30 years ago, Lobe was the first to suggest that we should look for exoplanet with the help of gravitational lensing.
https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&h... He was also amongst the first to study the epoch of reionization that now forms one of the primary mission directives of the JWST. And those weren't his only firsts, he was also the amongst the first to study the formation of supermassive black holes in the early universe.
https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&h...He has had such an amazing career and has done such great work that it physically pains me to see him slide into Nobel disease this way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease He has always been fascinated by the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, but he was such a reasoned person who proposed great techno signatures like looking for pollution as a means to detect industrial-age civilizations.
It’s like watching a giant stumble and hurt himself on purpose. And it gets worse when non-technical people come up to me and ask, “have you heard of Avi Loeb?” Instead of being a beacon for enlightenment, he has gone down the path of spreading conspiratorial ignorance. It is painful to watch such a great career fall this way.
And no, based on my conversations with my professional astronomer friends, no one inside the field takes him seriously anymore. They don’t laugh at him either, they just don’t take him seriously. It’s probably why he doesn’t seem to have a more prominent role with the JWST. Interesting projects don’t want to associate with him anymore. It’s sad.
He has had such an amazing career and has done such great work that it physically pains me to see him slide into Nobel disease this way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease He has always been fascinated by the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, but he was such a reasoned person who proposed great techno signatures like looking for pollution as a means to detect industrial-age civilizations.
It’s like watching a giant stumble and hurt himself on purpose. And it gets worse when non-technical people come up to me and ask, “have you heard of Avi Loeb?” Instead of being a beacon for enlightenment, he has gone down the path of spreading conspiratorial ignorance. It is painful to watch such a great career fall this way.
And no, based on my conversations with my professional astronomer friends, no one inside the field takes him seriously anymore. They don’t laugh at him either, they just don’t take him seriously. It’s probably why he doesn’t seem to have a more prominent role with the JWST. Interesting projects don’t want to associate with him anymore. It’s sad.