Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe - Are physics and religion in harmony or conflict?

Episode Date: April 4, 2024

Daniel talks to Rabbi Jack Schlacter, a physicist at Los Alamos, about the movie Oppenheimer and the connections and conflicts between physics and judaism.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an IHeart podcast. Why are TSA rules so confusing? You got a hood of you. I'll take it all! I'm Manny. I'm Noah. This is Devin. And we're best friends and journalists with a new podcast called No Such Thing, where we get to the bottom of questions like that.

Why are you screaming? I can't expect what to do. Now, if the rule was the same, go off on me. I deserve it. You know, lock him up. Listen to No Such Thing on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. No such thing.

I'm Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, host of the Psychology Podcast. Here's a clip from an upcoming conversation about how to be a better you. When you think about emotion regulation, you're not going to choose an adaptive strategy which is more effortful to use unless you think there's a good outcome. Avoidance is easier. Ignoring is easier. Denials is easier.

Complex problem solving takes effort. Listen to the psychology podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's start with a quick puzzle. The answer is Ken Jennings' appearance on The Puzzler with A.J. Jacobs. The question is, what is the most entertaining listening experience in podcast land? Jeopardy-truthers believe in... I guess they would be Kenspiracy theorists. That's right.

They gave you the answers, and you still blew it. Puzzler, listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA. Right now in a backlog will be identified in our lifetime. On the new podcast, America's Crime Lab, every case has a story to tell. And the DNA holds the truth. He never thought he was going to get caught. And I just looked at my computer screen.

I was just like, ah, gotcha. This technology is already solving so many cases. Listen to America's Crime Lab on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A lot of you out there love physics and love history, and so probably lots of you went to see the recent movie Oppenheimer, may be the biggest blockbuster ever starring physicists. And some of you who know that I grew up in Los Alamos, that I went to Los Alamos high school and my parents worked in the weapons program at the lab, wrote in to ask me, what did I think of the movie?

What's it like to see your hometown portrayed on the big screen in such dramatic fashion? Well, the answer is, I decided to go see Barbie instead. Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, a professor at UC Irvine, and I've been supported by the United States Department of Energy since I was about five years old. My parents worked at Los Alamos National Labs, and so the weapons program basically put food on our table, paid for my education. Later on, when I grew up to be a physicist, I actually wanted to avoid the moral quagmire of designing weapons of mass destruction. So I ended up sliding over to the much less practically useful field of particle physics, which of course is still funded by the Department of Energy. Maybe the folks over there believe that eventually the Higgs boson will have some practical use, or maybe they just love understanding the universe. Either way, I'm a very grateful lifelong recipient of government funding, from building weapons to

exploring and understanding the nature of the universe. And welcome to the podcast, Daniel and Jorge, explain the universe, where we dive deep into the issues of physics, whether or not they have practical use. We think that understanding the universe has deep inherent value, to me, to you and all of future humanity, who are desperate to understand how the world works, what the laws are, that govern it at the smallest scale, how those come together to make our universe, whether it is in the end following some plan, some system, some reason, some logic that we can deduce that we can understand and that hopefully on this podcast we can explain to you. So we ask all of the biggest

questions. We don't shy away from those that have philosophical consequences or deep implications for the nature of our lives. That's why we do physics because we seek to understand our place in the universe. And when I was growing up in Los Alamos, you know, physics was in the air. There were physicists everywhere. People were doing physics all over the place. You know, it's a small mountain town, and it's really dominated by the lab. I remember my mother went for jury duty one time, and a standard question the lawyers ask is, who here has an advanced degree? But everybody in the room raised their hand. So they couldn't just disqualify the scientists like they usually do. Something else that's interesting about Los Alamos, beyond the standard story that it's

marinated in science, is the number of places of worship. You drive around Los Alamos, you see lots and lots of different kinds of churches and temples and synagogues. And it's because people come from all over the world. And so there's this incredible diversity of places of worship. It's fascinating to me how people come there for the science, but end up seeking out their cultural and religious communities. And this, of course, played a big role in the movie Oppenheimer, the religious identities of some of the scientists, the role that played in their fight against

the Nazis and their Jewish identity. And Los Alamos, of course, includes a vibrant Jewish community. When I was there, there was a very lively population of Jews, and that community was something I was a part of growing up. My Eagle Scout project when I was 17 was repainting the Los Alamos Jewish Community Center. And more broadly, there's a fascinating connection between physics and Judaism. We all know, of course, that there are lots of famous Jewish physicists. You got Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr had Jewish background, Pauley, Born, Beta, Block, Landau, Robbie Wigner, Von Neumann, Richard Feynman, Julian Schwinger, Murray Galmon, Stephen Weinberg,

Oppenheimer himself, Edward Teller, Ed Witten, Lisa Meitner, all of these folks have Jewish backgrounds. And beyond the anecdotal list of famous names, if you look at the Nobel Prize winners in physics, fully a quarter of them are Jews. So it makes you wonder, like, what's the connection there between Judaism and physics? Are Jews drawn to physics for some reason? And is it a cultural or a religious connection? Do the folks who are trying to unravel the mysteries of the universe to reveal the laws that govern it,

the cold, heartless logic of the universe, also believe the stories of Judaism? how do they reconcile these two things in their mind? Do they divide them up into separate questions? Do they find them to be in conflict? And so today on the podcast, we're going to be exploring the question. Are physics and Judaism in harmony or in conflict? This is a bit of a departure for us, where we usually dig deep into the details of the physics.

But often on the podcast, we are exploring the consequences of what physics has learned, the philosophical implications. If the universe works this way, what does it mean for me, how I live my life, what I should do with myself? Because physics is more than just understanding how the world works. It gives us a sense of our place, learning that the earth is not the center of the universe, that there are billions of planets like ours out there, gives us a context for our lives and tells us something about how we should live it, which of course is something religion also speaks to. So this is a potentially tricky topic, but we're

going to try to tread sensitively and explore the overlap and understand the connection between these two ideas that are so important to so many people. And so of course, I was curious what everybody out there thought about these things. Are listeners to this podcast religious? Do they find religion and physics to be in harmony or in conflict? So I went out there to our community volunteers and I asked them, are physics and religion in harmony or in conflict? So think about it for a moment yourself, what do you think about this difficult question? Here's what our listeners had to say. The church has done awful things to scientists, so I would say physics and religion are in conflict. I think if we compartmentalize and let religion help us with our spirituality,

our faith, community, and help us get a structure in life, et cetera, while we let physics handle why and how of the universe and explain all the things we see around us well they are in harmony sometimes and are in conflict sometimes especially around the newton period so i'm going to say they're in harmonious conflict they don't need to be in conflict but over the last few hundred maybe even uh last millennia they've been pushed to be in conflict with each other I believe that physics and religion is in conflict because physics is based on scientific evidence and in the nicest way possible. Religion is based on fairy tales and what people believe to be true. I'd say it depends on your religion and how deeply you believe in it.

If you believe most of your religion, then they're probably. then I'd say they're in conflict, but some people just believe that some sort of higher power started the universe, and then that could be in harmony, as long as you say that that creator didn't interfere after that. Yes. Yes, they are. It's both. Let me put it this way.

I love physics with my brain. It's good for the mind. I love Jesus with my heart. He's good for the soul. These two things live on total opposite ends of my being. Sometimes it's hard to reconcile my interest in both. They can butt heads on certain topics. But at other times, each one enhances the beauty of the other.

They come together, and when one informs the other, it just makes them both so much better. So, yes, it's both. I believe religion and physics are in conflict and pretty much always have been. But it's interesting that both try and understand our place in the universe and try and give our life's meaning. So in that sense, they're in harmony, but the ideas of each are in conflict to each other's understanding. I'd say conflict. Physics expects imperial evidence, religion is based on fate and intangible proof. I guess it depends on which region we consider, but I wouldn't say they have to be fundamentally in conflict.

I think they can be complementary, and harmony can be found in front of the wonders of the universe. Personally, I think they are, I guess, in conflict, given that religion doesn't believe in any form of evolution or anything. But then again, religion does believe that everything came from nothing. We have no idea what happened at the moment or before, the Big Bang. we still can't explain consciousness or human feelings. So it's a tough one that. I'm not too sure. I would say that the amount of harmony or conflict involved in these two ideas is dependent

on the two people who are discussing these ideas. So I love these answers. And thank you everybody for your honest and heartfelt replies. It really helps me to hear what you're thinking about. And already here you see part of the story emerging. You hear that some people separate these things and say physics is asking, some questions in science is asking other questions, while other folks find them to be directly in conflict and prefer to go in one direction or the other. Personally, for me, I think that there

are a lot of questions that science can't answer and is the best equipped to answer, but there are also lots of questions that science just cannot answer. Questions like, what should I eat for lunch today or should I even get out of bed this morning? Science is not set up to answer every question in the universe. That doesn't mean that religion is necessarily the best way to answer it. There's lots of different ways to find joy and value in your life. But science doesn't necessarily answer every question out there. And while I grew up in a Jewish community and it's part of my identity, I'm not a terribly observant Jew these days. And so to help me figure this out, I reached out back into my childhood and out to Los Alamos to talk to the rabbi who leads the Los Alamos Jewish Center

and is a physicist himself. So I had a fascinating conversation about Judaism and about physics and about the Jewish community in Los Alamos after the war and how Judaism was portrayed in the movie Oppenheimer. So here's my interview with rabbi and physicist Jack Schlachter. So then it's my great pleasure to welcome the podcast,

Dr. Jack Schlactor, also Rabbi Jack Schlactor, Dr. Schlacher got his PhD in physics from the University of California at San Diego and has worked full-time at Los Almost National Laboratory as a physicist. He's also a long-standing member of the Los Alamos Jewish Center and recently ordained as a rabbi. Jack, thank you very much for joining us on the podcast. It's my pleasure and honor, Daniel. Thank you very much for inviting me. And it's been quite a few years since you and I have spoken. I think the last time might have been before I left for college.

That's a while. Let's go. Yeah. So you'll have to refresh my memory because that's one of the things that starts to go with time. But my ordination actually took place in 1995. And I'm thinking that that's maybe just after you disappeared from Los Alamos. I don't remember now. Yeah. I graduated from high school in 93 and left for college and only visited occasionally back to see my parents. So yeah, when I left, you were not yet. a rabbi and something I only learned recently is that you were a physicist. I knew you my whole childhood and I was always interested in physics and of course growing up in Los Alamos that physics is in the air but I wasn't really like concretely aware of which adults in my sphere were actually working physicists. So I only learned a couple of weeks ago that you've been a physicist this whole time. That's correct.

In fact, I like to tell people that from the age of four I was set on a path for the physical sciences. I actually thought I was going to be an astronomer. And I'm a product of the Sputnik generation and the Mercury 7 astronauts were my heroes. And I really was convinced I was going to do some kind of astronomy or I actually put in an application to be a mission specialist as an astronaut along with 14 billion other people. I was not accepted into that program. But then when I matriculated at Caltech, there was incredible peer pressure to go into physics as opposed to astronomy. And so I shifted gears and very quickly became fascinated with physics. I don't think I knew what physics was when I showed up at Caltech, but I quickly became interested in it.

Well, that's a pretty good place to learn some physics. So tell us a little bit about your physics expertise and your background or your scientific career. We'll talk about your rabbinical work in a minute, but I want to make sure everybody has the context of you as a scientist. What did you work on at Los Alamos, if you can tell us? Sure, absolutely. So my senior year at Caltech, I took a class that was like an introduction to fusion by one of the real pioneers in the field. It was really gould.

And it intrigued me the idea of blending a study of the physical sciences and the world around us, which to me is kind of physics in a nutshell, but also with doing something useful for the world, that fusion energy seemed like a really wonderful goal. So then when I went to graduate school, I had sought out somebody who was working in plasma physics and magnetic confinement fusion. And that was the area that I had my PhD in. Well, I actually, you know, completed my Ph.D. at Los Alamos and then was hired on as a staff member in what was then the magnetic fusion division. And I worked for well over a decade doing experimental plasma physics with the intent of trying to make confined magnetic plasma systems for fusion energy.

Wow. Amazing. It's incredible that we didn't run into each other even more because plasma fusion was my first foray into physics. I joined the group working with Glenn Wharton and Fred Wysaki at Los Alamos. Those are the people I worked with. At the time that you were doing stuff with those people, my interest was in a pretty bizarre approach to magnetic fusion. It was a standard linear Z-pinch, but at very high densities. And the idea was to use OMIC heating straight up to exactly.

And what we did, in fact, probably the most exciting day in the laboratory for me and my whole career was extruding a solid fiber of frozen deuterium, 50 microns in diameter and five centimeters long. So it was like a hair of frozen deuterium. and then it spanned an electrode gap, and we did basically an exploding wire experiment with that you put a very high current through initially insulating deuterium fiber, which rapidly broke down, and then the plan was to try to heat it to ignition by driving very high current at very short time scale through the deuterium wire. All right, so clearly you're working on the forefront of plasma physics. You're working specifically on technologies that, you know, could change our world.

If we had this kind of fusion, certainly it would affect the trajectory of technology and the human race. But it sounded like you were also interested in physics for deeper reasons. I mean, you got into it for astronomical curiosity. Does that mean that you also, like, wanted to understand the nature of reality and, you know, the fundamental fabric of space and time, where there are also those motivations for you? You're probably putting me at a higher level of sophistication than I deserve. I mean, I was totally intrigued by the universe at large, and I think I received a telescope when I was four years old as a Sonica present,

and it was just a passion for me to try to see things at the furthest distances in the cosmos and to try to understand something about the nature of the universe at large. But I also knew my own limitations and I knew that I needed to have an income and fusion seemed like a way to combine things where I would probably be able to get a job. People were being hired to do magnetic fusion when I entered the field. And it also had something to do with helping the world out. And somehow I realized that life is finite and the goal I think is to leave the world in a somewhat, better position than when we enter it and working on fusion seemed like a way to do that. And this is not at all to be critical of people who do what I would call pure physics,

but there was no great loss to the world of physics by me focusing in a more applied area. It seemed to me to combine my interest in understanding things that nobody understood, previously, you know, really doing novel experiments, but also with an end goal of something that could be useful. All right, this is a fascinating conversation, and I'd love to hear some more, but first we have to take a quick break. I'm Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, host of the Psychology Podcast. Here's a clip from an upcoming conversation about exploring human potential. I was going to schools to try to teach kids these skills and I get eye rolling from teachers or I get students who would be like it's easier to

punch someone in the face. When you think about emotion regulation, like you're not going to choose an adapted strategy which is more effortful to use unless you think there's a good outcome as a result of it if it's going to be beneficial to you because it's easy to say like go you go blank yourself right? It's easy. It's easy to just drink the extra beer. It's easy to ignore to suppress seeing a colleague who's bothering you and just like walk the other way. Avoidance is easier, ignoring is easier, denial is easier, drinking is easier, yelling, screaming is easy. Complex problem solving, meditating, you know, takes effort. Listen to the psychology podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Have you ever wished

for a change but weren't sure how to make it? Maybe you felt stuck in a job, a place, or even a relationship. I'm Emily Tish Sussman, and on she pivots, I dive into the inspiring, inspiring pivots of women who have taken big leaps in their lives and careers. I'm Gretchen Whitmer, Jody Sweeten, Monica Patton, Elaine Welteroff. I'm Jessica Voss. And that's when I was like, I got to go. I don't know how, but that kicked off the pivot of how to make the transition. Learn how to get comfortable pivoting because your life is going to be full of them.

Every episode gets real about the why behind these changes and gives you the inspiration and maybe the push to make your next pivot. Listen to these women and more on She Pivots. on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The U.S. Open is here. And on my podcast, Good Game with Sarah Spain, I'm breaking down the players from rising stars to legends chasing history. The predictions will we see a first time winner and the pressure. Billy Jean King says pressure is a privilege, you know.

Plus, the stories and events off the court. And of course, the honey deuses, the signature cocktail of the U.S. Open. The U.S.S. Open has gotten to be a very fancy, wonderfully experiential sporting event. I mean, listen, the whole aim is to be accessible and inclusive for all tennis fans, whether you play tennis or not. Tennis is full of compelling stories of late. Have you heard about icon Venus Williams' recent wild card bids or the young Canadian, Victoria Mboko, making a name for herself? How about Naomi Osaka getting back to form? To hear this and more, listen to Good Game with Sarah Spain.

I heart women's sports production in partnership with deep blue sports and entertainment on the I heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. I don't write songs. God write songs. I take dictation. I didn't even know you've been a pastor for over 10 years. I think culture is any space that you live in that develops you. On a recent episode of Culture Raises Us podcast, I sat down with Warren Campbell, Grammy winning producer, pastor, and music executive to talk about the beats. the business, and the legacy behind some of the biggest names in gospel, R&B, and hip-hop. This is like watching Michael Jackson talk about thoroughly before it happened. Was there a particular moment where you realize just how instrumental music culture was

to shaping all of our global ecosystem? I was eight years old, and the Motown 25 special came on. And all the great Motown artists, Marvin, Stevie Wonder, Temptations, Diana Raw. From Mary Mary to Jennifer Hudson, we get into the soul of the music. music and the purpose that drives it. Listen to Culture raises us on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, we're back and we're talking with rabbi and physicist Jack Schlacher, who leads the Los Alamos

Jewish Center and works at Los Alamos National Laboratory as a physicist. Yeah, fascinating. One of the reasons I ask is because I'm curious. about how physics for you connects with a desire to understand the universe and your sort of picture of the origin of creation and all of this stuff because I'd like to understand how you ended up also becoming a rabbi. I mean, you were a scientist, you're a physicist, you're working on practical details, manipulating the universe using our understanding of its laws, and then later in life you became a

rabbi. Is that something that came out of physics or that's something that came out of your feelings about Judy? Judaism and, you know, the role of Judaism and telling us how to live with each other and how to treat other people? So it's going to be a little bit embarrassing to be completely honest about it, but it's all serendipity. You know, I just happened to be in the right place at the right time for my life to end up with the trajectory that it had. As I said earlier, I came to Los Alamos as a graduate student and I actually completed my Ph.D. here at Los Alamos. My thesis advisor had been a graduate student at Los Alamos in the 50s, and then his first staff position after he got his Ph.D., which I think would have been maybe the late 50s, was also at Los Alamos. So he still had a connection to the laboratory when I was working for him at UC San Diego.

And we had worked on an experiment, and you can appreciate this. And I think any of your listeners, especially in experimental physics, can appreciate this. I had worked on an experiment for four years, and it got us nowhere. And it was basically starting from scratch. My thesis advisor had a track record of people taking nine and ten years to complete their PhDs. And that was sort of hanging over my head, you know, oh, my goodness, I'm going to be following that same trajectory. So I had spent four years with, it was a diagnostic. It was a laser scattering diagnostic to look at very low amplitude waves in a tocomac,

which is the kind of a leading magnetic plasma confinement device configuration. And so we had this diagnostic and we took it up to UCLA where there was a small tocomac and we made it the diagnostic to the tocomac and we scattered light off of the plasma and we got no signal at all. And so here was four years of graduate work going nowhere. And my thesis advisor, rather than trying to improve the laser system or do something to increase the sensitivity of the detector, he decided to change gears altogether. And he got interested in this dense Z-Pinch approach that had been pioneered at Los Alamos.

So he sent me to Los Alamos for the summer. and the idea was to learn something about this approach and then come back to San Diego and we would build an experiment and we would pursue that he was going to be applying for a grant while I was learning some techniques and it all sounded good on paper but it did look like this 10-year trajectory might be my career so while I was at Los Alamos two things of importance One, I came to the quick realization that here was a working experiment and I could take data now and not wait to build something and start from scratch at San Diego. So that was piece number one. And that's what worked out.

He didn't get the grant, by the way, so it's really lucky that I ended up staying at Los Alamos. Number two, though, and quite an unexpected change for me is that I came to Los Alamos not knowing a single person. town. And I showed up here. And this was in the days where it was not so common for people to be here as students. It's much more common today. But back when I came, I was a little bit of a loner. And in my entire division, I was the only student who was working at the time. And I thought, okay, I don't know anybody in town. I could do worse than go to the synagogue and meet a few people there. And I had probably not really done much actively in a synagogue for about a decade at that point. So I went to the synagogue in Los Alamos. People were very friendly and welcoming.

And then one other quirk that was to my advantage is that I could sing reasonably well. And I don't know if it's the altitude in Los Alamos or the high physics population or what, but most people cannot sing well here. In fact, it generally does not sound good in the synagogue unless somebody's really leading it and pushing everybody along to be in the same. Let me interrupt you with a comment and a question. First of all, you're being way too modest. You can't just sing reasonably well. You have a beautiful voice. Like really, it's an incredible baritone. It made a huge impression on me as a kid as part of those services. But also, I just wanted to clarify, you're saying you joined the Los Alamos Jewish community as a way to find community you're looking for people to connect with maybe people with a similar

background was it a social environment and a community you're looking for or also a religious experience i mean to be completely honest it was not for the religious experience it was not because i had some spiritual craving it was not because i wanted to connect with my heritage it really was a social thing and because i knew nobody in town and there weren't very many students anyway in town. It's not like I could easily go meet people my age. I tried the synagogue route. And what happened for me there, and I think it's probably a confluence of being at the right place and the right stage of life, I realized that I did not know anything about Judaism. I knew some of the mechanics. I knew I could read Hebrew well, I could chant the prayers, but I really didn't

understand the depth and profundity of Judaism because I had the arrogance of a physicist to reject things as being anachronistic or mythical, and I just didn't know what it was that I was throwing out. So I went through the usual thing. I had a very solid grounding in the mechanics of Judaism through a conservative synagogue where I grew up in a suburb of Chicago, and then kind of like many people in my age demographic, I sort of left synagogue life after I became Bar Mitzvah. So for about a decade, I did almost nothing Jewishly. And when I came to La Thalamos and I started going to the synagogue, there's a few things that happened. One, I started questioning, you know, why are these things here? Why do we do these things this way? And is there a logic to it?

And I found out, you know, with my usual arrogance that I had thought there was no logic to anything, but there's actually great wisdom in Jewish tradition. That was number one. Number two is that, as you may remember, there was a rabbi in Santa Fe, Rabbi Leonard Hellman of Blessed Memory, who used to come up periodically to Los Alamos. And I have in my notes at home the materials from a class that he taught in 1981. just an adult education series that he drove up to Los Alamos and taught some classes. And I started realizing, you know, I don't know anything about what I would call, and I don't mean this in an X-rated sense, adult Judaism. I had experienced Judaism as a child, and what I had been taught was appropriate for a child.

But nobody ever really explained to me there's a lot of wisdom here on interpersonal relations, on societal mechanics, and Judaism really has a lot of offer that I didn't realize. And even today, I learn new things every day. I realize that there just is a lot to Judaism that I love to expose other adults to because I think they share that same rejection of things that they don't know what it is quite that they're rejecting. And so I just was very, very lucky to connect with the Jewish Center for social reasons, but then to realize that if I'm going to lead some things, it would be good if I knew what it was that I was trying to lead.

And the more I looked into it, the more I realized there's a lot to do this. So I think that's really fascinating because it's sort of an unusual trajectory. I think a lot of people learn about Judaism as a child, and if they have it as an adult, it's because they grew up in the tradition and they learned it and it sort of became part of who they were. I think it's more rare for people to end up embracing this in adulthood, especially if they have such a strong, rigorous scientific background. And so that's the reason I'm very curious to hear from your perspective, how do these two things

live in your mind simultaneously? Are these two different parts of your life the way like a physicist can also be a father or a basketball player and those don't have to necessarily be in conflict with being a physicist. How do these two things accommodate each other? That's an excellent question. And maybe I haven't fully resolved that for myself, but I think that physics is a questioning discipline, maybe to the point of distraction. My wife is not a scientist at all, and she finds it frustrating at times that I need to know why,

that, you know, I will ask why is this and why do we do this this way? And why do you suppose your coffee stayed hot in the tall cup more than it stayed hot in the short cup? And maybe we need to do some experiments here. I can drive people to distraction, I think, of asking questions like that. But for me, Judaism also encourages a questioning attitude. It's not a dogma as such the way I view it. And I probably should have caveat. everything in our conversation here, that there is no authority in Judaism the way there might be in other traditions such that we're not obligated to think a certain way. And asking questions, I think, is inherent in Judaism just like it is in physics. So for me, the issues that Judaism addresses are different issues perhaps than what a physicist looks at. Of course, things like the origin of the universe and the nature of interactions are bread and butter for physicists and have some overlap with Judaism. But I think by and large, Judaism is a way of life. It's not in conflict for me with the rational world, if you will, the way it might be for

people from other traditions. I see, that's fascinating. So the things you take from Judaism are how we should treat each other, how we should live our lives, how we should feel about each other, not necessarily like the literal truth of the creation of the universe. Yes, and I think, look, texts that are thousands of years old, who wrote them and what language is used and what metaphors are used obviously shifts over time. And let's just take the five books of Moses, which is a central text, as you well know, in Judaism and in other traditions as well. The five books of Moses have been central to Jewish tradition for millennia. And very wise people have looked at those texts and interpreted them and looked for meaning.

in those texts. And whether we know exactly how those texts were composed or who wrote them or the details of their composition, the commentary alone brings us in touch with brilliant people from the Jewish past who offer insights in a way that's meaningful, to me at least. So I tend not to dwell so much on the issue of is this the hand of God and literal text, but it's text that can serve as a springboard for deep inquiry and meaningful discussion and I think meaningful life, a meaningful way to live our lives without getting into the details about when it says the world was created in six days. What does that mean? I mean, obviously from a scientific point of you. I can't take those texts literally, but I'm not the first to say that within a very

traditional Jewish context. There are commentators from many, many, many years ago who well understood that this text is not to be taken literally and that that's not a problem. So I don't get hung up on those things. And as you know, we have an annual cycle for reading the five books of Moses and last week we were in the book of Exodus in a section that's filled with a bunch of detailed laws about society, one of which is something about cooking an animal, maybe it's a small goat in the milk of its mother. And this is an interesting text because it's actually repeated verbatim three times in the five books of Moses. That's unusual. That suggests there's some importance to it because why else would you repeat it three times? And we had at the synagogue

that I lead in Santa Fe a half-hour discussion about why that text is there and what does it have to teach us. And I think there are many incredibly valuable messages from that text. Whether somebody chooses to live their life following that in either a literal sense or in maybe the more expanded traditional sense, what somebody does with their own dietary practices can be put aside for a bit as we explore what value is there to a statement like that. And I thought it was a wonderful discussion. We had somebody talking about health reasons. We had somebody talking about idolatrous practice of related people who were contemporaneous.

We had people talking about reasons that evoke a care for a animals in us as human beings. It was a very wide-ranging discussion, all of which are commentaries that come from the early commentators. And to me, that was just a beautiful way to make that text come alive, to make the text useful. And for me, as a practical matter, we incorporate that into our practice at home. And so I just found that a fascinating way to look at an ancient text and to derive value from it based on the wisdom of people who have looked at it over the millennia. Thank you. Yeah, that's very insightful and it makes a lot of sense to me. And I want to get back to the question of how Judaism teaches us to think and

to question and to discuss and to explore the universe. But before, I just wanted to make one clarifying question, which is you're talking about interpreting the Torah a certain way and not taking it literally and maybe using it as the way to motivate the choices we make in life, that to me reflects something about the specific Jewish tradition that you've embraced, but of course there's a whole spectrum from Orthodox to very reform. Do you think that it's possible, and apologies if this is an inappropriate question, have you met anybody who is more in the orthodox side of things, who takes literally to be truth, the story of Genesis,

and also has a sort of scientific mind, is a practicing scientist. Do you know anybody who lives that intersection? I don't think I do because the people I know who follow what I would call orthodox practice and are physical scientists, I don't think look at the text in a literal sense either. I don't think they have that kind of a dichotomy either. I think people who observe what I would call a traditional. Jewish life are doing practices, but it does not inhibit their rational thinking. So I don't know

people who we would call literalists who also are doing physical science inquiry as part of their daily routine. Having said that, I don't know that many people who are both scientists and traditional practicing Jews, so I could just be not aware of people in that. category. But I will say my approach to Judaism is that we've never been fundamentalist. If fundamentalism is defined as people who take the text literally, and I say that with some degree of confidence that it's actually applicable in Judaism across the board, because some practices, some Jewish practices, and I'd have to work to come at a good example, are actually at odds with the literal text. And that's because Judaism has evolved. It's a multi-millennial tradition.

And I don't think we've ever really been fundamentalist as such. I know you know this stuff, but it may be valuable for your listeners. There was a movement, one of many schisms in Jewish history. This one that I'm referring to in particular is the Kariites. So this goes back to probably around 800 of the common era. And the Kariites, I mean, literally from their name, were fundamentalists. They read the text and they used the text as the basis for their practice. And they rejected the evolution of Judaism through the so-called rabbinic period that developed the Talmud. They said, this is just made up by human beings. This is not what Judaism should be. We need to go back to the literal text. And that was a divergence from what is today normative Judaism, and that's not

Judaism of today. So I think we've always looked at the text as a basis, but not as a dictate or how Judaism should be practiced. Yeah, that's really fascinating, especially in the context of my own family. I don't know how much you met or knew my father, because he had basically drifted away from Judaism by the time we moved to Los Alamos. But he was an Orthodox rabbi before we moved to Los Alamos and a literal believer in the story of Genesis, a young earth creationist. And I asked him once about why he ended up leaving Judaism and working at Los Alamos, basically, as a scientist. He told me that one of the things that attracted him to Judaism, something that you mentioned, this spirit of debate, of questioning, of arguing, of exploration, in the end,

turned out to be something that really frustrated him. because instead of building up a picture of the universe the way science does, you know, a set of laws and ideas that have to be consistent and survive experimental tests, he found that Judaism felt more like they were sliding away from the revelation, the moment of insight. Instead of building up knowledge, we were like grabbing at it to avoid losing that inspiration. And for listeners who aren't familiar with it, you know, the Jewish tradition has, of course, the Torah, but there's also the oral.

law that, you know, Moses heard from God and passed on to Joshua and passes on from rabbi to rabbi. And according to my father's telling of it, it's difficult to argue with a rabbi from a previous generation because they're closer to the revelation and therefore have a deeper, more intuitive insight to this valuable knowledge that we're sort of sliding away from. And to me, and I think to him, this seemed very different from the scientific approach where it doesn't matter whose idea it was and old theories can be overturned if they fail tests and every idea has to stand on its own, on its merits, of course, not on the age or the authority of the thinkers. You know, in that sense, scientists are scholars of a truth that's still being revealed rather

than an ancient truth that we're sort of clinging to. Do you see those traditions in conflict the same way? To me, there is a tension. Science generally has the appearance. if you will, maybe with some detours, but of sort of slowly increasing knowledge with time. And what you described is maybe that as we advance in time, we're drifting away from some revelatory experience and losing something in the process. And so there would be some tension there. And I can understand your father grappling with that. And maybe this touches for me on this huge issue about, is Judaism even a religion?

I think of the revelatory experience at Mount Sinai as described in the five books of Moses as the formation of the Jewish people. And that's what was the singular event, if you will. That was what was revealed was the revelation that there is an identifiable Jewish people. the first book of the five books of Moses, the book of Genesis, follows an individual family or actually some individuals and then the creation of somebody who is thought of as a progenitor of the Jewish people, but it's not a Jewish people as such. And it's the exodus from Egypt and the revelatory experience at Mount Sinai that really forms the Jewish people. And so,

yes, we drifted away from when the people were created as a people, but have Have we drifted away from the teachings of that period? I think the teaching of that period includes the fact that it's given to us to learn now. And so we're doing that learning by doing our physics or doing whatever it is that we do in our lives. We're advancing our knowledge in accordance with what the tradition would tell me we're supposed to be doing. So I don't quite see the dichotomy, though I totally understand. the tension that your father felt, I don't know that for me it's the same friction, if you will. Yeah, fascinating. Well, I think it's not so hard to see physics and Judaism in conflict

because they do have different traditions of exploration and, of course, the stories they tell are different. But I think it's more interesting to look for harmony, and I really appreciate the way you find resonance between the two traditions. So I spent some time trying to think about the connection between these two things and if they can serve a similar purpose in our lives. Because for me, physics is not just about the knowledge, it's about the way we think. And Judaism and religion are not just about the stories of the creation of the universe, but about the way we treat each other. And all this is really about what is it like to be human in the world and to ask questions. So I was thinking about the intersection between the two.

And for me, one of the appealing aspects of religion, at least as a child, because I mostly have a child's view of Judaism was the sense of order and purpose that it brings. Like maybe you don't understand everything, but there's supposed to be a reason why things happen. There's somebody who's in charge. There's a purpose and an order. The universe is not just capricious and cruel. And I wonder sometimes if my desire to go into physics is a desire to find a reason and an order in the universe. I mean, maybe physics provides a different kind of comfort. You know, it's cold, and it's mindless, the laws of physics, but at least it's telling you that there's a sense to the universe, right? That there's order. There is a reason things happen. The reason is it follows

these laws of physics. In that sense, I can find some sort of comfort in physics, not exactly the same as one could in Judaism, but to me there's a little bit of a resonance there. Do you feel the same way? Do you see the same overlap and sort of the role of these two things in our lives? That's very interesting how you state that. And I agree that. that the laws of the universe that we uncover exploring the world through physics do give us some comfort, if you will, that things are not just happening willy-nilly, that we're not just going to float off the surface of the Earth at a moment because the law of gravity dictates that things work a certain way. But I actually think there's another thing that we haven't

touched on that's important and shows that both physics and Judaism have things to offer, but they're not necessarily the same. And I'm probably doing a terrible job here of paraphrasing what I think I remember reading from the great physicist Richard Feynman. Physics does not say anything really about ethics. It doesn't say how you should treat somebody. And in that sense, Judaism is answering different questions than physics is answering. Physics can tell you what the implication would be if you do a certain thing, but it doesn't say whether that's good or bad. It doesn't do a judgment, if you will.

And I think Judaism maybe adds that extra dimension about ethics, about the proper thing to do, not just the consequence of doing something, but what's right and what's wrong. And I think that's very important to navigate the world in a healthy way. Hold that thought. We have to take another break. I'm Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, host of the Psychology Podcast. Here's a clip from an upcoming conversation about exploring human potential.

I was going to schools to try to teach kids these skills. And I get eye rolling from teachers or I get students who would be like, it's easier to punch someone in the face. When you think about emotion regulation, like you're not going to choose an adaptive strategy which is more effortful to use unless you think there's a good outcome as a result of it if it's going to be beneficial to you. Because it's easy to say like go you, go blank yourself, right? It's easy. It's easy to just drink the extra beer. It's easy to ignore to suppress seeing a colleague who's bothering you and just like walk the other way. Avoidance is easier.

Ignoring is easier. Denials is easier. Drinking is easier. Yelling, screaming is easy. complex problem solving, meditating, you know, takes effort. Listen to the psychology podcast on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Have you ever wished for a change but weren't sure how to make it? Maybe you felt stuck in a job, a place, or even a relationship. I'm Emily Tish Sussman, and on she pivots, I dive into the inspiring pivots of women who have taken big leaps in their lives and careers. I'm Gretchen Whitmer, Jody Sweetie. Monica Patton. Elaine Welteroff. I'm Jessica Voss. And that's when I was like, I gotta go. I don't know how, but that kicked off the pivot of how to make the transition. Learn how to get comfortable pivoting because your life is going to be full of them.

Every episode gets real about the why behind these changes and gives you the inspiration and maybe the push to make your next pivot. Listen to these women and more on She Pivots, now on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The U.S. Open is here, and on my podcast, Good Game with Sarah Spain, I'm breaking down the players from rising stars to legends chasing history. The predictions will we see a first time winner and the pressure. Billy Jean King says pressure is a privilege, you know. Plus, the stories and events off the court and, of course, the honey deuses, the signature cocktail of the U.S. Open. The U.S. Open has gotten to be a very fancy, wonderfully experiential sporting event. I mean, listen, the whole aim is to be accessible and inclusive for all tennis fans, whether you play tennis or not.

Tennis is full of compelling stories of late. Have you heard about Icon Venus Williams' recent wildcard bids or the young Canadian, Victoria Mboko, making a name for herself? How about Naomi Osaka getting back to form? To hear this and more, listen to Good Game with Sarah Spain, an Iheart women's sports production in partnership with deep blue sports and entertainment on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of I Heart Women's Sports. I don't write songs. God write songs. I take dictation. I didn't even know you've been a pastor for over 10 years. I think culture is any space that you live in that develops you.

On a recent episode of Culture Raises Us podcast, I sat down with Warren Campbell, Grammy-winning producer, pastor, and music executive to talk about the beats, the business, and the legacy behind some of the biggest names in gospel, R&B, and hip-hop. This is like watching Michael Jackson talk about Thurley before it happened. Was there a particular moment where you realize just how instrumental music culture was to shaping all of our global ecosystem? I was eight years old and the Motown 25 special came on and all the great Motown artists, Marvin, Stevie Wonder, Temptations, Diana Raw. From Mary Mary to Jennifer Hudson, we get into the soul of the music and the purpose that drives it. Listen to Culture raises us on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Okay, we're back and I'm talking to Jack Schlacher, physicist at Los Alamos and rabbi of the Los Alamos Jewish Center. No, I totally agree. And that actually brings us to our next topic because even if physics doesn't tell us how to live our lives, there are enormous potential consequences to doing physics. And that, of course, is the context of Los Alamos where you discover your Judaism and where I discovered my love for physics. Los Alamos in the 40s and 50s is a town centered on the weapons lab and people who decided to live in this sort of bizarre town in the

middle of nowhere, did it because they're passionate about the physics or maybe the larger mission of national security. But there's also a significant fraction who build this Jewish community. Do you know much about the early Jewish community in Los Alamos? Is it made out of observant Jews who are also world-class physicists? Or is it a also people like you were just looking for some sort of cultural community at the time. So my exploration as an amateur historian into the Jewish origins of La Thalmos, back to the days of the Manhattan Project, 1943 to 45, suggest, and I titled a talk that I prepared once in kind of a tongue-in-cheek intentional title, Jews in theory, meaning the Jews in theoretical division,

but also that they were Jews in theory because very few, if any, were what I would call practicing Jews with a deep religious commitment to Jewish practice. I think by and large they were secular Jews. That doesn't mean that they were hiding their Jewishness at all. I think for them, certainly in the midst of fighting World War II, I think they understood full well that, there was a threat to the Jewish people and that developing a bomb, which was the purpose of the Manhattan Project, was in part motivated by the need to be protective of the Jewish people. There are some fascinating individuals. I mean, talk about we're now distant from the giants of yesteryear. Every time I look in depth at an individual Jewish scientists from the Manhattan project time, I'm struck with what amazing individuals these were. One of them, in particular, who comes to mind was Joseph Ropold, who went on to win the Nobel Prize in peace. But he came

to the laboratory, barely came to the laboratory from Warsaw, Poland, leaving Warsaw a few weeks before September 1st, 1939. His wife was in recovery from some, illness. I don't remember what. And the plan was for her to join him. And then September 1st came. She never joined him. He spent time while at Los Alamos desperately trying to find out what had happened to her. She did actually die in a concentration camp, it's my understanding. But he couldn't find that out for quite some time. And he eventually went on to put his effort into peace and was the recipient to the Nobel Prize in peace. So it's an interesting story. And his Jewishness was probably not what we would call traditional Orthodox practice, but he knew better

than anybody the horrors of the Second World War and tragically lost his wife and probably others in his family as well. And there certainly were a lot of Jews in Los Alamos participating in important roles in the Manhattan Project. But there seems to me also a larger connection between Judaism and physicists. Like somehow there are a lot of physicists who are Jews and a lot of Jews who are physicists and some huge fraction of the Nobel Prize winners in physics are Jews, at least culturally. I've heard people say that there's a connection between Judaism and physics because Judaism has this belief in sort of like an abstract world that's the foundation, that the physical world is just a reflection of the abstract world.

And you can see this in how the story of Genesis is told that God created the world by speaking, that these words are somehow more real than the physical world. They were primary. And this kind of thinking lends better to abstract thought and therefore to physics. I don't know if you think there's any truth in that or if you have any of your own theories about why there seems to be at least this confluence or this overlap demographically between Jews and physics? Well, that's an interesting take on it

that I'm not sure I had heard before about the comfort level that Jews may have with the concept of the abstract. And I'll keep that in mind. I will try to remember to quote you, in fact, because I'm hoping to prepare a presentation for May

of this year through the Los Alamos public library system because I think May might be Jewish American Heritage Month. And I was asked if I would be willing to give a talk, and I wanted to narrow it down. And I thought I would narrow it down to what seemingly would be a tiny topic, which was Jewish-American Nobel Physics Prize winners. But that's actually a huge topic.

And so in trying to answer the question, why is that a huge topic? I think I will keep in mind what you just said. It's not what I would have thought of immediately. I actually had thought it was more the questioning attitude that is inherent in Judaism that lends itself to that same questioning attitude in how we look at the world around us. And I'm reminded, by the way, of a wonderful passage that is captured in the Hagada, the text that we use at Passover, at the pader, the evening ceremony for Passover, the Hagada that the Los Alamos Jewish Center has used on some occasions includes a passage

because there's a section in that ceremony where questions are asked and there's a quotation I can picture that on the page where the famous Nobel Prize winning Jewish physicist II. Robbie shares an anecdote from his childhood and he says that when the other kids would come home from school, their mothers would ask them, what did you learn today? And when he would come home from school, his mother would say, did you ask any good questions today? And he believes that that was a contributor to his passion for physics and his success in physics, this idea of asking questions. So I had always thought that that might be the primary reason why the overlap between physicists and Jews might be higher than you would expect, but I like what you say about the abstract also.

I think that's equally interesting. Well, you should probably credit my father. That was definitely an idea of his. But to me, physics is a reflection of a search for the underlying truth of the world. And, you know, the structure, the mathematical nature of the laws makes us wonder if we're seeing the structure of the universe itself or whether we're just reflecting our own minds. But to me, it definitely is a hunt for those fundamental foundations, the intellectual girders of reality. My last question for you is also about history and the Manhattan Project.

I'm wondering if you've seen the movie Oppenheimer and what you think of the portrayal of Los Alamos and Jews and physicists, being a physicist and a Jew in Los Alamos. It would be criminal, I think, if I had not seen the movie. I actually saw the movie twice, and I'm not much of a movie goer. So for me to see the movie twice as quite a lot, and I did enjoy the movie. I think it's three hours long, but the three hours went by quite quickly for me. I thought it was a very effective tool for sharing an interesting story. I will tell you that Los Alamos went crazy as this film was being produced and prepared for release. My wife and I were gone to New York for a few years, but we came back into town in time to catch some of the filming.

that was taking place in Los Alamos, and the town was completely in a tizzy over the filming. And then when the movie was getting ready to be released, it was in even more of a tizzy because there was this expectation that we would be inundated with tourists. So in conjunction with that, the J. Robert Oppenheimer Memorial Committee set up a series of talks, and I was asked by the chair of the committee if I would give a talk about Offenheimer's and his Jewishness. And I thought about that for a bit and I decided to modify the topic. And I ended up speaking about two Jewish people, Oppenheimer and Lewis Strauss. And the contrast between the two because of their different approaches to Judaism, it just seemed like an

intriguing topic to me. And I gave that talk two weeks before the film was released, not knowing that Strauss played such an important role in the movie, and I think that was fortuitous because I just happened to, again, guess that this might be interesting. The movie did not make a huge deal about the Jewishness of either of those two individuals. Those who had heard my talk before they saw the movie said that it gave them a little more insight to some lines that might have slipped past them or some scenes that might have gone by too quickly, otherwise, that they were prepared for paying attention to the Jewish aspect. I don't think it was a major part of the movie, but for me, it's another interesting dimension of the movie that the Jewishness of not just

Oppenheimer, but Oppenheimer and Strauss and Einstein. And the list goes on. Of course, Hans Beda was Jewish by birth, though his family converted. I think and Keller was Jewish, you know, all these people were Jewish and there was some aspect of that that must have been underlying what was going on. I think the movie probably appropriately did not make that a major theme, but it's there. And I think it adds to our understanding and appreciation of that period of history

to know something about the Jewishness. And I'll just say, in a nutshell, Oppenheimer had a very conflicted understanding of his Jewishness, which he inherited from his parents and his upbringing at the Ethical Cultural School in New York. And Strauss had a quite different understanding of his Jewishness. He made his way successfully as a businessman in a world that was pretty anti-Semitic at the time. And so he wore his Judaism proudly. Othenheimer, I think, more or less, hid his Judaism. And I think that was at least one dimension of the clash between the two.

That was the tragic arc of the movie of both of them rising to great heights and then both of them falling down afterwards, Oppenheimer, because of the loss of his security clearance and straws because the nomination to the cabinet position failed. Fascinating. Thanks very much for sharing your thoughts. And thanks very much for sharing your personal reflections. on living life as a physicist and as a Jew. And thank you very much for helping shape my Jewish identity.

Your role in that community there definitely changed my appreciation of Judaism and specifically Jewish songs and melodies. Oh, I'm so pleased to get that feedback, Daniel, and I really do appreciate that. And I am continuing to sing. I do some secular singing now as well because I am retired from the laboratory. And it's just a great joy for me. It was just a tremendous gift to have been given a good singing voice.

And I've just enjoyed immensely the opportunity to sing both in the synagogue and in a secular choir. It's just been great fun. Well, it was sort of a canonical part of my experience. And when I went on to other cities and other Jewish communities, I was sort of looking around. And I was like, where's there Jack Schlector? There's nobody here with a beautiful baritone to lead these songs. It really felt like there was something lacking in the experience. And so thank you, but you also sort of cursed me.

Oh, no. How is that? Nothing ever felt like it matched up to my, you know, childhood Jewish experience after that. Well, I know that you have a wonderful position and have a very successful career. But, you know, Los Alamos is still looking for physicists. So maybe you can get over that curse by coming back sometime. We'll see. Well, thanks very much for spending some time talking to us about these really fascinating topics.

Really appreciate it. My pleasure. It really was a distinct privilege and honor to connect with you. Thank you so much for reaching out. And I do hope that we cross paths at some point. Me as well. So that was my conversation with Jack Schlachter, which was fascinating for me personally because I haven't spoken to Jack in 30 years or so.

But he played a big role in shaping my Jewish cultural identity. and so it's fascinating to me to have physics in common with him as well. Thanks very much for listening to this episode about this tricky topic that connects physics to larger issues in our lives. I hope you learned something and enjoyed it. Thanks very much. For more science and curiosity, come find us on social media where we answer questions and post videos.

We're on Twitter, Discord, Insta, and now TikTok. Thanks for listening. Remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe is a production of IHeartRadio. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Why are TSA rules so confusing? You got a hood of you. I'll take it off. I'm Manny. I'm Noah. This is Devin.

And we're best friends and journalists with a new podcast called No Such Thing, where we get to the bottom of questions. like that. Why are you screaming? I can't expect what to do. Now, if the rule was the same, go off on me. I deserve it. You know, lock him up. Listen to no such thing on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. No such thing. Our I-Heart Radio Music Festival, presented by Capital One, is coming back to Las Vegas. Vegas. September 19th and 20th. On your feet. Streaming live only on Hulu. Ladies and gentlemen, Brian Adams. Ed Shearer. Glorilla, Jellyroll,

John Fogarty, Lil Wayne, L.L. Cool J, Mariah Carey, Maroon 5, Sammy Hagar, Tate McCray, The Offspring, Tim McGraw. Tickets are on sale now at AXS.com. Get your tickets today. AXS.com. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA. Right now in a backlog will be identified in our lifetime. On the new podcast, America's Crime Lab,

every case has a story to tell. and the DNA holds the truth. He never thought he was going to get caught, and I just looked at my computer screen. I was just like, ah, gotcha. This technology's already solving so many cases. Listen to America's Crime Lab on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is an IHeart podcast.