --> 00:47:25,124
for this week's podcast.

1235
00:47:25,501 --> 00:47:28,804
Thanks to Sri Cool Carney, and Scott T

1236
00:47:28,860 --> 00:47:31,800
for joining me today. And a special thanks

1237
00:47:31,800 --> 00:47:33,469
to our producer Fred Isles.

1238
00:47:34,423 --> 00:47:37,402
This episode is sponsored by the Shaw prize

1239
00:47:37,698 --> 00:47:39,949
foundation. The Shaw prize honors

1240
00:47:40,324 --> 00:47:41,996
individuals regardless of race,

1241
00:47:42,712 --> 00:47:43,212
nationality,

1242
00:47:43,826 --> 00:47:47,981
gender, and religious belief. Who are currently active

1243
00:47:47,981 --> 00:47:51,270
in their respective fields and who have recently

1244
00:47:51,487 --> 00:47:51,987
achieved

1245
00:47:52,523 --> 00:47:54,456
distinguished and significant

1246
00:47:54,833 --> 00:47:55,333
advances.

1247
00:47:56,045 --> 00:47:57,025
Who have made

1248
00:47:57,405 --> 00:47:57,905
outstanding

1249
00:47:58,605 --> 00:48:01,105
contributions in academic and scientific

1250
00:48:01,565 --> 00:48:02,704
research or

1251
00:48:03,164 --> 00:48:06,956
applications or who in other domains have achieved

1252
00:48:07,176 --> 00:48:07,575
excellence.

1253
00:48:08,295 --> 00:48:11,272
The shop rise is dedicated to furthering

1254
00:48:11,891 --> 00:48:12,870
societal progress

1255
00:48:13,661 --> 00:48:17,427
enhancing quality of life had enriching humanity's

1256
00:48:18,360 --> 00:48:18,860
spiritual

1257
00:48:19,635 --> 00:48:19,794
civilization.

1258
00:48:22,598 --> 00:48:24,615
There will be no weekly podcast

1259
00:48:24,993 --> 00:48:27,148
next week on the fourth of July.

1260
00:48:28,026 --> 00:48:30,501
Instead, you can tune in on the second

1261
00:48:30,501 --> 00:48:34,030
of July for the first installment of physics

1262
00:48:34,030 --> 00:48:34,829
world live,

1263
00:48:35,469 --> 00:48:38,025
which will focus on quantum sensors.

1264
00:48:39,154 --> 00:48:41,380
Featuring a panel of experts in the field.

1265
00:48:41,858 --> 00:48:45,140
This live event will explore the extraordinary

1266
00:48:45,913 --> 00:48:47,582
capabilities of quantum sensors.

1267
00:48:48,154 --> 00:48:50,564
And look at how they could benefit humanity

1268
00:48:50,860 --> 00:48:52,076
and shape our

1269
00:48:52,452 --> 00:48:53,486
understanding of the world.

1270
00:48:54,361 --> 00:48:56,431
You can find out more on the Physics

1271
00:48:56,510 --> 00:49:00,417
World website. Just click on the Physics world

1272
00:49:00,417 --> 00:49:03,433
live tab near the top of the homepage.