Martin Rees interview: Elon Musk might spawn the primary post-humans
Astronomer Royal Martin Rees discusses essentially the most extraordinary facets of his distinguished profession, from black holes to billionaires in area and the prospects of life past Earth
David Inventory
AS ASTRONOMER Royal, you must assume Martin Rees isn’t in it for the cash: £100 a yr is the reward for advising the UK monarch on all issues astronomical.
It is only one of many hats Rees has worn, although – together with president of each the Royal Astronomical Society and the Royal Society and, since 2005, as an appointed member of the UK’s Home of Lords. His work as a authorities adviser and public face of science has come on the again of an equally distinguished profession in cosmology stretching again greater than half a century, encompassing seminal analysis on the character of the massive bang and black holes, excessive phenomena all through the cosmos, the seek for life elsewhere within the universe and, latterly, humanity’s personal destiny inside it.
Richard Webb: If you began out in cosmology, the concept that the universe started in an enormous bang wasn’t even accepted science. How have issues modified previously half-century?
Martin Rees: Amazingly. Once I began analysis within the mid-Sixties, the [late] astronomer Fred Hoyle was nonetheless advocating the concept of a regular state universe that had existed from eternal to eternal. Proof for the massive bang idea was very weak. The controversy was settled in most individuals’s minds in 1964 when cosmic microwave background radiation was discovered – a relic of a sizzling, dense, early section of the universe.
It was a great time to be beginning analysis. Objects akin to black holes and neutron stars have been being discovered the place Einstein’s common relativity was vital, not only a tiny correction as it's in our photo voltaic system. On the …
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