Avi Loeb

No, if you remove that sentence, you can say accepted for publication.

I didn't remove that sentence.

So I have the pre-print version with that census at the end, and I have the published version without that sentence.

Now you ask yourself, in the long scheme of history, does it really matter if I said either the object is very small or it had a purpose visiting the inner solar system?

Why is that regarded as heresy?

Why is that forbidden from the conversation?

Obviously, it's something we should contemplate.

Turns out the object is 10 times smaller than was originally conceived.

So that removes this issue.

And I was right.

I said, either it's much smaller than we think, or it's... So this is just an illustration of the level of scrutiny that you go in just adding a sentence that allows for a possibility.

Now, if I were to talk about extra dimensions, no problem whatsoever.

Do we know that there are extra dimensions?

It's just a societal acceptance among the physicists working on it.

They say to each other, this is a sandbox that we want to play in, just like kids.

Even if it has nothing to do with the reality out there,

just play in the sandbox and the purpose is to demonstrate that we are smart that we can do mathematical gymnastics and impress each other so we can give each other awards and these string theories are celebrating in this sandbox the sandbox is not forbidden in the same way that the sandbox of allowing interstellar objects to be technological should not be forbidden but it is forbidden why the public

The public.

The public.

And you would think the public funds science.