The Harvard physicist on a mission to prove the existence of alien life believes ultra-advanced civilizations may already have the ability to create ‘baby universes in a lab’.
Avi Loeb – former chair of Harvard’s astronomy department – said these creatures may even be responsible for our universe.
Professor Loeb – who has made wildly speculative theories in the past – is currently studying hundreds of tiny metal fragments recovered from an interstellar object that crashed into the Pacific Ocean and is due to publish his findings in weeks.
Avi Loeb hypothesized that beings possess an intelligence so profound they could be creating ‘baby universes’ in a laboratory, including our own
He explained to Fox News that a civilization that is millions of years more advanced than us may have developed an understanding of ‘how to unify quantum mechanics and gravity’.
This, he theorized, could recreate the cosmic conditions that gave rise to its existence.
The notion of creating life in a laboratory may sound farfetched to most, but scientists have made single-celled organisms before, and Loeb said it is ‘a quality that we assign to God in religious texts.’
Many astronomers, however, are ‘sick’ of Loeb’s wild claims that are ‘polluting good science.’
Loeb has made headlines for years, starting with his theory that the interstellar visitor Oumuamua in 2017 was an alien craft – something that was mocked or criticized by most mainstream scientists.
Avi Loeb suggested the ultra-advanced civilization would be seen as ‘God’ to humanity
In June, he conducted a dive in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Papua New Guinea to recover fragments of the IM1 meteor that disintegrated in January 2014, which he believes are remains from an alien craft.
But Arizona State University astrophysicist Steve Desch told the New York Times: ‘It’s polluting good science — conflating the good science we do with this ridiculous sensationalism and sucking all the oxygen out of the room.’
The pushback is not stopping Loeb from searching for answers, however, which he promises will be revealed in September.
In the meantime, he is sharing his theories, including this one about super-intelligent civilizations.
‘A very advanced scientific civilization is a good approximation to God,’ Loeb told Fox News.
‘Imagine a cave dweller visiting New York City and seeing all the gadgets in technology in terms of the lights appearing as a miracle to the cave dweller.’
Loeb has long touted that baby universes could be created in laboratories, which is only possible with quantum-gravity technologies, a combination of two pillars of modern physics: quantum mechanics and gravity.
Quantum mechanics is the branch of scientific study that seeks to explain and set rules for how particles smaller than the atom behave.
Together, the pillars provide a consistent and complete description of the nature of gravity at a quantum level and help us understand the universe’s behavior at its most fundamental level.
In an op-ed for Scientific America, Loeb wrote: ‘We do not possess a predictive theory that combines the two pillars of modern physics.
‘But a more advanced civilization might have accomplished this feat and mastered the technology of creating baby universes,’ he wrote.
During the interview with Fox News, Loeb said it is ‘arrogant of us to think that we are alone,’ considering there are ‘tens of billions of planets in the Milky Way galaxy alone and hundreds of billions of galaxies like the Milky Way in the observable volume of the universe.’
‘Perhaps noticing a neighbor will be a wake-up call that will bring us together,’ Loeb said, speaking of humanity as a whole.
‘There might be many more neighbors that are far more accomplished than we are, and we can learn from them.
‘So my hope is that it will bring humanity to a better place in the long term future.’
