Speaker 1: A lot of you out there love physics and love history,
Speaker 1: and so probably lots of you went to see the
Speaker 1: recent movie Oppenheimer, maybe the biggest blockbuster ever starring physicists.
Speaker 1: And some of you who know that I grew up
Speaker 1: in Los Alamos, that I went to Los Alamos High
Speaker 1: School and my parents worked in the weapons program at
Speaker 1: the lab wrote in to ask me what did I
Speaker 1: think of the movie? What's it like to see your
Speaker 1: hometown portrayed on the big screen in such dramatic fashion. Well,
Speaker 1: the answer is I decided to go see Barbie instead.
Speaker 2: Hi.
Speaker 1: I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, a professor at U,
Speaker 1: and I've been supported by the United States Department of
Speaker 1: Energy since I was about five years old. My parents
Speaker 1: worked at olamo's National Labs, and so the weapons program
Speaker 1: basically put food on our table, paid for my education,
Speaker 1: and later on, when I grew up to be a physicist,
Speaker 1: I actually wanted to avoid the moral quagmire of designing
Speaker 1: weapons of mass destruction, so I ended up sliding over
Speaker 1: to the much less practically useful field of particle physics,
Speaker 1: which of course is still funded by the Department of Energy.
Speaker 1: Maybe the folks over there believe that eventually the Higgs
Speaker 1: boson will have some practical use, or maybe they just
Speaker 1: love understanding the universe. Either way, I'm a very grateful
Speaker 1: lifelong recipient of government funding from building weapons to exploring
Speaker 1: and understanding the nature of the universe. And welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, where we
Speaker 1: dive deep into the issues of physics, whether or not
Speaker 1: they have practical use. We think that understanding the universe
Speaker 1: verse has deep inherent value to me, to you and
Speaker 1: all of future humanity who are desperate to understand how
Speaker 1: the world works, what the laws are that govern it
Speaker 1: at the smallest scale, how those come together to make
Speaker 1: our universe, whether it is in the end following some plans,
Speaker 1: some systems, some reasons, some logic that we can deduce,
Speaker 1: that we can understand, and that hopefully on this podcast
Speaker 1: we can explain to you. So we ask all of
Speaker 1: the biggest questions. We don't shy away from those that
Speaker 1: have philosophical consequences or deep implications for the nature of
Speaker 1: our lives. That's why we do physics, because we seek
Speaker 1: to understand our place in the universe. And when I
Speaker 1: was growing up in Los Almos. You know, physics was
Speaker 1: in the air. There were physicists everywhere. People were doing
Speaker 1: physics all over the place. You know, it's a small
Speaker 1: mountain town and it's really dominated by the lab I
Speaker 1: remember my mother went for jury dude one time, and
Speaker 1: a standard question the lawyers ask is who here has
Speaker 1: an advanced degree? But everybody in the room raised their hand,
Speaker 1: so they couldn't just disqualify the scientists like they usually do.
Speaker 1: Something else that's interesting about Los Almos, beyond the standard
Speaker 1: story that it's marinated in science, is the number of
Speaker 1: places of worship. You drive around Los Almos, you see
Speaker 1: lots and lots of different kinds of churches and temples
Speaker 1: and synagogues, and it's because people come from all over
Speaker 1: the world, and so there this incredible diversity of places
Speaker 1: of worship. It's fascinating to me how people come there
Speaker 1: for the science but end up seeking out their cultural
Speaker 1: and religious communities. And this, of course played a big
Speaker 1: role in the movie Oppenheimer, the religious identities of some
Speaker 1: of the scientists, the role that played in their fight
Speaker 1: against the Nazis and their Jewish identity, and Los Almos
Speaker 1: of course includes a vibrant Jewish community. When I was there,
Speaker 1: there was a very lively population of Jews, and that
Speaker 1: community was something I was a part of growing up.
Speaker 1: My Eagle Scout project when I was seventeen was repainting
Speaker 1: the Los Almost Jewish Community Center. And more broadly, there's
Speaker 1: a fascinating connection between physics and Judaism. We all know,
Speaker 1: of course that there are lots of famous Jewish physicists.
Speaker 1: You've got Albert Einstein, Neils Borr had Jewish background, Polly Born,
Speaker 1: Beta Block Landau, Robbie Wigner, von Neumann, Richard Feynman, Julian Schwinger,
Speaker 1: Marie Gelman, Stephen Weinberg, Oppenheimer himself, Edward Teller, ed Witten,
Speaker 1: Lisa Meiitner. All of these folks have Jewish backgrounds. And
Speaker 1: beyond the anecdotal list of famous names, if you look
Speaker 1: at the Nobel Prize winners in physics, fully a quarter
Speaker 1: of them are Jews. So it makes you wonder, like,
Speaker 1: what's the connection there between Judaism and physics? Are Jews
Speaker 1: drawn to physics for some reason? And is it a
Speaker 1: cultural or a religious connection? Do the folks who are
Speaker 1: trying to unravel the mysteries of the universe to reveal
Speaker 1: the laws that govern it. The cold heartless logic of
Speaker 1: the universe also lead the stories of Judaism. How do
Speaker 1: they reconcile these two things in their mind? Do they
Speaker 1: divide them up into separate questions? Do they find them
Speaker 1: to be in conflict? And so today on the podcast,
Speaker 1: we're going to be exploring the question our physics and
Speaker 1: Judaism in harmony or in conflict. This is a bit
Speaker 1: of a departure for us where we usually dig deep
Speaker 1: into the details of the physics, but often on the
Speaker 1: podcast we are exploring the consequences of what physics has learned,
Speaker 1: the philosophical implications. If the universe works this way, what
Speaker 1: does it mean for me how I live my life,
Speaker 1: what I should do with myself? Because physics is more
Speaker 1: than just understanding how the world works. It gives us
Speaker 1: a sense of our place. Learning that the Earth is
Speaker 1: not the center of the universe, that there are billions
Speaker 1: of planets like ours out there, gives us a context
Speaker 1: for our lives and tells us something about how we
Speaker 1: should live it, which of course is something religion also
Speaker 1: speaks to. So this is a potential tricky topic. But
Speaker 1: we're going to try to tread sensitively and explore the
Speaker 1: overlap and understand the connection between these two ideas that
Speaker 1: are so important to so many people. And so of
Speaker 1: course I was curious what everybody out there thought about
Speaker 1: these things. Our listeners to this podcast religious do they
Speaker 1: find religion and physics to be in harmony or in conflict?
Speaker 1: So I went out there to our community volunteers and
Speaker 1: I asked them our physics and religion in harmony or
Speaker 1: in conflict? So think about it for a moment yourself.
Speaker 1: What do you think about this difficult question. Here's what
Speaker 1: our listeners had to say. The church has done awful
Speaker 1: things to scientists, So I would say physics and religion
Speaker 1: are in conflict.
Speaker 3: I think if a compartment, lize and let religion help
Speaker 3: us with our spirituality, our faith community, and help us
Speaker 3: get a structure in life, et cetera, while we let
Speaker 3: physics handle are why and how of the rovers and
Speaker 3: explain all the things we see around us.
Speaker 1: Well, there are in how many sometimes and they are
Speaker 1: in conflict sometimes, especially around the Newton period.
Speaker 4: So I'm going to say in how many is conflict.
Speaker 5: They don't need to be in conflict.
Speaker 1: But over the last few hundred, maybe even less millennia,
Speaker 1: they've been pushed to be in conflict with each other.
Speaker 6: I believe that physics and religion is in conflict because
Speaker 6: physics is based on scientific evidence and in the nicest
Speaker 6: way possible. Religion is based on fairy tales and what
Speaker 6: people believe to be true.
Speaker 2: I'd say it depends on your religion and how deeply
Speaker 2: are you believe in it. If you believe most of
Speaker 2: your religion, then then I'd say they're in conflict. But
Speaker 2: some people just believe that some sort of higher power
Speaker 2: start of the universe, and then that could be in
Speaker 2: harmony as long as you say that that creator didn't
Speaker 2: interfere after that.
Speaker 7: Yes, yes they are. It's both. Let me put it
Speaker 7: this way. I love physics with my brain. It's good
Speaker 7: for the mind. I love Jesus with my heart. He's
Speaker 7: good for the soul. These two things live on total
Speaker 7: opposite ends of my being. Sometimes it's hard to reconcile
Speaker 7: my interests in both. They can butt heads on certain topics,
Speaker 7: but at other times each one enhances the beauty of
Speaker 7: the other. They come together, and when one informs the other,
Speaker 7: it just makes them both so much better. So yes,
Speaker 7: it's both.
Speaker 8: I believe religion and physics are in conflict and pretty
Speaker 8: much always have been. But it's interesting that both try
Speaker 8: and understand our place in the universe and try and
Speaker 8: give our lives meaning. So in that sense they're in harmony.
Speaker 8: But the ideas of each are in conflict to each
Speaker 8: other's understanding.
Speaker 1: I'd think conflict. Physics expects imperial evidence, religion is based
Speaker 1: on faith and intangible proof.
Speaker 4: I guess it depends on which region we consider, but
Speaker 4: I wouldn't say they have to be fundamentally in conflict.
Speaker 4: I think they can be complementary, and their money can
Speaker 4: be found in front of the wonders of the universe.
Speaker 5: Personally, I think they are I guess in conflict given
Speaker 5: that religion doesn't believe in any form of evolution or anything.
Speaker 5: But then again, religion does believe that everything came from nothing.
Speaker 5: We have no idea what happened at the moment before
Speaker 5: the Big Bang, and we still can't explain consciousness or
Speaker 5: human feelings, so I'm not too sure.
Speaker 7: I would say that the amount of harmony or conflict
Speaker 7: involved in these two ideas is dependent on the two
Speaker 7: people who are discussing these ideas.
Speaker 1: So I love these answers, and thank you everybody for
Speaker 1: your honest and heartfelt replies. It really helps me to
Speaker 1: hear what you're thinking about. And already here you see
Speaker 1: part of the story emerging. You hear that some people
Speaker 1: separate these things and say physics is asking some questions
Speaker 1: and science is asking other questions, while other folks find
Speaker 1: them to be directly in conflict and prefer to go
Speaker 1: in one direction or the other. Personally, for me, I
Speaker 1: think that there are a lot of questions that science
Speaker 1: can answer and is the best equipped to answer, But
Speaker 1: there are also lots of questions that science just cannot answer,
Speaker 1: questions like what should I eat for lunch today? Or
Speaker 1: should I even get out of bed this morning? Science
Speaker 1: is not set up to answer every question in the universe.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean that religion is necessarily the best way
Speaker 1: to answer it. There's lots of different ways to find
Speaker 1: joy and value in your life, but science doesn't necessarily
Speaker 1: answer every question out there. And while I grew up
Speaker 1: in a Jewish community and it's part of my identity,
Speaker 1: I'm not a terribly observant jee these days, and so
Speaker 1: to help me figure this out. I reached out back
Speaker 1: into my childhood and out to Los Almos to talk
Speaker 1: to the rabbi who leads the Los Almos Jewish Center
Speaker 1: and is a physicist himself. So I had a fascinating
Speaker 1: conversation about Judaism and about physics, and about the Jewish
Speaker 1: community in Los Almos after the war, and how Judaism
Speaker 1: was portrayed in the movie Oppenheimer. So here's my interview
Speaker 1: with rabbi and physicist Jack Schlacter. So then it's my
Speaker 1: great pleasure to welcome to the podcast doctor Jack Schlacter,
Speaker 1: also Rabbi Jack Schlacter. Doctor Schlacter got his PhD in
Speaker 1: physics from the University of California at San Diego and
Speaker 1: his worked full time at Los Almost National Laboratory as
Speaker 1: a physicist. He's also a long standing member of the
Speaker 1: Almost Jewish Center and recently ordained as a rabbi. Jack,
Speaker 1: thank you very much for joining us on the podcast.
Speaker 9: It's my pleasure and honor. Daniel, thank you very much
Speaker 9: for inviting me.
Speaker 1: And it's been quite a few years since you and
Speaker 1: I have spoken. I think the last time might have
Speaker 1: been before I left for college.
Speaker 9: That's a while ago. Yeah, so you'll have to refresh
Speaker 9: my memory, because that's one of the things that starts
Speaker 9: to go with time. But my ordination actually took place
Speaker 9: in nineteen ninety five, and I'm thinking that that's maybe
Speaker 9: just after you disappeared from Los Almas. I don't remember now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I graduated from high school in ninety three and
Speaker 1: left for college and only visited occasionally back to see
Speaker 1: my parents. So yeah, when I left, you were not
Speaker 1: yet a rabbi. And something I only learned recently is
Speaker 1: that you were a physicist. I knew you my whole childhood,
Speaker 1: and I was always interested in physics, and of course,
Speaker 1: growing up in Los Alamos, the physics is in the air.
Speaker 1: But I wasn't really, like, concretely aware of which adults
Speaker 1: in my sphere were actually working physicists. So I only
Speaker 1: learned a couple of weeks ago that you've been a
Speaker 1: physicists this whole time.
Speaker 9: That's correct, that's right. In fact, I like to tell
Speaker 9: people that from the age of four, I was set
Speaker 9: on a path for the physical sciences. I actually thought
Speaker 9: I was going to be an astronomer. And I'm a
Speaker 9: product of the Spotnek generation and the Mercury seven astronauts
Speaker 9: were my heroes, and I really was convinced I was
Speaker 9: going to do some kind of astronomy or I actually
Speaker 9: put in an application to be a mission specialist as
Speaker 9: an astronaut along with fourteen billion other people. I was
Speaker 9: not accepted into that program. But then when I matriculated
Speaker 9: at Caltech, there was incredible peer pressure to go into
Speaker 9: physics as opposed to astronomy, and so I shifted gears
Speaker 9: and very quickly became fascinated with physics. I don't think
Speaker 9: I knew what physics was when I showed up at Caltech,
Speaker 9: but I quickly became interested in it.
Speaker 1: Well that's a pretty good place to learn some physics.
Speaker 1: So tell us a little bit about your physics expertise
Speaker 1: and your background of your scientific career. We'll talk about
Speaker 1: your rabbinical work in a minute, but I want to
Speaker 1: make sure everybody has the context of you as a scientist.
Speaker 1: What did you work on at Los Almos if you
Speaker 1: can tell us.
Speaker 9: Sure, absolutely so. My senior year at Caltech, I took
Speaker 9: a class that was like an introduction to fusion by
Speaker 9: one of the real pioneers in the field. It was
Speaker 9: really Gould and It intrigued me. The idea of blending
Speaker 9: a study of the physical sciences and the world around us,
Speaker 9: which to me is kind of physics in a nutshell,
Speaker 9: but also with doing something useful for the world. That
Speaker 9: fusion energy seemed like a really wonderful goal. So then
Speaker 9: when I went to graduate school, I had sought out
Speaker 9: somebody who was working in plasma physics and magnetic confinement fusion,
Speaker 9: and that was the area that I had my PhD in. Well,
Speaker 9: I actually completed my PhD at Los Almos and then
Speaker 9: was hired on as a staff member in what was
Speaker 9: then the Magnetic Fusion division, and I worked for well
Speaker 9: over a decade doing experimental plasma physics with the intent
Speaker 9: of trying to make confined magnetic plasma systems for fusion energy.
Speaker 1: Wow, amazing, it's incredible that we didn't run into each other.
Speaker 1: Even more because plasma fusion was my first for into physics,
Speaker 1: I joined the group working with Glenn Worden and Fred
Speaker 1: Weisaki at Los Almos.
Speaker 9: That was the the people I worked with at the
Speaker 9: time that you were doing stuff with those people, My
Speaker 9: interest was in a pretty bizarre approach to magnetic fusion.
Speaker 9: It was a linear z pinch but at very high densities,
Speaker 9: and the idea was to use omic heating straight up
Speaker 9: to ignition. And what we did, in fact, probably the
Speaker 9: most exciting day in the laboratory for me and my
Speaker 9: whole career, was extruding a solid fiber of frozen deuterium
Speaker 9: fifty microns in diameter and five centimeters long, so it
Speaker 9: was like a hair of frozen deuterium, and then it
Speaker 9: spanned an electrode gap and we did basically an exploding
Speaker 9: wire experiment with that. You put a very high current
Speaker 9: through initially insulating deuterium fiber, which rapidly broke down, and
Speaker 9: then the plan was to try to heat it to
Speaker 9: ignition by driving very high current at very short time
Speaker 9: scale through the deuterium wire.
Speaker 1: All right, so clearly you're working on the forefront of
Speaker 1: plasma physics. You're working specifically on technologies that you know
Speaker 1: could change our world if we had this kind of fusion.
Speaker 1: Certainly it would affect the trajectory of technology and the
Speaker 1: human race. But it sounded like you were also interested
Speaker 1: in physics for deeper reasons. I mean, you got into
Speaker 1: it for astronomical curiosity. Does that mean that you also
Speaker 1: like wanted to understand the nature of reality and you know,
Speaker 1: the fundamental fabric of space and time. Where there are
Speaker 1: also those motivations for you.
Speaker 9: You're probably putting me at a higher level of sophistication
Speaker 9: than I deserve. I mean, I was totally intrigued by
Speaker 9: the universe at large, and I think I received a
Speaker 9: telescope when I was four years old as a sonic
Speaker 9: at present, and you know, it was just a passion
Speaker 9: for me to try to see things at the furthest
Speaker 9: distances in the cosmos and to try to understand something
Speaker 9: about the nature of the universe at large. But I
Speaker 9: also knew my own limitations, and I knew that I
Speaker 9: needed to have an income, and the fusion seemed like
Speaker 9: a way to combine things where I would probably be
Speaker 9: able to get a job. People were being hired to
Speaker 9: do a magnetic fusion when I entered the field, and
Speaker 9: it also had something to do with helping the world out,
Speaker 9: And somehow I realized that life is finite and the goal,
Speaker 9: I think is to leave the world in a somewhat
Speaker 9: better position than when we enter it, and working on
Speaker 9: fusion seemed like a way to do that. And this
Speaker 9: is not at all to be critical of people who
Speaker 9: do what I would call pure physics, but there was
Speaker 9: no great loss to the world of physics by me
Speaker 9: focusing in a more applied area. It seemed to me
Speaker 9: to combine my interest in understanding things that nobody understood previously,
Speaker 9: you know, really doing novel experiments, but also with an
Speaker 9: end goal of something that could be useful.
Speaker 1: All right, this is a fascinating conversation and I'd love
Speaker 1: to hear some more, but first we have to take
Speaker 1: a quick break. Okay, we're back and we're talking with
Speaker 1: rabbi and physicist Jack Schlapter, who leads the Los Alamos
Speaker 1: Jewish Center and works at Los Almos National Laboratory as
Speaker 1: a physicist. Yeah, fascinating. One of the reasons I ask
Speaker 1: is because I'm curious about how physics for you connects
Speaker 1: with a desire to understand the universe and your sort
Speaker 1: of picture of the origin of creation and all of
Speaker 1: this stuff. Because I'd like to understand how you ended
Speaker 1: up also becoming a rabbi. I mean, we're a scientist,
Speaker 1: you're a physicist. You're working on practical details, manipulating the
Speaker 1: universe using our understanding of its laws and then later
Speaker 1: in life you became a rabbi. Is that something that
Speaker 1: came out of physics or that's something that came out
Speaker 1: of your feelings about Judaism and you know the role
Speaker 1: of Judaism and telling us how to live with each
Speaker 1: other and how to treat other people.
Speaker 9: So it's going to be a little bit embarrassing to
Speaker 9: be completely honest about it. But it's all serendipity, you know.
Speaker 9: I just happened to be in the right place at
Speaker 9: the right time for my life to end up with
Speaker 9: the trajectory that it had. As I said earlier, I
Speaker 9: came to Los Almos as a graduate student, and I
Speaker 9: actually completed my PhD here at Los Alamos. My thesis
Speaker 9: advisor had been a graduate student at Los Almos in
Speaker 9: the fifties, and then his first staff position after he
Speaker 9: got his PhD, which I think would have been maybe
Speaker 9: the late fifties, was also at Los Almos, so he
Speaker 9: still had a connection to the laboratory when I was
Speaker 9: working for him at UC San Diego, and we had
Speaker 9: worked on an experiment. And you can appreciate this, and
Speaker 9: I think any of your listeners, especially in experimental physics,
Speaker 9: can appreciate this. Had worked on an experiment for four
Speaker 9: years and it got us nowhere, and it was basically
Speaker 9: starting from scratch. My thesis advisor had a track record
Speaker 9: of people taking nine and ten years to complete their PhDs,
Speaker 9: and that was sort of hanging over my head. You know,
Speaker 9: Oh my goodness, I'm going to be following that same trajectory.
Speaker 9: So I had spent four years with It was a diagnostic.
Speaker 9: It was a laser scattering diagnostic to look at very
Speaker 9: low amplitude waves in a TOKAMAC, which is the kind
Speaker 9: of a leading magnetic plasma confinement device to configurations. And
Speaker 9: so we had this diagnostic and we took it up
Speaker 9: to UCLA where there was a small tokamac and we
Speaker 9: made it the diagnostic to the tokamac and we scattered
Speaker 9: light off of the plasma and we got no signal
Speaker 9: at all. And so here was four years of graduate
Speaker 9: work going nowhere, and my thesis advisor, rather than trying
Speaker 9: to through the laser system or do something to increase
Speaker 9: the sensitivity of the detector, he decided to change gears altogether.
Speaker 9: And he got interested in this dense z pinch approach
Speaker 9: that had been pioneered at Los Almos So he sent
Speaker 9: me to Los Almos for the summer, and the idea
Speaker 9: was to learn something about this approach and then come
Speaker 9: back to San Diego and we would build an experiment
Speaker 9: and we would pursue that. He was going to be
Speaker 9: applying for a grant while I was learning some techniques,
Speaker 9: and it all sounded good on paper, but it did
Speaker 9: look like this ten year trajectory might be my career.
Speaker 9: So while I was at Los Almos two things of importance. One,
Speaker 9: I came to the quick realization that here was a
Speaker 9: working experiment and I could take data now and not
Speaker 9: wait to build something and start from scratch at San Diego.
Speaker 9: So that was piece number one, and that's what worked out.
Speaker 9: He didn't get the grant, by the way, so it's
Speaker 9: really lucky that I ended up staying at Los Almos.
Speaker 9: Number two, though, and quite an unexpected change for me,
Speaker 9: is that I came to Los Almos not knowing a
Speaker 9: single person in town, and I showed up here. And
Speaker 9: this was in the days where it was not so
Speaker 9: common for people to be here as students. It's much
Speaker 9: more common today. But back when I came, I was
Speaker 9: a little bit of a loaner, and in my entire division.
Speaker 9: I was the only student who was working at the time,
Speaker 9: and I thought, Okay, I don't know anybody in town.
Speaker 9: I could do worse than go to the synagogue and
Speaker 9: meet a few people there. And I had probably not
Speaker 9: really done much actively in a synagogue for about a
Speaker 9: decade at that point. So I went to the synagogue
Speaker 9: in Los Almos. People were very friendly and welcoming. And
Speaker 9: then one other quirk that was to my advantage is
Speaker 9: that I could sing reasonably well. And I don't know
Speaker 9: if it's the altitude in Los Almos or the high
Speaker 9: physics population or what, but most people cannot sing well here.
Speaker 9: In fact, it generally does not sound good in the
Speaker 9: synegague unless somebody's really leading it and pushing everybody along
Speaker 9: to be in.
Speaker 1: The same Let me interrupt you with a comment and
Speaker 1: a question. First of all, you're being way too modest.
Speaker 1: You can't just sing reasonably well. You have a beautiful voice,
Speaker 1: like really, it's an incredible baritone. It made a huge
Speaker 1: impression on me as a kid as part of those services.
Speaker 1: But also I just wanted to clarify you're saying you
Speaker 1: joined the Los Almost Jewish community as a way to
Speaker 1: find community you're looking for people to connect with, maybe
Speaker 1: people with a similar background. Was it a social environment
Speaker 1: and a community you're looking for, or also a religious experience?
Speaker 9: I mean, to be completely honest, it was not for
Speaker 9: the religious experience. It was not because I had some
Speaker 9: spiritual craving. It was not because I wanted to connect
Speaker 9: with my heritage. It really was a social thing, and
Speaker 9: because I knew nobody in town, and there weren't very
Speaker 9: many students anyway in town. It's not like I could
Speaker 9: easily go meet people my age. I tried the synagogue
Speaker 9: route and what happened for me there, and I think
Speaker 9: it's probably a confluence of being at the right place
Speaker 9: and the right stage of life. I realized that I
Speaker 9: did not know anything about Judaism. I knew some of
Speaker 9: the mechanics. I knew, I could read Hebrew well, I
Speaker 9: could chant the prayers, but I really didn't understand the
Speaker 9: depth and profundity of Judaism. Because I had the arrogance
Speaker 9: of a physicist to reject things as being anachronistic or mythical,
Speaker 9: and I just didn't know what it was that I
Speaker 9: was throwing out. So I went through the usual thing.
Speaker 9: I had a very solid grounding in the mechanics of
Speaker 9: Judaism through a conservative synagogue where I grew up in
Speaker 9: a suburb of Chicago. And then, kind of like many
Speaker 9: people in my age demographic, I sort of left synagogue
Speaker 9: life after I became bar Mitzvah. So for about a decade,
Speaker 9: I did almost nothing Jewishly, And when I came to
Speaker 9: Los Almos and I started going to the synagogue, There's
Speaker 9: a few things that happened. One, I started questioning, you know,
Speaker 9: why are these things here, why do we do these
Speaker 9: things this way? And is there a logic to it?
Speaker 9: And I found out, you know, with my usual arrogance,
Speaker 9: that I had thought there was no logic to anything,
Speaker 9: but there's actually great wisdom in Jewish tradition. That was
Speaker 9: number one. Number two is that, as you may remember,
Speaker 9: there was a rabbi in Santa Fe, Rabbi Lendard Hellman
Speaker 9: of Blessed Memory, who used to come up periodically to
Speaker 9: Los Almos. And I have in my notes at home
Speaker 9: the materials from a class that he taught in nineteen
Speaker 9: eighty one, just an adult education series that he drove
Speaker 9: up to Los Almos and taught some classes. And I
Speaker 9: started realizing you know, I don't know anything about what
Speaker 9: I would call and I don't mean this in an
Speaker 9: X rated sense adult Judaism. I had experienced Judaism as
Speaker 9: a child, and what I had been taught was appropriate
Speaker 9: for a child, but nobody ever really explained to me
Speaker 9: there's a lot of wisdom here on interpersonal relations, on
Speaker 9: societal mechanics, and Judaism really has a lot to offer
Speaker 9: that I didn't realize. And even today, I learned new
Speaker 9: things every day. I realized that there just is a
Speaker 9: lot to Judaism that I love to expose other adults
Speaker 9: to because I think they share that same rejection of
Speaker 9: things that they don't know what it is quite that
Speaker 9: they're rejecting. And so I just was very, very lucky
Speaker 9: to connect with the Jewish Center for Social Reasons, but
Speaker 9: then to realize that if I'm going to lead some things,
Speaker 9: it would be good if I knew what it was
Speaker 9: that I was trying to lead. And the more I
Speaker 9: looked into it, the more I realized there's a lot
Speaker 9: to this.
Speaker 1: So I think that's really fascinating because it's sort of
Speaker 1: an unusual trajectory. I think a lot of people learn
Speaker 1: about Judaism as a child, and if they have it
Speaker 1: as an adult, it's because they grew up in the
Speaker 1: tradition and they learned it and they sort of became
Speaker 1: part of who they were. I think it's more rare
Speaker 1: for people to end up embracing this in adulthood, especially
Speaker 1: if they have such a strong, rigorous scientific background. And
Speaker 1: so that's the reason I'm very curious to hear from
Speaker 1: your perspective, how do these two things live in your
Speaker 1: mind simultaneously? Are these two different parts of your life
Speaker 1: the way like a physicist can also be a father
Speaker 1: or a basketball player, and those don't have to necessarily
Speaker 1: be in conflict with being a physicist. How do these
Speaker 1: two things accommodate each other.
Speaker 9: That's an excellent question, And maybe I haven't fully resolved
Speaker 9: that for myself, but I think that physics is a
Speaker 9: questioning discipline, maybe to the point of distraction. My wife
Speaker 9: is not a scientist at all, and she finds it
Speaker 9: frustrating at times that I need to know why that
Speaker 9: you know, I will ask why is this? And why
Speaker 9: do we do this this way? And why do you
Speaker 9: suppose your coffee stayed hot in the tall cup more
Speaker 9: than a stick hot in the short cup, and maybe
Speaker 9: we need to do some experiments here I can drive
Speaker 9: people to distraction, I think of asking questions like that.
Speaker 9: But for me, Judaism also encourages a questioning attitude. It's
Speaker 9: not a dogma as such the way I view it,
Speaker 9: and I probably should have caveated everything in our conversation
Speaker 9: here that there is no authority in GDA the way
Speaker 9: there might be in other traditions, such that we're not
Speaker 9: obligated to think a certain way. And asking questions I
Speaker 9: think is inherent in Judaism, just like it is in physics.
Speaker 9: So for me, the issues that Judaism addresses are different issues,
Speaker 9: perhaps than what a physicist looks at. Of course, things
Speaker 9: like the origin of the universe and the nature of
Speaker 9: interaction are bread and butter for physicists and have some
Speaker 9: overlap with Judaism. But I think by and large Judaism
Speaker 9: is a way of life. It's not in conflict for
Speaker 9: me with the rational world, if you will, the way
Speaker 9: it might be for people from other traditions.
Speaker 1: I see. That's fascinating. So the things you take from
Speaker 1: Judaism are how we should treat each other, how we
Speaker 1: should live our lives, how we should feel about each other,
Speaker 1: not necessarily like the literal truth of the creation of
Speaker 1: the universe.
Speaker 9: Yes, and I think, look texts that are thousands of
Speaker 9: years old, who wrote them, and what languages used and
Speaker 9: what metaphors are used obviously shifts over time. And let's
Speaker 9: just take the Five Books of Moses, which is a
Speaker 9: central text, as you well know in Judaism and in
Speaker 9: other traditions as well. The Five Books of Moses have
Speaker 9: been central to Jewish tradition for millennia, and very wise
Speaker 9: people have looked at those texts and interpreted them and
Speaker 9: looked for meaning in those texts. And whether we know
Speaker 9: exactly how those texts were composed, or who wrote them,
Speaker 9: or the details of their composition, the commentary alone brings
Speaker 9: us in touch with brilliant people from the Jewish past
Speaker 9: who offer insights in a way that's meaningful to me
Speaker 9: at least. So I tend not to dwell so much
Speaker 9: on the issue of is this the hand of God?
Speaker 9: And literal text, but it's text that can serve as
Speaker 9: a springboard for deep inquiry and meaningful discussion. And I
Speaker 9: think meaningful life a meaningful way to live our lives
Speaker 9: without getting into the details about when it says the
Speaker 9: world was created in six days? What does that mean?
Speaker 9: I mean, obviously, from a scientific point of view, I
Speaker 9: can't take those texts literally. But I'm not the first
Speaker 9: to say that. Within a very traditional Jewish context, there
Speaker 9: are commentators from many, many, many years ago who well
Speaker 9: understood that this text is not to be taken literally,
Speaker 9: and that that's not a problem. So I don't get
Speaker 9: hung up on those things. And as you know, we
Speaker 9: have an annual cycle for reading the Five Books of Moses,
Speaker 9: and last week we were in the Book of Exodus,
Speaker 9: in a section that's filled with a bunch of detailed
Speaker 9: laws about society, one of which is something about cooking
Speaker 9: an animal maybe it's a small goat in the milk
Speaker 9: of its mother. And this is an interesting text because
Speaker 9: it's actually repeated verbatim three times in the Five Books
Speaker 9: of Moses. That's unusual. That suggests there's some importance to it,
Speaker 9: because why else would you repeat it three times. And
Speaker 9: we had at the synagogue that I lead in Santa
Speaker 9: Fe a half hour discussion about why that text is
Speaker 9: there and what does it have to teach us? And
Speaker 9: I think there are many incredibly valuable messages from that text,
Speaker 9: whether somebody chooses to live their life following that in
Speaker 9: either a literal sense or in maybe the more expanded
Speaker 9: traditional sense, what somebody does with their own dietary practices
Speaker 9: can be put aside for a bit as we explore
Speaker 9: what value is there too a statement like that. And
Speaker 9: I thought it was a wonderful discussion. We had somebody
Speaker 9: talking about health reasons, we had somebody talking about idolatrous
Speaker 9: practice of related people who were contemporaneous. We had people
Speaker 9: talking about reasons that evoke a care for animals in
Speaker 9: us as human beings. It was a very wide ranging discussion,
Speaker 9: all of which are commentaries that come from the early commentators.
Speaker 9: And to me, that was just a beautiful way to
Speaker 9: make that text come alive, to make the text useful,
Speaker 9: and for me, as a practical matter, we incorporate that
Speaker 9: into our practice at home. So I just found that
Speaker 9: a fascinating way to look at an ancient text and
Speaker 9: to derive value from it based on the wisdom of
Speaker 9: people who have looked at it over the millennia.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Yeah, that's very insightful and it makes a
Speaker 1: lot of sense to me. And I want to get
Speaker 1: back to the question of how Judaism teaches us to
Speaker 1: think and to question and to discuss and to explore
Speaker 1: the universe. But before, I just wanted to make one
Speaker 1: clarifying question, which is you're talking about interpreting the Torrahs
Speaker 1: a certain way and not taking it literally and maybe
Speaker 1: using it as a way to motivate the choices we
Speaker 1: make in life. That to me reflects something about the
Speaker 1: specific Jewish tradition that you embraced. But of course there's
Speaker 1: a whole spectrum from orthodox to very reform. Do you
Speaker 1: think that it's possible? And apologies if this is an
Speaker 1: inappropriate question. Have you met anybody who is more in
Speaker 1: the Orthodox side of things who takes literally to be
Speaker 1: truth the story of Genesis and all also has a
Speaker 1: sort of scientific mind, a practicing scientist. Do you know
Speaker 1: anybody who lives that intersection?
Speaker 9: I don't think I do, because the people I know
Speaker 9: who follow what I would call orthodox practice and are
Speaker 9: physical scientists, I don't think look at the text in
Speaker 9: a literal sense either. I don't think they have that
Speaker 9: kind of a dichotomy either. I think people who observe
Speaker 9: what I would call a traditional Jewish life are doing practices,
Speaker 9: But it does not inhibit their rational thinking. So I
Speaker 9: don't know people who we would call literalists who also
Speaker 9: are doing physical science inquiry as part of their daily routine.
Speaker 9: Having said that, I don't know that many people who
Speaker 9: are both scientists and traditional practicing Jews, so I could
Speaker 9: just be not aware of people in that category. But
Speaker 9: I will say my approach to Judaism is that we've
Speaker 9: never been fundamentalist. If fundamentalism is defined as people who
Speaker 9: take the text literally, and I say that with some
Speaker 9: degree of confidence that it's actually applicable in Judaism across
Speaker 9: the board, because some practices, some Jewish practices, and I'd
Speaker 9: have to work to come at a good example, are
Speaker 9: actually at odds with the literal text. And that's because
Speaker 9: Judaism has evolved. It's a multimillennial tradition, and I don't
Speaker 9: think we've ever really been fundamentalists as such. I know
Speaker 9: you know this stuff, but it may be valuable for
Speaker 9: your listeners. There was a movement, one of many schisms
Speaker 9: in Jewish history, this one that I'm referring to in
Speaker 9: particular as the Karaite. So this goes back to probably
Speaker 9: around eight hundred of the Common Era, and the Karayites
Speaker 9: I mean literally from their name were fundamentalists. They read
Speaker 9: the text and they used the text as the basis
Speaker 9: for their practice, and they rejected the evolution of Judaism
Speaker 9: through the so called rabbinic period that developed the Talmud.
Speaker 9: They said, this is just made up by human beings.
Speaker 9: This is not what Judaism should be. We need to
Speaker 9: go back to the literal texts. And that was a
Speaker 9: divergence from what is today normative Judaism, and that's not
Speaker 9: Judaism of today. So I think we've always looked at
Speaker 9: the text as a basis, but not as a dictate
Speaker 9: for how Judaism should be practiced.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's really fascinating, especially in the context of my
Speaker 1: own family. I don't know how much you met or
Speaker 1: knew my father, because he had basically drifted away from
Speaker 1: Judaism by the time we moved to Los Alamos. But
Speaker 1: he was an Orthodox Rabbi before we moved to Los
Speaker 1: Alamos and literal believer in the story of Genesis, a
Speaker 1: Young Earth creationist. And I asked him once about why
Speaker 1: he ended up leaving Judaism and working at Los Alamos
Speaker 1: basically as a scientist. He told me that one of
Speaker 1: the things that attracted him to Judaism, something that you mentioned,
Speaker 1: this spirit of debate, of questioning, of arguing, of exploration.
Speaker 1: In the end turned out to be something that really
Speaker 1: frustrated him because instead of building up a picture of
Speaker 1: the universe the way science does, you know, a set
Speaker 1: of laws and ideas that have to be consistent and
Speaker 1: survive experimental tests, he found that Judaism felt more like
Speaker 1: they were sliding away from the revelation, the moment of insight.
Speaker 1: Instead of building up knowledge, we were like grabbing at
Speaker 1: it to avoid losing that inspiration. And for listeners who
Speaker 1: aren't familiar with it, you know, the Jewish tradition has,
Speaker 1: of course Torah, but there's also the oral law that
Speaker 1: you know, Moses heard from God and passed on to
Speaker 1: Joshua and passes on from rabbi to rabbi. And according
Speaker 1: to my father's telling of it, it's difficult to argue
Speaker 1: with a rabbi from a previous generation because they're closer
Speaker 1: to the revelation and therefore have a deeper, more intuitive
Speaker 1: insight to this valuable knowledge that we're sort of sliding
Speaker 1: away from. And to me and I think to him,
Speaker 1: this seemed very different from the scientific approach, where it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter whose idea it was, and old theories can
Speaker 1: be overturned if they fail tests, and every idea has
Speaker 1: to stand on its own, on its merits, of course,
Speaker 1: not on the age or the authority of the thinkers,
Speaker 1: you know. In that sense, scientists are scholars of a
Speaker 1: truth that's still being revealed, rather than an ancient truth
Speaker 1: that we're sort of clinging to. Do you see those
Speaker 1: traditions in conflict the same way to.
Speaker 9: Me, there is a tension. Science generally has the appearance,
Speaker 9: if you will, maybe with some detours, but of sort
Speaker 9: of slowly increasing knowledge with and what you described is
Speaker 9: maybe that as we advance in time, we're drifting away
Speaker 9: from some revelatory experience and losing something in the process,
Speaker 9: and so there would be some tension there. And I
Speaker 9: can understand your father grappling with that, And maybe this
Speaker 9: touches for me on this huge issue about is Judaism
Speaker 9: even a religion. I think of the revelatory experience that
Speaker 9: Mount Sinai has described in the Five Books of Moses
Speaker 9: as the formation of the Jewish people, and that's what
Speaker 9: was the singular event, if you will, that was what
Speaker 9: was revealed was the revelation that there is an identifiable
Speaker 9: Jewish people. The first book of the five Books of Moses,
Speaker 9: the Book of Genesis, follows an individual family or actually
Speaker 9: some individuals, and then the creation of somebody who is
Speaker 9: thought of as the progenitor of the Jewish people, but
Speaker 9: it's not a Jewish people as such, and it's the
Speaker 9: exodus from Egypt and the revelatory experience at Sinai that
Speaker 9: really forms the Jewish people. And so, yes, we've drifted
Speaker 9: away from when the people were created as a people,
Speaker 9: But have we drifted away from the teachings of that period.
Speaker 9: I think the teaching of that period includes the fact
Speaker 9: that it's given to us to learn now, and so
Speaker 9: we're doing that learning by doing our physics or doing
Speaker 9: whatever it is that we do in our lives. We're
Speaker 9: advancing our knowledge in accordance with what the tradition would
Speaker 9: tell me we're supposed to be doing. So I don't
Speaker 9: quite see the dichotomy. Though I totally understand the tension
Speaker 9: that your father felt, I don't know that for me
Speaker 9: it's the same friction, if you will.
Speaker 1: Yeah, fascinating, Well, I think it's not so hard to
Speaker 1: see physics and Judaism in conflict because they do have
Speaker 1: different traditions of exploration, and of course the stories they
Speaker 1: tell are different. But I think it's more interesting to
Speaker 1: look for harmony, and I really appreciate the way you
Speaker 1: find a resonance between the two traditions. So I spend
Speaker 1: some time trying to think about the connection between these
Speaker 1: two things and if they can serve a similar purpose
Speaker 1: in our lives, because for me, physics is not just
Speaker 1: about the knowledge, it's about the way we think, and
Speaker 1: Judaism and religion are not just about the stories of
Speaker 1: the creation of the universe, but about the way we
Speaker 1: treat each other and all this is really about what
Speaker 1: is it like to be human in the world and
Speaker 1: to ask questions. So I was thinking about the intersection
Speaker 1: between the two, and for me, one of the appealing
Speaker 1: aspects of religion, at least as a child, because I
Speaker 1: mostly have a child's view of Judaism was the sense
Speaker 1: of order and purpose that it brings, like, maybe you
Speaker 1: don't understand everything, but there's supposed to be a reason
Speaker 1: why things happen. Somebody who's in charge is a purpose
Speaker 1: in an order of the universe is not just capricious
Speaker 1: and cruel. And I wonder sometimes if my desire to
Speaker 1: go into physics is a desire to find a reason
Speaker 1: and an order in the universe. I mean, maybe physics
Speaker 1: provides a different kind of comfort. You know, it's cold
Speaker 1: and it's mindless, the laws of physics, but at least
Speaker 1: it's telling you that there's a sense to the universe, right,
Speaker 1: that there's order, There is a reason things happen. The
Speaker 1: reason is it follows these laws of physics. In that sense,
Speaker 1: I can find some sort of comfort in physics, not
Speaker 1: exactly the same as one could in judaism, but to me,
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of a resonance there. Do you
Speaker 1: feel the same way. Do you see the same overlap
Speaker 1: and sort of the role of these two things in
Speaker 1: our lives.
Speaker 9: That's very interesting how you state that. And I agree
Speaker 9: that the laws of the universe that we uncover exploring
Speaker 9: the world through physics do give us some comfort. I
Speaker 9: few will that things are not just happening willy nilly.
Speaker 9: That you know, we're not just going to float off
Speaker 9: the surface of the Earth at a moment, because the
Speaker 9: law of gravity dictates that things work a certain way.
Speaker 9: But I actually think there's another thing that we haven't
Speaker 9: touched on that's important and shows that both physics and
Speaker 9: judaism have things to offer, but they're not necessarily the same.
Speaker 9: And I'm probably doing a terrible job here of paraphrasing
Speaker 9: what I think I remember reading from the great physicist
Speaker 9: Richard Feinman. Physics does not say anything really about ethics.
Speaker 9: It doesn't say how you should treat somebody. And in
Speaker 9: that sense, judaism is answering different questions than physics is answering.
Speaker 9: Physics can tell you what the implication would be if
Speaker 9: you do a certain thing, but it doesn't say whether
Speaker 9: that's good or bad. It doesn't do a judgment if
Speaker 9: you will, And I think maybe adds that extra dimension
Speaker 9: about ethics, about the proper thing to do, not just
Speaker 9: the consequence of doing something, but what's right and what's wrong.
Speaker 9: And I think that's very important to navigate the world
Speaker 9: in a healthy way.
Speaker 1: Hold that thought. We have to take another break. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're back, and I'm talking to Jack Schlackter, physicists at
Speaker 1: Los Almos and Rabbi of the Los Alamos Jewish Center. No,
Speaker 1: I totally agree, and that actually brings us to our
Speaker 1: next topic, because even if physics doesn't tell us how
Speaker 1: to live our lives, there are enormous potential consequences to
Speaker 1: doing physics. And that, of course is the context of
Speaker 1: Los Alamos, where you discovered your Judaism and where I
Speaker 1: discovered my love for physics. Los Almos and the forty
Speaker 1: and fifties is a town centered on the weapons lab,
Speaker 1: and people who decided to live in this sort of
Speaker 1: bizarre town in the middle of nowhere did it because
Speaker 1: they're passionate about the physics or maybe the larger mission
Speaker 1: of national security. But there's also a significant fraction who
Speaker 1: build this Jewish community. Do you know much about the
Speaker 1: early Jewish community in Los Alamos. Is it made out
Speaker 1: of observant Jews who are also world class physicists, or
Speaker 1: is it also people like you who were just looking
Speaker 1: for some sort of cultural community at the time.
Speaker 9: So my exploration as an amateur historian into the Jewish
Speaker 9: origins of Los Almos back to the days of the
Speaker 9: Manhattan Project nineteen forty three to forty five suggest and
Speaker 9: I titled a talk that I prepared once in kind
Speaker 9: of a tongue in cheek intentional title Jews in theory,
Speaker 9: meaning the Jews in theoretical division, but also that they
Speaker 9: were Jews in theory because very few, if any, were
Speaker 9: what I would call practicing Jews with a deep religious
Speaker 9: commitment to Jewish practice. I think by and large they
Speaker 9: were secular Jews. That doesn't mean that they were hiding
Speaker 9: their Jewishness at all, I think for them, certainly, in
Speaker 9: the midst of fighting World War Two, I think they
Speaker 9: understood full well that there was a threat to the
Speaker 9: Jewish people, and that developing a bomb, which was the
Speaker 9: purpose of the Manhattan Project, was in part motivated by
Speaker 9: the need to be protective of the Jewish people. There
Speaker 9: are some fascinating individuals. I mean, talk about we're now
Speaker 9: distant from the giants of yesteryear. Every time I look
Speaker 9: in depth at an individual Jewish scientist from the Manhattan
Speaker 9: Project time I'm struck with what amazing individuals these were.
Speaker 9: One of them, in particular, who comes to mind was
Speaker 9: Joseph Rotblot, who went on to win the Nobel Prize
Speaker 9: in Peace. But he came to the laboratory, barely came
Speaker 9: to the laboratory from Warsaw, Poland, leaving Warsaw a few
Speaker 9: weeks before September one, nineteen thirty nine, his wife was
Speaker 9: in recovery from some illness, I don't remember what, and
Speaker 9: the plan was for her to join him, and then
Speaker 9: September first came, she never joined him. He spent time
Speaker 9: while at Los almost desperately trying to find out what
Speaker 9: had happened to her. She did actually die in a
Speaker 9: concentration camp, it's my understanding, but he couldn't find that
Speaker 9: out for quite some time, and he eventually went on
Speaker 9: to put his effort into peace and was the recipient
Speaker 9: of the Nobel Prize in Peace. So it's an interesting story,
Speaker 9: and his Jewishness was probably not what we would call
Speaker 9: traditional Orthodox's practice, but he knew better than anybody the
Speaker 9: horrors of the Second World War and tragically lost his
Speaker 9: wife and probably others in his family as well.
Speaker 1: And there certainly were a lot of Jews in Los
Speaker 1: Almo's participating in important roles in the Manhattan Project. But
Speaker 1: there seems to be also a larger connection between Judaism
Speaker 1: and physicists. Like somehow, there are a lot of physicists
Speaker 1: who are Jews, and a lot of Jews who are physicists,
Speaker 1: and some huge fraction of the Nobel Prize winners in
Speaker 1: physics are Jews, at least culturally. I've heard people say
Speaker 1: that there's a connection between Judaism and physics because Judaism
Speaker 1: has this belief in sort of like an abstract world.
Speaker 1: That's the foundation that the physical world is just a
Speaker 1: reflection of the abstract world. And you can see this
Speaker 1: and how the story of Genesis is told that God
Speaker 1: created the world by speaking, that these words are somehow
Speaker 1: more real than the physical world. They were primary, and
Speaker 1: this kind of thinking lends better to abstract thought and
Speaker 1: therefore to physics. I don't know if you think there's
Speaker 1: any truth in that, If you have any of your
Speaker 1: own theories about why there seems to be at least
Speaker 1: this confluence or this overlap demographically between Jews and physics.
Speaker 9: Well, that's an interesting take on it that I'm not
Speaker 9: sure I had heard before about the comfort level that
Speaker 9: Jews may have with the concept of the abstract, and
Speaker 9: I'll keep that in mind. I will try to remember
Speaker 9: to quote you in fact, because I'm hoping to prepare
Speaker 9: a presentation for May of this year through the Los
Speaker 9: Almos Public Library System, because I think may might be
Speaker 9: Jewish American Heritage Month, and I was asked if I
Speaker 9: would be willing to give a talk, and I wanted
Speaker 9: to narrow it down, and I thought I would narrow
Speaker 9: it down to what seemingly would be a tiny topic,
Speaker 9: which was Jewish American Nobel Physics Prize winners. But that's
Speaker 9: actually a huge talk. And so in trying to answer
Speaker 9: the question why is that a huge topic? I think
Speaker 9: I will keep in mind what you just said. It's
Speaker 9: not what I would have thought of immediately. I actually
Speaker 9: had thought it was more the questioning attitude that is
Speaker 9: inherent in Judaism that lends itself to that same questioning
Speaker 9: attitude in how we look at the world around us.
Speaker 9: And I'm reminded by the way of a wonderful passage
Speaker 9: that is captured in the Hagadad, the text that we
Speaker 9: use that passover at the Fader, the evening ceremony for Passover.
Speaker 9: The Hagadad that the Los Amos Jewish Center has used
Speaker 9: on some occasions includes a passage because there's a section
Speaker 9: in that ceremony where questions are asked and there's a quotation.
Speaker 9: I can picture that on the page where the famous
Speaker 9: Nobel Prize winning Jewish physicist II Robbie shares an anecdote
Speaker 9: from his child, and he says that when the other
Speaker 9: kids would come home from school, their mothers would ask
Speaker 9: them what did you learn today, And when he would
Speaker 9: come home from school, his mother would say, did you
Speaker 9: ask any good questions today? And he believes that that
Speaker 9: was a contributor to his passion for physics and his success.
Speaker 9: It is this idea of asking questions. So I had
Speaker 9: always thought that that might be the primary reason why
Speaker 9: the overlap between physicists and Jews might be higher than
Speaker 9: you would expect. But I like what you say about
Speaker 9: the abstract also, I think that's equally interesting.
Speaker 1: Well, you, Sash probably credit my father. That was definitely
Speaker 1: an idea of his. But to me, physics is a
Speaker 1: reflection of a search for the underlying truth of the world.
Speaker 1: And you know, the structure, the mathematical nature of the
Speaker 1: laws makes us wonder if we're seeing the structure of
Speaker 1: the universe itself or whether we're just reflecting our own minds.
Speaker 1: But to me, it definitely is a hunt for those
Speaker 1: fundamental foundations with intellectual girders of reality. My last question
Speaker 1: for you is also about history and the Manhattan project.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if you've seen the movie Oppenheimer, and what
Speaker 1: you think of the portrayal of Los Alamos and Jews
Speaker 1: and physicists. Being a physicist and a Jew in Los Alamos.
Speaker 9: It would be criminal, I think if I had not
Speaker 9: seen the movie. I actually saw the movie twice, and
Speaker 9: I'm not much of a moviegoer, so for me to
Speaker 9: see the movie twice, that's got a lot. And I
Speaker 9: did enjoy the movie. I think it's three hours long,
Speaker 9: but the three hours went by quite quickly for me.
Speaker 9: I thought it was a very effective tool for sharing
Speaker 9: an interesting story. I will tell you that Los Alamos
Speaker 9: went crazy as this film was being produced and prepared
Speaker 9: for release. My wife and I were gone to New
Speaker 9: York for a few years, but we came back into
Speaker 9: town in time to catch some of the filming that
Speaker 9: was taking place in Los Almas, and the town was
Speaker 9: completely in a tizzy over the filming. And then when
Speaker 9: the movie was getting ready to be released, it was
Speaker 9: in even more of a tizzy because there was this
Speaker 9: expectation that we would be inundated with tourists. So in
Speaker 9: conjunction with that, the J. Robert Oppenheimer Memorial committee set
Speaker 9: up a series of talks, and I was asked by
Speaker 9: the chair of the committee if I would give a
Speaker 9: talk about Oppenheimer and his Jewishness. And I thought about
Speaker 9: that for a bit, and I decided to modify the topic,
Speaker 9: and I ended up speaking about two Jewish people, Oppenheimer
Speaker 9: and Lewis Straws, and the contrast between the two because
Speaker 9: of their different approaches to Judaism. It just seemed like
Speaker 9: an intriguing topic to me, and I gave that talk
Speaker 9: two weeks before the film was released, not knowing that
Speaker 9: Straws played such an important role in the movie, and
Speaker 9: I think that was fortuitous because I just happened to
Speaker 9: again guess that this might be interesting. The movie did
Speaker 9: not make a huge deal about the Jewishness of either
Speaker 9: of those two individuals. Those who had heard my talk
Speaker 9: before they saw the movie said that it gave them
Speaker 9: a little more insight to some lines that might have
Speaker 9: slipped past them, or some schemes that might have gone
Speaker 9: by too quickly. Otherwise that they were prepared for paying
Speaker 9: attention to the Jewish aspects. I don't think it was
Speaker 9: a major part of the movie, but for me, it's
Speaker 9: another interesting dimension of the movie that the Jewishness of
Speaker 9: not just Oppenheimer, but Oppenheimer and Straws and Einstein and
Speaker 9: the list goes on. Of course, Hans Beta was Jewish
Speaker 9: by birth, though his family converted, I think, and Keller
Speaker 9: was Jewish. You know that all these people were Jewish,
Speaker 9: and there was some aspect of that that must have
Speaker 9: been underlying what was going on. I think the movie
Speaker 9: probably appropriately did not make that a major theme, but
Speaker 9: it's there, and I think it adds to our understanding
Speaker 9: and appreciation of that period of history to know something
Speaker 9: about the Jewishness. And I'll just say, in a nutshell,
Speaker 9: Oppenheimer had a very conflicted understanding of his Jewishness, which
Speaker 9: he inherited from his parents and his upbringing at the
Speaker 9: Ethical Cultural School in New York, and Straws had a
Speaker 9: quite different understanding of his Jewishness. He made his way
Speaker 9: successfully as a businessman in a world that was pretty
Speaker 9: anti Semitic at the time, and so he wore his
Speaker 9: Judaism proudly. Oppenheimer, I think more or less did his Judaism,
Speaker 9: and I think that was at least one dimension of
Speaker 9: the clash between the two. That was the tragic arc
Speaker 9: of the movie of both of them rising to great
Speaker 9: heights and then both of them falling down afterwards, Oppenheimer
Speaker 9: because of the loss of his security clearance and Straws
Speaker 9: because the nomination to the Cabinet Physicition failed.
Speaker 1: Fascinating. Thanks very much for sharing your thoughts, and thanks
Speaker 1: very much for sharing your personal reflections on living life
Speaker 1: as a physicist and as a Jew. And thank you
Speaker 1: very much for helping shape my Jewish identity. Your role
Speaker 1: in that community there definitely changed my appreciation of Judaism
Speaker 1: and specifically Jewish songs and melodies.
Speaker 9: Oh, I'm so pleased to get that feedback, Daniel, and
Speaker 9: I really do appreciate that. And I am continuing to sing.
Speaker 9: I do some secular singing now as well, because I
Speaker 9: am retired from the laboratory, and it's just a great
Speaker 9: joy for me. It was just a tremendous gift to
Speaker 9: have been given a good singing voice, and I've just
Speaker 9: enjoyed immensely the opportunity to sing both in the synagogue
Speaker 9: and in a secular choir. Just been grateful.
Speaker 1: Well, it was sort of a canonical part of my experience,
Speaker 1: and when I went on to other cities and other
Speaker 1: Jewish communities. I was sort of looking around and I
Speaker 1: was like, where's there, Jack Schlachter. There's nobody here with
Speaker 1: a beautiful baritone to lead these songs. I really felt
Speaker 1: like there was something lacking in the experience, and so
Speaker 1: thank you. But you also sort of cursed me.
Speaker 9: Oh no, how is that?
Speaker 1: Nothing?
Speaker 8: Ever?
Speaker 1: Felt like it matched up to my childhood Jewish experience.
Speaker 9: After that, well, I know that you have a wonderful
Speaker 9: position and have a very successful career, but you knows
Speaker 9: almost is still looking for physicists, and so maybe you
Speaker 9: can get over that curse by coming back sometime.
Speaker 1: We'll see. Well, thanks very much for spending some time
Speaker 1: talking to us about these really fascinating topics. Really appreciate it.
Speaker 9: My pleasure really was a distinct privilege and honor to
Speaker 9: connect with you. Thank you so much for reaching out,
Speaker 9: and I do hope that we cross paths at some
Speaker 9: point as well.
Speaker 1: So that was my conversation with Jack Schlackter, which was
Speaker 1: fascinating for me personally because I haven't spoken to Jack
Speaker 1: in thirty years or so, but he played a big
Speaker 1: role in shaping my Jewish cultural identity, and so it's
Speaker 1: fascinating to me to have physics in common with him
Speaker 1: as well. Thanks very much for listening to this episode
Speaker 1: about this tricky topic that connects physics to larger issues
Speaker 1: in our lives. I hope you learned something and enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: Thanks very much. For more science and curiosity, come find
Speaker 1: us on social media where we answer questions and post videos.
Speaker 1: We're on Twitter, disc Org, Instant and now TikTok. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain the
Speaker 1: Universe is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.