Avi Loeb

And of course, I got a lot of other offers as soon as that happened.

But I stayed there and I have a very stable situation.

I'm anchored in a very constructive way over there.

I had maybe 50 students and hundreds of postdocs that I worked with and published more than a thousand scientific papers, wrote nine books.

I basically in a very healthy situation and that allows me this confidence that it cannot be shaken easily, allows me to venture into what academia is supposed to be about.

Like if you get tenure, the whole purpose of tenure is to entertain ideas outside the box because they may bring the next revolution, the next breakthrough.

And

What happens instead is you see people that get tenure, and at that point, all they care about is getting honors and awards and grants.

And for that, you have to dance to the tunes of selection committees.

You have to be nice to everyone, basically admit that

the common folklore is the correct one, because if you were to deviate from that, you will be chased and brought down as soon as that happens.

And I don't care about this.

I even said that if I find with the Galileo project that I'm leading, if I find clear evidence for extraterrestrial artifacts, okay,

and the Nobel Committee decides to award me the Nobel Prize, I will play the Bob Dylan card on that one.

I will simply avoid them.

I don't care how many times they call me because if I find that we have a neighbor, cosmic neighbor, I better dedicate the remaining time I have on this earth to figure out what it means.

Why would I have cocktail parties in Sweden?

Who cares about it?

Let me ask you, are you aware, because this is Harvard and astronomy, I have to ask, are you aware of the Menzel gap?

Yes.